Suz Life & Times

Kids Shopping Carts

2011-11-23T08:52:00.000-08:00

Every Friday I care for one of my grandsons. We have great time doing all sorts of things that he thinks are adventures. He's two and everything is an adventure to him. Our special day is filled with all kinds of activities. Last week I needed to go to the super market. He likes going to the market because he knows he's going to get all kinds of "freebies" from the market.

Our local market has the little old women at different stations hanging out samples of all kinds of things which I'm sure are very profitable for the store to sell. It's usually something on a piece of cracker or bread, or if you're really lucky it'll be some juice and ice cream. You know what it's like, just enough to whet your appetite so you'll buy the stuff.

Since this market shopping spree has become a weekly ritual I decided I better include this at lunch time for the boy. I now refer to the market excursions as "lunch on the run". We get some meats at the Deli, a cookie at the bakery, some cut up fruits in produce and occasionally some kind of tiny pieces of a frozen entree. This boy is thrilled and he's had lunch by the time we are finished with our marketing adventure.

This past week there was a slight exception to the normal adventure. I decided to look for a shopping cart that had a steering wheel and some other accessories the boy could play with as we meandered down the aisles of excess and absurdities. My rationalization was, if I could keep the boy entertained with this shopping cart and all its bells and whistles I would have more time to get the things on my shopping list. Normally I arrive home with shopping list in hand realizing the boy needed more attention than the list and I've forgotten more than half of the list. This time, I thought, I'd be much more alert and would clearly be in command of the list and the boy.

Man, was I wrong...

First of all, if you're not familiar with the type of cart I'm referring to let me tell you about it. It's a huge plastic thing. The basket on the front of the cart is bigger than most of the carts. The area for the kids (there are two seats-complete with seat belts for the kids) is pretty big as well. The kids sit and rest their feet on an added "floor" in back of the basket (perfect area to drop things into, then the parent/grandparent has to become a pretzel to retrieve the item so Johnny/Jane stops yelling that they've dropped the item-you know this will become a game to them...don't you?). The cart is wider as well. So you have a huge cart, longer (because of the seat for the kids) and wider going down aisles filled with displays and other hurdles, not to mention other folks with their carts. It's not a pretty visual.

Being the wonderful grandparent I am, I figured I would have no problem with this cart. I was very experienced with shopping carts, how bad could it be?

The first aisle I was cool, no problem. The aisle was free of hurdles, the boy was thrilled. He was able to "steer" with the wheel, honk the horn every 2 seconds. Life was good. Then all Hell let loose...

In the next aisles, there were no fewer than 10 displays, the flimsy cardboard kind some vendor must put together to garner as much attention to the display as possible (obviously another highly profitable item). Well, the first couple were safe from me and new "weapon of mass destruction" however, the next bunch were more than I could maneuver around. Two of them I caught before they spilled all over the aisles, but the other three? Well, let's just say that the poor floor cleaners in the store are probably still cleaning up the messes...Yes, there were multiple messes.

The worst thing was when I turned the "Weapon of mass destruction" so quickly that I knocked over an old lady into one of the displays. Luckily she was caught before hitting the floor by a one guy who watched the whole incident.

The boy was thrilled by all the excitement. I was mortified, the old lady was furious until she saw the boy laughing and having a great time, the man, the hero, was laughing as he told me the reason the "weapon of mass destruction " was available was because people with kids knew that particular cart was "evil" and left it alone.

I've learned my lesson. I too will leave the "Weapon of Mass destruction" alone and choose a simple cart. I will bring things with me to keep the boy occupied and I will wear a disguise the next time I go to the super market with the boy.

Modern! New! Better than Ever!

2011-08-07T06:10:00.000-07:00

I haven't been blogging for a time due to my work schedule. I had the time to blog, not the energy. Today I decided to write rather than take a shotgun to an appliance. Although, this might be temporary sanity and the shot gun is not too far from my hands so who knows what will happen in the next hour or so.

Why is it when ever you decide to "improve" something in your house, along with the improvements comes a bunch of new problems associated with that improvement you didn't know would happen? Is it just this household? I think not.

We've lived in this very modest house for 43 years. We moved here when we were newly married, no kids, and the youngest on the block. Now we're the oldest on the block, grandparents of three (so far) and our house has been modified over the years to be what we needed.

The cellar went from being a vast wasteland of storage and laundry, to a playroom with toys and kid junk all over. Then the cellar transformed into a bar and TV room. When our son became a teenager he took over the downstairs as a "cellar dweller". He put a mattress on the Brunswick 3 slate bed pool table, added a small refrigerator, stereo (this was before the advent of i-pods), radio,clock, and all the assorted "clickers" for all the electronic gadgets he had down there. He could reign his little kingdom from atop the pool table. The only thing lacking down there was a bathroom, that we were going to put in from the first month we moved into the house. We have great plans always, but instituting them takes years of planning, whining, and moaning before they're completed.

Time went on, the"cellar dweller" went to college, then out of the house, and the cellar came back to us....Life was good. The house sighed a breath of relief. The old folks were in control again.

Forward to 16 years later, the cellar has now morphed into a "man-cave". All the decorations in the bar reflect times of a bygone age. Photos of a young Navy kid visiting different ports of call line the walls around the bar. Poster and flags are hanging from the ceiling. It's a different and nostalgic area of the cellar. The large screen TV sits near the fireplace. In winter the "man" escapes into his cave and hibernates every night. He watches shows of men talking or animals boffing, while I enjoy my shows upstairs. It works for us. But there's a problem...No bathroom facility in the cellar. We had a plan for a bathroom, it was written up 38 years before, with the technology available at that time. However, it's now the 21 century and I'm pretty sure there have been some technological advances since then, at least there should be.

It's time to finally put the bathroom in. Yay! The contractor we love comes. He says, "no problem, a bunch of thousands of dollars can give you what you want." We say, "Yay! Do it!". He does, we have a hallway, an official laundry room, and A BATHROOM, with a sink, and all the little amenities that most bathrooms have to hold all the essential bathroom gear.

We are happy. The "man-cave" is a complete little hideaway. The man doesn't have to come upstairs or pee in a bottle because he can't make it upstairs fast enough. We are both happy.

Life is good...until...

When you enclose areas in a cellar things happen, especially if you live in an area that has lots of humidity. We notice a "funny smell" when we enter the cellar in the summer. I look in the laundry room and realize the top of my formerly pristine dryer is mottled with little pit marks that show signs of rusting. The storage area where the luggage is kept is "funky looking".

There's concern about this stuff but we're thinking it will be fine...You know, just ignore it, it'll go away...Honestly, talk about ostrich behaviour!

A couple of days ago I realize I'm smelling mold, mildew and everything seems damp. The smell is now permeating upstairs. I know it's now time to do something about this. I get on the computer and start asking questions to everyone I know. The end result, we need a dehumidifier.

It seems pretty obvious to most people that a dehumidifier is needed to eliminate dampness in areas that get damp, but not to us. We used to open the windows in the cellar to "dry" out the area and run fans. It worked because the space was wide open... Not anymore...We have little rooms down there now and it's humid like a son of a gun this summer. Hence, the dreaded mold spores have decided to infiltrate the house.

