Apartment Life #413

 

This is a weekly blog post that I'm calling Apartment Hell  Life. I've mentioned a few times some of the crazy things that have gone on in and around my apartment complex and in my neighborhood in the past 27 years that I've lived here and people keep telling me I should write a book. But instead of a book, I've decided to share the crazy things that have happened in and around my apartment complex in the last 27 years here in a weekly blog post.

I guess I'm the star of this week's post. 

So, here's what happened this week to me and my daughter. So for about a week my daughter was feeling bad she was having a lot of pain, coughing etc. We both had a cold and I got over mine in about a month, she didn't. She has lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, so we thought that it was a lupus flare up. We finally talked her into going to the ER because she started vomiting, had a fever and the body aches and muscle cramps were really bad. She went last Sunday, turns out she had pneumonia in both lungs, and she was septic, so she's spent a week in the hospital trying to get better. 

Sunday night I was here by myself, I went to bed and I got woke up at 1:00 in the morning because one of my smoke alarms on the ceiling on the outside of my door, in the hallway was going off. Now usually when I wake up, I take medicine at night that makes me sleepy, so I stop I make sure I'm okay and I slowly get up and slowly making my way out the bedroom door, but I was panicked because I was here by myself and smoke alarm was going off.

 So, I thought there might be a fire in my living room, and I didn't take the time to slowly get up and slowly make my way out of my bedroom. So, when I got to the front of my bed I tripped and I fell, I ended up hitting my head on the edge of my jewelry armoire and I gave myself a concussion. And I fell forward on my hands and knees, and I hurt both of my shoulders and my knees. The pain in my shoulders was so bad I thought I broke both of them.

I keep my phone out in the living room on the charger so I did not have it on me or with me anywhere near me and I could not get myself up off the floor. So, I knew while the adrenaline was running high, I had to crawl out of my bedroom and get to my landline phone that was right outside my door in the cradle so that I could call 911 because I could not get up off the floor. 

So, I felt the door just in case there was a fire in my living room to see if it was hot. It wasn't. I opened the door, there was no smoke, fire or anything. The smoke detector was going off for no reason. 

 I got over to the phone, crawling on my hands and knees which was excruciatingly painful because my knees were bruised and my shoulders were incredibly sore. But I got to the phone and I called 911 but because the smoke detector was going off, and I was now sitting right underneath it and Falcor was sitting on the couch howling because of the noise from the smoke detector, and I could not move any further. I could barely hear what the 911 operator was saying to me but I did tell her that my front door was locked, I could not get up to unlock it but my bedroom window was not locked and there was an air conditioner in it, if somebody was small enough they could crawl through the small opening between the air conditioner and the window and get in.

When the paramedics and the fire department got here they opened up the bedroom window and a very thin paramedic crawled through the window, over my dresser and opened the door so that the other firemen and paramedics could come in.

 All in all there was about 12 men who came into my apartment that night. So I told them what happened, the fire department took the smoke detector down, reset it and then proceeded to put it back up on the wall and they thought that was the end of it. It wasn't. The smoke detector started going off again. So the fireman took it down again and another guy took a hand held device around my apartment to make sure there was no fire in the attic or roof making it go off. There was nothing. So he disabled the smoke detector and told me to call maintenance to get a replacement smoke detector. He wrote something on the faulty smoke detector so they couldn't just reinstall the faulty one. Maintenance came out Thursday and replaced the faulty smoke detector.

They took my vitals, my blood pressure was through the roof it was 212 over 100 they wanted me to go to the ER just for my blood pressure not even counting how much my shoulders were hurting and my knees, plus the possible concussion. But I have agoraphobia and I could not leave so I asked them if they could just get a tarp that they had used the last time I broke my shoulder 12 years ago, let me scoot on to it and then they could just pick me up and put me on the couch so that I could get up from the couch and I could show them that I can get around from there and I didn't need to go to the ER. So they finally agreed to do that, this is the tarp they used, and exactly where I was sitting when they came in and picked me up off the floor. I'm sure it has another name but that's what I called it. 

Falcor had to get on the tarp while I took the picture.

I told the paramedics that I would call my housecall doctor the next day and they would send out an X-Ray technician to X-Ray my shoulders, which they did. They called me on Wednesday to tell me that nothing was broken thankfully, so it shouldn't take more than a couple of weeks for me to start feeling better. 

This is my knee on Friday. 

So as of right now I cannot lift my arms very much but it's better than a week ago. The headache from the concussion is finally gone but the side of my head still hurts when I chew, and I still have a good size knot on the side of my head. My knees are bruised but I'm okay I'm trying to get better. 