I research for the best dehumidifier I can find to eliminate this problem. We find the one we need and buy it. It's straight forward, no biggie, plug it in, hook up the hose to drain the water and there you go...done! Oh, if only life was that simple all the time...Why don't I learn?

The dehumidfier is installed in the most logical place. It's supposed to continuous drain into the little drain pump thingy. The next day I check, the bucket is full, the drain thingy is dry. Hmm...a problem has arisen...

After more research I find there is a flaw (why am I not surprised?)in the design of the continuous drain feature of this top of the line humidifier. In order to get it to work properly you have to tilt the front up so the thing can angle enough to make the little drain work. I do that and lo, and behold it starts to work, sort of.

I go out to the store, when I return I can hear a strange strangled sound coming from the cellar. There I find the dehumidifier laying on its back, definitely not in the position it was when I left. There is water all over the place. You know, the water that's supposed to be pulled from the air to flow into the little drain thingy.

I pick up the thing, place it back on the cement blocks it was on to keep the correct angle so it would do its designated job. I stand back and look at the thing in wonder. I wonder if it will stay put. I wonder if it will take out the air. I wonder if I'm going to shoot it with a shot gun.

The research I did on this thing before and after I bought it indicated this was a good buy. How can manufacturers continually sell products that don't work as the Chino-English directions say it should work? And then I wonder if we were better off before we "enhanced and improved" the cellar???

The Employees of Today

2011-07-01T07:08:00.000-07:00

Granted, I'm old, this is true...but honestly I've been noticing a difference in the way folks are working these days. The attitudes are far different from what I've been accustomed to in the past. I try to understand why and I've come up with few reasons. Part of the problem is their unability to interact in person. They're so intune with the electronic gadgets sticking out of their ears, stuck to the side of their heads or cradles between their hands in furious finger poking they don't know how to respond to a face to face person.

I work in several offices and see first hand what goes on. It's not that they're trying to be rude or isolate themselves, they seem to be very animated in their texting, phone calling and using the electronic gadgets, but when faced with a live person in front of them they seem to freeze into a two dimensional status. Part of their being is missing.

It sounds strange but I've seen it happen so many times in the last couple of years, and increasing each year, I'm sure I'm not the only one who's experiencing this phenomena.

I work in a sevice industry. The interaction with folks is required, not only by phone, but in person. As I train and watch the younger employees I realize that something is lacking in their ability to work with the public. They lack some social skills. I thnk it's because they're so insulated by their use of electronic gadgets they feel vulnerable if they don't have electronics between them and the person. The gadgets are shielding them somehow in thier mind. However, when the person is sitting in front of them they are on edge and hesitant. On the gadgets they are strong, forceful and sure of themselves. Definitely the gadgets give them power...maybe it's the "electricity"?

I don't know, it's a true mystery.....

Time warps

2011-02-21T06:19:00.000-08:00

Down here in the land of sun and fun, on the West coast of Florida, it's a haven for the older folks. We're them, so we belong. When we got to this part of Florida we realized we were in a time warp.

We're on an island off the west coast. It's really a land of it's own. I doubt the "natives" here listen or care to bother about what's happening off the island. Most of them were law abiding citizens of the Midwest at some point in time, and most held pretty good jobs. However now, they're a bit different. You know that saying, "Birds of a feather stick together"? Well, it's true.

Most of these folks are very nice. They are here from "Up North". That can mean, anything north of Georgia as I see it. Most are from Michigan. Why? I have a theory.

I'm betting someone came down here to do some fishing, went back "Up North" and told his friends and family what a great time he had and how good the fishing was. This snowballed into droves of his friends and family migrating down here for the winter. That's what I think. The ones around us down here are all related either by blood or marriage. I feel like I'm in an episode of the "Waltons". There's a "JimBob" a "LucasBoy" a "Moose" a "SamuelKid"and an assortment of other "Waltonian" names. It's funny.

They love life to the fullest down here. You can't fault them for that. When they decide to have a "party" they go all out. This weekend we decided to go to one of their annual dances, it was a "sock-hop", if you don't know what that was you're too young to be down here anytime soon.

We had been driving by this community center that had a sign out front advertising the "Do-Wop Dance". Larry loves the old Do-Wop music so he wrote the dance info on the calendar we keep to track all the events we may or may not attend while we're down here.

As the time came for the dance, I thought I better find out some info about the thing. I called the advertised number asked a few pertinent questions about the times and the price of the event and decided this seemed like a fun thing to attend.

The day of the dance was the same day were had five other events scheduled. That's what happens down here, there are days with nothing to do and then there are days with too much to do. We decided we would do some of the events that day.

We left the trailer at 9:00am. Hit the Garden Gals on the island. I thought it was going to be a rinky dink affair. Man, was I wrong. This was the "big time", "the event of the year", "the meeting of the garden minds, affair", you name it, it was it. Honest. The plant ladies (you can always tell them right away, they have their noses in planting books, have funny looking hats and their nails have dirt under them) were in orgasmic heaven. They were touching and caressing the plants, giving impromptu lectures about the nasty aphids and the virtues of fertilizers. They were surrounded by other similarly festooned ladies touching and caressing other plants. It was a sight to behold, for sure. They were so serious in their lectures and discussions I was afraid there was going to be a test afterward that I'd need to pass in order to leave the place.

Larry just kept walking around shaking his head. He's become pretty used to having me take him to places where the women all look pretty much alike, mainly because they have similar tastes and likes. He thinks they're "cult like" in appearance. They all seem to have salt and pepper hair, they wear loose fitting clothes, no make-up at all, Birkenstocks or some other equally comfortable but clunky shoes, and they all seem to carry hold-alls filled to the brim with all sorts of paraphernalia for whatever the event they're at requires. He could be right.

We were able to leave without the dreaded testing. The next event we had scheduled was in Punta Gorda. It was the famous "Banjo Bash". We decided to go for the matinee. Little did we know that the place would packed on a Saturday afternoon. We're not too smart sometimes, we should have realized since the matinee performance was cheaper all the senior citizens would flock to get a deal. We were there for that reason too, so I can't condemn anyone for that thinking.

The Banjo Bash was terrific. The stars of the show were kids from a music program in Huston Texas. The average age was 12 and they were all fantastic. Most of the kids played more than four instruments and played them well. We were impressed. Some of the other groups that played in the program were old enough to be these kids great-great grandparents and believe me, they were never as good as these young kids were. As a matter of fact one of the groups playing had the curtain drawn on them before they could finish, and that was a blessing to the auditorium...

It was time to go to the Dance, so back onto the island we went. The dance was held in a community room of one of the mobile home parks. It was pretty nice. The hall was decorated as though it was 1955. It was as though a black hole had sent us back to our youth. Most of the women had on jeans and their "Dad's " white shirts. The guys had the cigarette packs rolled into the sleeve of their Tee shirts. Some other women wore the traditional "Poodle Skirts" with kerchiefs in there pony tailed hair. Saddle shoes were in the house, although, I still don't know if they were "originals" or they bought them from some costumer. It was like walking into my youth. Larry was in his glory because the DJ was playing,"his" music.

The food tables were lined with munchies and the beer on tap was free, (how much better does it get?). Each table had record album covers on it and the records which once played the music of our youth were now melted into the shapes of bowls filled with snack foods that none of us should eat today, but we lived on as kids....Necco wafers, potato chips (the real kind, not the "baked" ones), pretzels (laden with salt), oreos, gum drops, life savers, baby ruths, and a whole lot more.

A song started and Larry grabbed my arm and said, "Let's Jitterbug!" My life flashed before my eyes as I stood to wiggle my ass in tune to the music. I was sure one of us would end up face down on the floor with paramedics hovering over us.

We danced like we were kids. We drank the free beer (that was not something available when we were kids....we had to bribe someone to buy it for us for a price!) and we ate the things we loved as kids. I played hopscotch, hula hoop, and marbles. Some people won prizes. I didn't. My prize was being able to bend down to grab the stone on the hopscotch grid.

We got there a bit late, but we were the last to leave.....we had a blast!!!

What is it about men and fishing? Can you tell me?

2011-02-16T15:12:00.000-08:00

This winter we're in a fishing village off the coast of Florida. All the folks in this area seem to be from Michigan and they're either related or neighbors of each other up north. They're all retired and living a great life.

The guy next door is the epitome of the "Fisherman". He's got a boat(a very nice Boston Whaler), a bunch of fishing poles, some pretty heavy duty knives, and an assortment of fishing gear,(I still don't know what some of it is, and I was a buyer of fishing accessories in a former life). He has a fishing table in the back yard of his trailer next to the canal. The table is to clean the tons of fish he catches, and the birds love it as well. When he's out there with the fish he's caught, the birds are there with him, cheering him on, because they know when they see a good easy meal coming their way.

This guy fishes nearly every day. He loves to be outside doing whatever the season says he should be doing: fishing, hunting or anything else he can do outside. The guy has a number of very old friends (or relatives) who love to fish as well, so they leave early in the morning with all their "stuff" to do their fishing. The wives (the smart ones) stay home keeping the home fires burning...

Now, here's the rub. Most of the guys around here are old...I mean really old. The neighbor and his most recent fishing buddy have defibrillators inserted under the skin in their chests. The neighbor had his put in last month after his 7Th heart attack. His pal? He's had his for 6 months. They take off in the morning to fish. They're both highly intelligent men, but neither one knows how to use a cell phone.. Oh, they have them, but they don't turn them on, but honestly even if they were on, they don't know how to open them to talk. They both have hearing loss, so whoever was trying to call them hasn't got a prayer of getting them on the cell phones. If, the operative word being "if" here, they had the cell phones on, it's debatable whether or not they could hear them ring. Even if they did hear them ring, it's questionable if they would know how to open them, then they more than likely wouldn't be able to hear who was calling them anyway. It's a riot.

They came home late yesterday and the wives were understandably worried. Both wives knew the guys didn't have the cell phones, since the phones were still in the houses. Finally one and a half hours later than expected they come home with their little boat. In the boat, with them, was a live shark... Yes, I said "live".

The shark had half it's guts out of it's body, but it was still thrashing. The neighborhood came around to see this thing because it was big, over 6'4". It was looking at everyone with it's clouded eyes. Larry, my husband, got down on his haunches to look at the thing "up close and personal". As he was getting into a better position to get a good look at the thing, the shark flopped around to get a better view of Larry. The shark was trying to get a little nip of Larry. Larry jumped straight up in the air, far away from the jaws of, "Jaws". I nearly peed my pants, so did Larry.

The old guys, Larry included, continued to battle with, "the shark that wouldn't die" for about 10 minutes. No one was willing to take a chance with this thing. When the old guys caught the thing it took them more than 1/2 hour to land it. They thought it was dead, dragged it into the boat but apparently it was only resting, because the fight continued in the boat as they were hauling ass to get home. I don't know who they were more afraid of by that time, the shark or their wives because they were late.

The whole fiasco in back of our trailer houses took about 3 hours to play out. The guys, Larry too, were all gleeful at the Man vs. shark entertainment. It was pretty entertaining, even for me.

Living the life in Old Fogey Land

2011-02-12T14:53:00.000-08:00

I come here annually, down to the land of sun, fun and really old people. I'm old too, so I know what I'm talking about, but honest this place is really something.

They call it God's waiting room, for a damned good reason. The newspaper we get has at least 12 people listed in the obituary, daily. We are not in a huge metropolitan area. We're on a barrier island off the west coast of Florida. There aren't that many people to warrant that many dead notices...honest...but each and every day I open the paper to find more.

After the first couple of days I decided to look at the ages of the people and see if I could figure out how they kicked the bucket. Most were old folks, well into their late 80's and 90's. I could accept that, but others were women in their early 60's and it seemed as though the illnesses that took them were pretty much the same thing, cancer.

I went to a garage sale today, which is a big social gathering thing down here. It seems that all the old folks hit the garage sales on Friday morning to check out each others junk, then end up talking about where they originated from, what they did when they weren't old, and what ailments they were fighting at the moment. The men especially.

At one of these social gatherings I met five women, all with no hair. They were all breast cancer patients in different stages of chemotherapy. They were laughing and talking about things that happened to them as a result of the chemo. None of the women wore wigs or those bandanna things. They were bald as babies and they didn't care. It was great to see they were out and about and didn't give a damn what others thought of them or their cue ball heads.

It's like that down here. Many folks seem to love to tell strangers about their last surgeries, exams, colonoscopies, wart removals or the different fungus that's engulfing their bodies like some alien life form. It's amazing. I stand, watch and listen. Honest, I couldn't make this stuff up. This is amazing. There seems to be nothing that's held back. You ask a seemingly benign question and you find out the most personal things about a person. It kind of shocks you the first few times it happens. After a while though, you sort of join in without realizing it.

I think people down here think they may as well say whatever they want to because they're not going to be here for a long time so they don't care. I'm sure when they were younger they didn't spill the beans so to speak, but they sure do now.

I met a guy today who told me that the new pills he's been taking were really helping with his excessive urination. Did I need to know that? I was looking a pair of wine glasses he was selling. Did the wine glasses remind him that he had to pee, or didn't have to now because of the pills? I don't know, but apparently he thought I should know.

How do you respond? You look at the guy and say, that's great, I should find out what those pills are so I don't have to worry about my diaper leaking....

February 2011 Dateline:Florida

2011-02-10T13:42:00.000-08:00

In the last blog entry I told you about the place we're living in down here in the sun and fun state of Florida. Anything is better, I guess, than dealing with the weather in Northern New York at the moment, but this place has given me a new look at the differences in life as we know it.

The place is situated on a canal, nearly in the canal, I might add, and it's very old. It hasn't been rehabbed as I was lead to believe, and rarely has it seen a mop, bucket or cleaning agents. It is however, a place to learn how to repair things.

So far I've learned to repair slats of vertical blinds (which if you think they're cool, think again...they're awful in humid conditions and they rip apart quickly if there's a slight wind...trust me, that's experience talking and I've only been here one week) , repaired drain plugs, wiring, oven, mirror, shelving and some other assorted items that broke as I touched them.