My daughter is still in the hospital with pneumonia but the sepsis has cleared up. The X-rays they took on Friday showed her pneumonia is worse than it was when she first went in and she's been on IV antibiotics for a week. So they are trying other antibiotics.  They are keeping her in the hospital for a few more days at least. That's all the news I have for this week. 

If there had been a fire in my apartment...both Falcor and myself would have perished in it because there was no way for me to get myself up off the floor. I really have to be more careful. I'll be keeping one of my phones in the bedroom with me from now on at night.

The high this week was 97F/36C

The low this week was 69F/20C

So that's it for this week's Apartment Hell  Life! Be sure to come back next week for more.

Saturday Vittles

 

My daughter and I are trying to eat healthier so I thought I would share some of the food we are eating. 

Beef and Polenta Casserole

Ingredients: 

1/2 cup yellow cornmeal

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups water, divided

1 pound ground beef

1 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup chopped green pepper

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp. onion powder

Salt and pepper to taste

1 tsp. McCormick Montreal Chicken seasoning

1 can (14-1/2 ounces) diced tomatoes, undrained

1 can (4 ounces) tomato sauce

1/2 pound sliced fresh mushrooms

1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Directions:

For polenta, in a small bowl, whisk cornmeal, salt and 1/2 cup water until smooth. In a large saucepan, bring remaining water to a boil. Add cornmeal mixture, stirring constantly. Bring to a boil; cook and stir until thickened, about 3 minutes.

Reduce heat to low; cover and cook for 15 minutes. Put mixture in a greased 8-in. square baking dish. Cover and refrigerate until firm, about 1-1/2 hours.

In a large skillet, cook beef, onion, green pepper over medium heat until meat is no longer pink; drain. Stir in tomatoes, tomato sauce, mushrooms and seasoning; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, for 20 minutes or until thickened.

Loosen polenta from sides and bottom of dish; invert onto a plate and set aside. Spoon half of the meat mixture in the bottom of a baking dish, add polenta and spoon the rest of the meat mixture over the polenta. Top with cheese. 

Cover and bake at 350° until heated through, 40 minutes.  Let stand for 10 minutes before cutting.

Nutrition Facts

1 serving= about 1 1/2 cups: 300 calories and 20g carbohydrates

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The next day for lunch I used the leftovers from the night before (The Beef and Polenta casserole) and made Arepas (Pan bread) to go with it. 

Arepas

Ingredients

2 cups pre-cooked cornmeal

2 1/2 cups warm water

1 tsp. salt

No calorie cooking spray

Directions

Mix the water and salt in a large bowl. Slowly add precooked cornmeal to the water, a little at a time, mix with your hand to get all the lumps out as you add the cornmeal. Once all the cornmeal has been mixed in, set aside and let rest for 10 minutes. 

Preheat oven to 350F

After resting, make 8 same size balls from the dough. Flatten and shape to make 1 inch patties. 

Heat non stick frying pan with no calorie cooking spray. Lay the patties down in the pan and fry over medium heat until they are golden brown.

After they have been fried, add the patties to a cookie sheet and bake in the oven for 15 minutes. 

This is what the finished product should look like. Take a knife and cut them in half when you're ready to use. 

This is what mine looked like using the beef and polenta casserole from the night before. You can put whatever you like in the Arepas. It reminded me of a Sloppy Joe of sorts. 

The Arepas by themselves are 100 calories each and 20 grams of carbs. 

When I added the casserole to it, it ended up being 200 calories and 30 grams of carbs. But this was very good tasting and very filling. 

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Later that week I made Cheese Arepas.

Ingredients

1 cup pre-cooked cornmeal

1 cup warm water

1 tsp. salt

2 TBSP melted butter

1 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese

Directions

Mix the water, butter, half of the cheese and salt in a large bowl. Slowly add precooked cornmeal to the water, a little at a time, mix with your hand to get all the lumps out as you add the cornmeal. Once all the cornmeal has been mixed in, set aside and let rest for 10 minutes. 

Preheat oven to 350F

After resting, make 6 same size balls from the dough. Flatten in your hand so the dough is very thin, add a little cheese and fold the dough in on itself, flatten again very thin. 

Heat non stick frying pan with no calorie cooking spray. Lay the patties down in the pan and fry over medium heat until they are golden brown. 

After they have been fried, add the patties to a cookie sheet and bake in the oven for 10 minutes.

These cheese Arepas have 150 calories each and 30 carbs.

Would you eat this?