The decor leaves much to be desired in 2011. Although, perhaps it was state of the art in 1968. At the moment I'm being seranaded by a myriad of fine feathered things. I can't call them all birds, I think they're more like ancient dinos that didn't realize they were supposed to be extinct.

We decided to check out some other parts of the island today. It's about 15 miles across the island and there is only one road in and out. There are no traffic lights and everyone is pretty good about courtesy on the road. There are many accidents though, usually motorcyles vs. cars. Motorcycle drivers are not required to wear helmets, and as far as I can see, that's just hoping for suicide by old people driving cars.

There are lots of old Americans on this island all looking for their youth again. They have all the toys they wanted when they were kids but couldn't afford them, or else their wives, Moms, or kids wouldn't let them have them. They look kind of cool I think, but Larry thinks they look pretty foolish. The ones I like are the ones with the longish hair tied back with a bandanna, jeans, boots and tee shirts that say things like, "road hog", "don't be jealous, you can have me too", and assorted other things unprintable. You KNOW they wouldn't have worn some of this stuff when they were younger but now they figure, "what the Hell".

It's really quite a place. It's not all bad, mind you, but it is different. We wanted different this year and we certainly got it........

How Does this Happen?

2011-02-04T12:22:00.000-08:00

We live in upstate New York State. Upstate New York State does not mean, Westchester County, which we refer to as "downstate". We are in the Northern regions where folks have Winter Olympics and speed skating. We are in the Adirondack Mountain range and quite happy about that, usually.

In the winter months we can get as much snow as we like, sometimes more than we like, although not as much as our neighbors to the west, Syracuse, Rochester and the lovely city of Buffalo. They get far more than we do, but sometimes our temperatures are colder than theirs so it's a trade off.

In February, when we know the probability of getting really bad weather is upon us, we bail. We decided several years ago we would take off for parts south and get away from the weather. This year is no exception.

I (ok...it was my decision) decided this year we needed to go somewhere different from past years. I wanted to see a "different" Florida. I didn't want to be in another Condo, townhouse or duplex in some ultra suburb of some large megalopolis down here.

I searched the Internet and found a real estate management company that specialized in "the true Florida experience". I spoke to the folks there, felt a warm fuzzy feeling when conversing with them and decided to give them a try. They sent over photos of some of the rental units. We (now I say we" because I don't want to take all the blame for this now) decided on a manufactured home in St. James City, Pine Island, Florida.

The trailer is on a canal...almost IN the canal. We are very close to our neighbors, nice folks albeit a bit older (but Hell, we're older too). The setting is gorgeous. Out the back door we have a patio over looking the davits, dock and fish cleaning tables (oh, did I tell you this is a mega fishing area?). There are some strange looking cacti (plural for cactuses...) and some dead trees. I think the trees once bore fruit, but God knows what kind....

The trailer is...vintage...old...decripit....generally yucky.....It's gotta be circa 1960, and that is not an exaggeration...We were told it had been rehabbed...perhaps in the latter part of the 20th century but I can guarantee it hasn't had anything done to it in the 21st century.

The whole place is paneled...a walnut sort of wood, kind of. The "accent" colors are harvest gold (yep, appliances and all) and this throw-up orangie color. The bathroom (there are two so I better explain them) that I use is...well...scary is a good term, I guess.

I feel as though I'm in Japan. I'm afraid to sit on the toilet for fear the whole thing will end up on the ground under the trailer...The floor is bit soft and squishy...no kidding. Consequently, I sort of hover over the top of the bowl and pee astride the bowl. The shower and tub are original and it sort of reminds me of the movie Psycho when I get into it....There are shower doors and they're the same kind we had in our house 25 years ago. As a matter of fact, lots of the stuff in here reminds me of the 60's ans 70's when I was, shall we say "tripping".(I exaggerate a bit but you get my drift).

The kitchen is something out of a bad Brady Bunch episode, double ovens (one doesn't work, the other sets off the smoke detector when I turn it on) , built in stove (one burner makes ungodly noises when turned on...needless to say I don't turn it on), small but adequate refrigerator, tiny sink (no dishwasher) and all this Harvest Gold loveliness is surrounded by a counter island/dining area situated between the living room and the kitchen.

The living room has an addition...Thank God. Although, the tenants that used this place before had a cat perhaps two, (or twelve). The house reeks of cat pee, not all the time, only those times when the humidity hits high...Did I mention we are situated between two canals and the sides of the trailer have perpetual mold??? It's tough to get away from the humidity....

Oh, and by the way, I'm allergic to cats. We're having cleaners come in next week to see what can be done ab out this...not on MY dime I might add.......

Well, I said I wanted to experience Florida in a different way....this is certainly different...I'll say that much...

This is NOT man-bashing...honest....

2010-12-20T13:29:00.000-08:00

Answer me this: Are all men stubborn, or is it just the one that comes with me?

We've done some remodeling in our cellar/family room. We added a bathroom, a laundry room and made a delineated area for my art stuff and Larry's wood working shop. It looks great. We have a great contractor who puts up with my whining and complaining when I tell him what I want done. I know better than to think that we, Larry and I, could possibly do the work which needs to be done to get a room looking like a room.

Many years ago we did some remodeling by ourselves and it nearly ended in divorce court. Since that time, we know to hire outside help. Yes, I know it's more costly, but when you consider the cost for lawyers and courts, it's the less costly way to go about the remodeling.

This time we decided to add the bathroom 10 days before a party. For some unknown reason we felt everything would be done in plenty of time to hold the party in the family room with the new bathroom at the ready for all the guests.

Believe it or not, the contractor finished the last of the remodel at 12:00pm the day of the party. We went downstairs immediately to clean, clear and set up for that evenings festivities. We did a great job too, together. We had so much to do there was no time to bicker, sneer or complain to each other. The party came off pretty well. Just one time I had to brush off my friends tush to get the sheet rock dust removed. Not bad, considering the way it looked when we started the cleaning.

However, when the remodel was completed we realized the walls of the existing family room looked bad, I mean really bad. We're talking 1960's maple paneling...(I know...it's coming back in style...but honest, there is no way this stuff will ever be on the H&G network as a "new and improved" look for your house....It's said that "everything old is new again" but that phrase wouldn't cut it for this paneling....My gosh, when we bought it, it was $3.49 a sheet [that's 4' X 8' sheets we're talking...] ). Anyway, the paneling needed work, of some kind. The best thing would've been to remove it and do something different on the wall, but Larry thought better of that idea.

Up we went to our neighborhood big box home improvement place. We were looking for something called, "coverall". It's a kind of wallpaper made to be painted, or not. It covers a mass of sins on existing walls, paneling being one of those sins.

We found some and bought it. This would be a "GREAT" project stated Larry. (I think he'd had a couple of beers before we went to the store. He was in a very "project" minded mood. It was either the beers, or it was the fact he was so excited about the bathroom in his "man-cave" that he morphed into some alien being....I'm still not sure).

So the party was over, a success I might add, but we had two more parties that week. I thought the wallpaper project would be done after all the parties...How dumb am I? No, Larry (or the new alien being I'm living with...still to be determined...) decides he's going to "just try a strip or two".

Larry is not the one who does wall covering in the house as a general rule, that's my bailiwick. Larry decided to go ahead and do it while I was getting ready for party number two.

Anyone who has had experience doing wall covering knows there are certain instructions that cannot be skipped. Oh, you can try to skip them, but it will take more time in the long run and the process will be so bad you'll be looking for a bunch of baby ducks to peck you to death. However, what do I know? I had to leave the family room because I started to kibitz and started to see the fire coming out of his ears.....I knew my retreat from the family room should be post haste.

After quite a while he came up and said, "something is wrong.....". I looked up from the umpteenth crystal glass I was polishing and said, "Why, whatever do you mean???" He looked at me and said, in all sincerity, "I think I should have done more prep work before hanging the paper". "Oh, reeeeally?" said I.

I followed him downstairs to the family room. We opened the door, directly opposite from the doorway where we were standing was the wall covering rolling down the wall, falling into a puddle on the rug....I just turned around and went back up the stairs, as Larry uttered, "Thanks for all your help...". ARRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!!

To be continued...

Just one of those days....

2010-11-21T15:32:00.000-08:00

I sure most people can relate to this.

I'm a person who likes to make lists of things I have to get done in a certain time. I don't leave things up in the air, because I know full well if it isn't written down by my own hand, not typed on the computer, it's not going to gain any priority in my brain. As a matter of fact, it won't take up any space in my brain what so ever...This is a true fact, from years of experience.

Armed with my list this morning, I promptly started to complete some of the tasks listed for Sunday, November 21. Since the Thanksgiving feast will be at my house, I have this big honking turkey in my refrigerator in some stage, I hope, of defrosting. I know from past experience it's better to turn over the turkey at intervals. With that thought it mind, I opened the refrigerator door, pushed up the shelf that was resting on the top of the turkey, and proceeded to pull the big beast off the shelf. With a tug and a heave ho, the beast came out of the fridge and promptly fell on my big toe, the one that has had some pretty bad hits of late...

At the same time as I was trying to remove the turkey, things that were apparently wedged behind the behemoth decided to explode open. Not too bad a problem really, I had some containers of oatmeal on the bottom shelf (why oatmeal in the refrigerator, you ask? Don't ask).

The oatmeal had a mind of it's own and sprayed, literally, all over the bottom of the fridge, into the seal of the freezer (my freezer in on the bottom-the most common sense place for refrigerator freezers in my opinion), and all over the floor in front of the fridge. The turkey, still on my foot, had a sprinkling of oatmeal on top.

The oatmeal somehow managed to get into the two veggies bins and when I opened the bins, I noticed they were in dire need of wiping down. Veggies make a mess sometimes and this was one of those time.

I looked down at my turkey covered toes and noticed blood, not turkey blood either. My blood was pooling next to the toe that took the direct hit. At that time, I realized maybe the list thing I had on the table should be revised. I probably should have added, "Make time to take a trip to the hospital", but of course that wasn't on the list.

Larry wandered into the kitchen after hearing some strange, strangled, suffering sounds. He took one look at the turkey, toe, shelf, bins and burst out laughing. This was probably NOT the best thing for him to do, but honestly if I was faced with the same scene I'm not sure I'd be able to do anything else either. I gave him a pass on that reaction.

Everything eventually was cleaned, including the blood off the toe, and I crumpled up the list and went to bed...To Hell with the list...

It's that time of year again....ho hum...

2010-11-11T16:06:00.000-08:00

Yep, here it is, another November screaming out from all the calendars. Usually the months change on the calendar without much fanfare, that is until you get to November. November is one of those months when you're either going to get euphoric because you can't wait until all the hoopla gets into full swing OR you're going to turn the calendar page over, look at the name of the month and turn to the kitchen to find a sharp knife to cut out your gizzard. Tearing out the gizzard MUST be better than what's in store for all of us these next two months.

I've gotten numb to the stores pushing the Winter holidays down my throat in August. I figure they need to get as much money as they can, as early as they can for a couple of reasons: Someone has to pay for the crap the merchandiser and buyers have bought, and they need to keep the employees doing something, because for sure, the employees are not killing themselves to help out customers . How many times have you walked into a store and IF you see an employee, they're either on a phone or walking quickly in the opposite direction from you. The employers understand that and to get something for the salary they're paying, they make the employees continually stock shelves.

November is that time of year when people start to think about the upcoming feast day....Thanksgiving. Now, I'm not going to blast the holiday by moaning about the excesses we all do on that day, nor am I going to get all pious and religious about why we should be thankful at this time in our lives. I am going to talk about how the holiday seems to start a frenzy of thoughts about the Christmas season. By the time the feast day arrives we all seem to have forgotten about that day, in anticipation for the frenzied thoughts of the upcoming days. It's like wham, bam, thank you ma'am and on to the next. Not breathing, no collecting $200 fir passing go, just slurp down the food, burp, and on to the next. What is it with us collectively? Are we just gluttons? Do we forget what these holidays are for? This is nuts.

I guess we have.....I'm going to continue this another day....I'm getting crazy.....

Having Company? Rip apart something just before they arrive....

2010-10-01T06:18:00.000-07:00

If this didn't happen almost every time we have company I wouldn't wonder about it, but it does. If we are expecting folks to visit, for dinner or dessert, whatever, if seems like a switch turns to the "on" position for husband to do some radical "rehab" work.

This weekend we're having some folks over for dinner. During the next week we're having a friend stay with us for a couple of days. What does he decide to do? He decides to find out why there's a mildew smell in our bathroom we can't seem to locate.

In the last week we've pulled apart the baseboards, the fan, the cabinets, changed all the fixtures in the bathroom, and done everything possible to find out where this smell is coming from. I mean tearing apart everything and anything. We've looked high and low for anything that possibly would emit that smell.

The bathroom needs to be updated. The last time it was done was in 1990. When it was rehabbed at that time there was evidence that the sub-flooring had been wet and caused some damage. It had to be replaced. Can it be that this is where the smell is wafting from now? I'm betting it is... The bathroom needs to be gutted and redone. Larry is resisting like crazy.

Why he insists on ripping apart the fan in the ceiling at 1:00am during a torrential rain storm is beyond my comprehension, but he did it last night. I woke up with the sounds of hammers and other similar noises (as well as Oh@#$%, f%$# that, Mother%$#^ thing). Apparently something wasn't going his way at 1:00am when normal people are sleeping...LIKE ME!

For some ungodly reason he decided that the smell was coming from the attic and every time we entered the bathroom the smell would descend down the fan and into the bathroom. It should be noted that the fan pipe was dripping water from the rain coming down so hard there are flood warnings in our area (we live in an area where if it flooded we should all be building arks...we're high above sea level-so this is not your average rain fall). Would a normal, sane person fool around with a pipe that goes to the roof during a wicked rain storm? I think not, but then they're not my husband.

We've been at 100% humidity levels around here for the last three days and anything that was remotely damp is wet again and probably molding, hence the wet mildew smell. I say we should dry everything the best we can, get some light in the bathroom, maybe fans and try to dry it out until we can get the thing gutted and find out where the wet something is. Larry wants to rip apart, the day before company comes (in the only bathroom in the house mind you). And of course a couple of days before our company comes. I'm all for camouflage with candles and Lysol until we can figure out what's what. Am I wrong? Apparently Larry thinks so.

LIfe has to be lived while we're here

2010-09-12T16:19:00.001-07:00

I'm getting to that age where reading the daily newspaper is becoming a challenge... I know I need to look at the obits because I usually recognize a bunch of names, but honestly, sometimes I wish the obits were an option in the paper, like the TV guides that have become some special option in all the papers around here. I'd gladly give up the obits to have the TV guide back...

At present I have several friends on the pathway to the end. I don't like to think about it, but it's inevitable for all of us, but for these friends they're on a fast moving walkway going like the wind to get to the end.

With that in mind, I've given some thought to the things I want to accomplish in the near future. The way I figure it, I'm on the moving walkway as well, but it hasn't been turned on yet, so I have some time to do some things.

I'm just about at the point where I'm going to say "to Hell with everything" and do what I damned well please, no regrets...well, not any I'm ready to admit to anyway. I have things that I want to do in the next few months and I've decided not to put them off. I guess it's sort of my own personal "Bucket List".

Here's the rub though... I have a significant other that doesn't see things quite the same way. I understand where he's coming from, we do have to remember we might need some of this money I'm about to blow in the future, but what if there is no future? What a quandary...

Maybe I'll rethink a bit and do some of the things and not all of them...then again maybe not....

LIfe has to be lived while we

2010-09-12T16:19:00.000-07:00

Home DIY

2010-07-30T08:55:00.000-07:00

If you ask me to check your oil, change your antifreeze, bleed your brakes, rotate your tires, change plugs and points (if you can still get to them), or any other car related stuff, I'm there.

Ask me to chain saw some limbs from trees, water cut tile, spread cement, build a stone retaining wall, or grow from seeds some weird plants, I'm there. But, ask me to do something in my house that takes a measuring device, level, drill, screw drivers or hammers and you may as well ask me to swim the English Channel. I'm not good at the handi-person (got to be politically correct these days-I get noise about that) house accessorizing things.

All I wanted to do was add a towel bar in my bathroom. With all the remodeling we've been doing we decided to remove our old glass shower doors and replace it with a curtain and one of those cool shower curtain rods that give you more room in the shower. They're kind of curved to pull the curtain out and around. No problem right?

Got the tools to do the job, sat down to read the directions, that made no sense at all, but knowing how inept I am at these house DYI's I figured I better take the time to read the directions. That was my first mistake.

Directions are written in pseudo English these days. Thank God someone somewhere had the foresight to add pictures... Larry got in on this one as well, so I thought we'd be good.

We followed the directions to a "T". The curtain rod rotated and looked like an elongated "U". That didn't seem right, so we started anew. This time we read the directions out loud and s-l-o-w-l-y. I put the last piece in and the rod was still looking like a "U".

We both started to laugh because we questioned the directions a few times but figured we were wrong and they were right. We were wrong....about them being right.

We finally did what was logical and the thing went up fine. We learned that we knew many words that should not be used in polite company however. Well, at least we learned something.

OK, now, because we no longer have the shower doors, we lost our towel racks and the ability to throw wet towels and other things over the top of the doors. I was getting pretty sick of the towels on the floor and over the bathtub, plus the bathroom smelled damp. It was time to do something about this problem.

The first thing I did was to buy a curtain hook, you know the kind of thing that holds curtains back to the side. I saw someone use one of those in the bathroom to hold a hand towel by the sink. This was a project I was sure I could do and I did it with little difficulty. Because I was so successful at that minor job, I thought, I'll do a towel rod. No problem.

It took me some time to find the one I wanted, but I finally found one. It's not elaborate but it had to be a certain size to fit where I needed it. At the same time I bought a couple of other hook type devices to match, figuring I could use all the hooks I could get and I was so accomplished at these hook installations, how hard could it be? Ha!!

According to the directions the job should have taken 8 minutes. Knowing what I know about myself I always multiply the figure by 20. So 20 times 8 minutes, the job should take me about 160 minutes. On top of that figure I add another 60 minutes or so to give me the time to find all the tools I'll need. Don't laugh, it's true. Every tool is in the house and someone thinks he knows where they are, but guess what? we have a gremlin that lives with us who loves to put things away in places they don't belong. The result is, we have to search. We go to the place the tool is supposed to be and start doing searches by 1 foot radius'. I've thought about using a system to square off the cellar like they do on archaeological sites to find things.

Sure enough, it took me 90 minutes to find the tools to do this 8 minute project. Again, I haven't learned lessons correctly, I sat down to read the directions. Not good.

I'm sure some Chinese people are laughing their heads off right now, knowing full well that some American is reading their convoluted directions to put up this towel rod.

I did everything according to the directions. I drilled the holes the way they asked me to. I put the little anchors into the drilled holes (the size the Chinese told me to make) and the little anchors went into the wall, through the sheet rock and down into the hinterlands of the wall...

My vocabulary is now peppered with expletives that I won't repeat here. Suffice to say I was pissed. Luckily I have an assortment of different kinds of anchor and mollie bolts so the wall was saved from my foot being slammed through it.

After some other feeble attempts at using the directions, I threw them away and put the damned thing up. It's not perfect, but then what is?

Social networks

2010-07-14T05:52:00.000-07:00

I belong to one of the many social networks. I added myself to this network because many of my friends and family were already on one and I thought it would be cool to be in the "in crowd' for a change. You can see from those words how old I am. I don't think the "in crowd" is used any longer, but I still use it on occasion.

What I didn't realize about social networks is how many people lead boring lives. I thought everyone's life was full of fun and activity. Now, I find out they're just as boring as I am at times. For that matter, I think my life is more adventurous than many of the folks on the social network.

OK, it's nice to see some of the pictures of people and the things they're doing, but it's not much better than seeing pictures of someone else's vacation. And, who are all those people in the photos? Do I know them? Of course not. They're people that other folks on the social network know, not me. So I just click through some and go on my merry way.

However, once in a while, in the private lives of others, I see something that makes me smile . I think they forget that everyone is reading their viewpoints and little mini life tales. I've been guilty of it myself. I forget at times that I'm writing things to the world and not just to the friend I thought I was writing to.

My young friends and family definitely forget that everyone is reading their tales. I'm sure they wouldn't volunteer some of the things they talk about with their elders and certainly not their parents. Even when they use text-talk, I get it....and I bet their parents do too. It's funny to read some of the musings of the kids. Kids never change. All their pet peeves have been the pet peeves through the ages.

I venture to guess in ??BCE there was a kid complaining that he/she didn't have the freedom they wanted and their parents didn't understand them...That, of course, is assuming they had time to think about anything other than where to get food, sleep and shelter.

I used to think old folks were nuts complaining about the state of the youth of today, but now I understand. I'm one of those old geezers and I can see why the aged look at the youth and shake their heads. In my day (gees, I really am old) our concerns were the same but we didn't have the opportunities these kids have to get into more trouble. Most of us didn't have the access to vehicles that these young people have today, so we didn't have the vehicle accidents as these kids have. If you were a girl, our big worry was "SEX". You knew if you had "SEX" your life as you knew it would be gone.

Your reputation would be "ruined". "Ruined!!" I say, irreparable damage for LIFE.
You'd, for sure, get "pg'd" (that's the "text" term in those days for (whispered) pregnant..ooooo.....
When you got preggers, no one would talk to you. You think the Amish can shun...let me tell you, 60's high school kids could shun the Amish to shame. The girls especially...you were a nonentity if someone knew you were pregnant. Usually the pregnant girls had to go "away". Funny thing though, the boy that made the girl pregnant went on with his life as a hero.
If "it" happened many of the girls I knew dropped out of school, never to return and I never saw them again. Of course the boys kept on living their lives....
If the girl kept the baby, her life was over, period. She lived with her relatives pretty much in isolation. The parents of her old friends wouldn't let them see her. For some reason the girl was now tainted for life as a result of something that took two to do.

Yes, our lives were different than the kids I see today. I'm not in support of unrestricted sex, or unwed parenting, mainly because it takes more than on to make the baby and it should be more than one that raises the baby. I do like the way having a baby in high school is looked at differently. Let me qualify that statement. You hope that kids don't get pregnant in high school today, but they do, at least today the girl is not ostracized and shunned like in my day. There are programs and support available for the girl and she doesn't have to feel alone and "dirty" like the girls did when I was in high school.

Kids grow up too fast these days and that I don't like. It's fun to be a kid and do stupid things that you look back on and laugh. As long as you're not hurting yourself or others, what's the big deal? Why sweat the small stuff, there's plenty of time in your life to worry about things which you have no control over. Have a good time.

I wish I could go back and tell myself that. I had a great childhood, but I would have had a better one if I hadn't been so worried about the way someone else thought. What right did I have to question what was in someone else's head? Those were the thoughts of others, not mine. What a wasted of valuable time.....I could have been doing something stupid and having fun with the time I wasted...Oh well, I'll make up for it now. I can too, because now I'm old and if I do something stupid younger people just look and think, "well, what do you expect, she' s just an old geezer"....You know what, I'm not any different than when I was a kid....I'm still thinking about other peoples thoughts...It's none of MY damned business...

Decadent Salaries

2010-07-04T08:44:00.000-07:00

Can someone please tell me how you can justify giving a CEO of a company multiple millions of dollars annually while laying off the workers of said company? I don't get it.

This was a story in the newspaper today regarding a not for profit hospital and the fact they were laying off nurses, but the CEO still received his multimillion dollar salary for that year. I read the article twice because I couldn't get over the fact that author of the article wrote it with such nonchalance.

If the CEO left the employ of that hospital I think it would run very well, but if all the nurses left the hospital would have to close their tents (and to be honest, some of the rooms in that hospital are not much better than tents....in fact some of the newer tents I've seen rival some good hotel rooms I've seen lately, so maybe the hospital should look into the cost cutting venture of buying the newer tents.....lol).

The article got me thinking, (a dangerous thing these days...I'm getting older and far more cynical than ever) what if all the upper management of these companies were to make a pledge together that they would not skim off the top of these companies? I know, it wouldn't happen until Hell froze over, but let's just speculate. I wonder how the companies would fair? Some people will think, if the execs aren't given their perks and wages they've come to expect they will work less. That's a joke, I don't think they work all that much now. I understand the need for supervision, but not for 7 layers of supervisors. All of them make far more than the ones they're supervising. Ok I'll accept that they should get more because they're shouldering more responsibility, but is that really true? Take for example a chemist in a pharmaceutical company.

That chemist has to be precise in his/her measurements for safety of all concerned with that drug. The responsibility for him is huge. If he puts the wrong chemicals together a life could be lost or changed drastically forever. Doesn't it seem that he should be paid more than someone who doesn't have that responsibility on them like the upper management.

I know there has to be management, I get it. But I don't think it needs to be paid into the stratosphere.

I have a friend who makes tons of money. His bonus's are more than twice my annual income. He has a job that makes money for a company and he's compensated by percentage of the money he brings into the company. He's been lucky, (and honestly it is luck for some to be in the positions of great wealth, not much else) and he' s made a nice niche for himself. I don't begrudge him at all, but I wonder if it's justified he makes all this money while some of the administrative assistants he works with are losing their jobs because the companies profit margins weren't as great as they had been in the past?

There is a great disparity of wealth in this country and I think it's going to be the downfall of us all. Where I live is pretty insulated from the poor and starving, but I have eyes and ears, I can see things happening around me and I find it disturbing, to say the least. Life isn't fair, ok, I get it, but for some it's more unfair than for others. I know some folks could pull themselves up by the boot straps and change their lot in life, but sometimes when you're constantly being beaten down, it's kind of hard to find those boot straps...I think they need some help, for a time....

Revenge of the forest

2010-06-06T15:38:00.000-07:00

Over 41 years ago we bought this house. Actually it was a lot, which we planned to build on. I was pregnant with my first child and this was a big deal. We would have a new baby, new house and we had a new car.

The house was to be built in Suburbia. I didn't want to raise my baby in the city. It didn't matter to me that Larry would have to drive 45 minutes every day to work. I wanted to live in the country where the air was clean and the baby, when it arrived, would get to see nature right outside our window.

It was a great idea and one that has continued to be a great idea. We were smart, not on purpose mind you, we lucked out. We bought in an area that is still holding it's own in this financial market. The baby grew up. We had another baby. We were living the American dream. We were happy.

What we didn't give a thought to was what was happening to the other living things who lived here before we, and all our neighbors, moved in. This place was teeming with all kinds of wild life. It was nothing to see the deer in the back yard along with the foxes and myriad other little living things.

Most of us didn't give much thought to what we were doing to their "homes" as we built our homes. If they didn't get out of the way...too bad...they were gone. Honest, I don't think any of us around here thought about the other living things except maybe to swear at them when something got into the garbage cans, or ate out of our carefully landscaped yards. Rabbits got a short shift if they were caught in our new gardens. It was us or them, and we were bigger.

Life went on, we took over. The little animals fled from the area to be seen on occasion, but usually splatted on the road. No one cared. We just went on our merry way.

We thought we were the strong ones, we would prevail, and for the most part we did. Then slowly, ever so slowly, we started seeing things happen in our little area we cultivated to be our homes. The trees got bigger, and the animals found new homes. Our homes were being invaded by things from outside. Some of us got cats...that helped for a time, but the little living things got smarter.

Here we are 43 years later and I find myself embroiled in a war. "War", you say. I say, "Yes, all out war". My enemies are cute little brown chipmunks. You know, "Chip and Dale", except they aren't Chip and Dale. They're more like, "The rodents that ate the world" or at least they're trying to eat the world.

The first thing they tried to eat was a tarp in our shed. Apparently "tarp" is not one of their dietary needs, so the little thing died in the shed. We knew that in the Spring when opening the shed for the first time we were almost decked by the smell of death pouring out of the shed. It was not pleasant. Larry thought he could camouflage the smell with mothballs....not. Then he tried cedar shavings....not. Then he called in the big guns, me.

I opened the shed doors and told him something was definitely dead within the confines of the shed. I told him it smelled like all the dead mice which were in my old office. No amount of camouflage smell would take care of this stench. We had to remove everything (no small task) from the shed and find the offending "thing".

I was elected to go up the ladder and clear out the loft. The minute I went up one step I thought, "Man, this has got to be a big "thing" the smell was really putrid. Larry, the brave one, was standing far away from the shed yelling advice from his lofty position. Why in God's name I was the one elected for this was beyond me, but I was on the ladder, like a fool, pulling and pushing things out of the way to grab what I could, and get it out into the light of day. Larry's job was to search all the stuff as it came out.

He stood over all the scraps of material with a big stick. Slowly he would pick up a piece and use his foot to open up the material checking for vermin. Each time the material fell back down he'd jump back with a squeal... For a minute there, I thought he morphed into a little girl, listening to the noises he was making.

I finally got the loft cleared out, finding nothing when I heard an unearthly howl. Larry had found the "thing" tangled in the middle of a tarp. We saw where the little thing (we weren't sure what kind of "thing" it was at this point) had eaten part of the tarp and obviously it hadn't agreed with him/her.

He pushed the critter out of it's unholy coffin and determined it was a chipmunk. Good, now we knew what was causing the smell, life was good again, or so we thought.

A couple of weeks later Larry noticed some leaves under his car. We have a Mini Cooper. We've had it for years. He loves his Mini. He couldn't figure out where the leaves came from. He opened the hood of the car to investigate. There were more leaves. As he searched in the little engine he kept finding more leaves and straw like stuff. He cleared it out and closed the hood.

The next day he looked outside and saw a chipmunk coming out from under his car. He didn't think much of it at the time because we seemed to have an inordinate number of chipmunks all over the yard, up in the gutters, running from the roof, down the gutters, into the car port. We figured they were having a great time enjoying life like cute little Chip and Dale.

Hmm...what we didn't realize that these chipmunks were probably the progeny of the ones we displaced 43 years ago and they were back to avenge their ancestors. Sure, they were cute and little. They would run over my feet when I stood at my gardeners bench in the carport. How much could little chipmunks do for heavens sake? Hah!

Larry decided to change the air cleaner in the Mini because the air conditioner seemed to be struggling. When he opened the area of the cleaner, it was packed tight with straw, grass and leaves. There seemed to be a little indentation, like a Papasan chair in the middle of the leaves. Obviously someones house...

It took half of a garbage can to clear out the engine area and air cleaner area of leaves and other debris. Larry decided he better put some sort of covering over the hole something was getting into. He had some nylon screening that seemed to be the ticket. He measured and taped the mesh to the hole. Ahh...for sure it would be good now.

The next day he looked under the hood. Lo, and behold, the mesh was chewed completely through, and the little house of leaves and debris was back intact. This was serious. Twice Larry had to clear out some sort of nest. He was getting pissed. This wasn't an easy task, to remove this stuff, it was packed into the smallest areas (the poor little thing probably didn't want to get a draft in his house).

I decided to get involved. I made a mixture of hot peppers, hot sauce vinegar and salt and poured it around the area where Larry had seen the chipmunks walk.

The next day the chipmunks chewed through the asphalt near the garage. They didn't liek my concoction I guess. They had tunnels all over. We found chipmunk holes all around the garage and carport.

Inside the Mini the nest was back, only worse. Now there were gnaw marks on the area where they entered. They were clearly pissed at us. This was getting serious. We needed to bring in heavy artillery.

We did our research. We checked with Environmental folks who suggested some kinds of traps, you know, the "humane" way to rid yourself of Mother Nature's little friends (they're sure not MY friends by this time).

We spent time trying all the humane things. The chipmunks watched us and laughed. Finally, when the chipmunks started to throw things at us (ok, ok I'm exaggerating.. but I swear if they could have they'd have flung something at us when we went outside) we had enough.

I went to the hardware store and bought the dreaded, "Rodent Trap", no odor, no blood, it said. I bought some organic peanut butter, figuring if this was to be their last meal I'd give them something nutritious. I set the trap, the way the instructions said to do it and placed it against the wall. All the time thinking, "I don't' want to do this but you've left me no choice".

Two days went by and there was nothing trapped. I was kind of glad about that. I didn't care that I spent $10 on this plastic trap that didn't work. It was almost like giving them a fighting chance.

The next day, I slowly walked out to the carport. I peeked around the potting bench, hoping the trap was still set...The trap was closed on top of the head of a chipmunk...dead. As I was standing there wondering what to do with the thing, feeling all kinds of remorse for doing this awful deed, a chipmunk ran over my foot. I screamed and said, "THAT'S IT, YOU ALL DIE!!"

That's how it happened. I became a murderer. I still think they're taking out revenge against us for displacing them so many years ago... So the war rages on and I'm on the front lines. If they would move away I'd leave them alone, but until they do....it's "The Jaws of Death" for them....

2010-05-04T16:11:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've written anything on this thing, for several reasons. The first being I didn't have anything to say. The second, because I didn't feel like doing anything remotely linked with the word, work.

Today however I had a thought about something a friend spoke about. So here I am thinking on screen as opposed to on paper or in my mind. Sometimes I think it's good to see your words in print. For some reason it makes them seem real and worthy of the attention of yourself, and maybe others.

My friend saw a news story about some young people who were arrested for vandalism in her community. One of the folks arrested was a student from our Alma Mater. She asked if I thought she should contact the young woman, since she is a student at our college. My immediate reaction was, "Sure". But then thought better of that.

After reflection, I decided to read the news article and watch the surveillance video of the alleged event. My gut was saying one thing, but I wasn't sure if I was correct or not. My gut has a habit of putting the cabash on things, and it's usually correct.

The article spoke about the amount of damage done to businesses and vehicles parked along the sides of the down town area. There were 11 arrests. Most of the charges were misdemeanors but there were 3 pending felony charges. I don't know if the felony charges will hold, but who knows in this day and age.

The video clearly shows the group traveling through the down town area, throwing things through windows and generally wrecking things in their wake. Supposedly they were yelling unintelligible things as well, but there was no sound on the video.

This was supposed to be some sort of action for May Day. Although, I'm not sure what was being protested, nor, did it seem, did anyone else know.

What I did see was a bunch of people, dressed in black, under cover of darkness doing some stupid things to the property of others. If I had been a person in the vicinity of this "mob" I would have been frightened.

My question is this, if you want to protest something, why not do it when people are around and the sun is shining so everyone can see and hear your protest. Why do you have to be "Ninja Protesters" if that's what you're doing?

These weren't kids either. Most were college students in their 20's. I protested things when I was a college student as well, but not in the dark, wearing dark clothes so no one could see me. I also carried signs that explained my position and it was in the daytime so people could read what I was pissed about.

My friend wanted to reach out and contact this young woman who was a student of our former Alma Mater. She felt she wanted her to know there were friends in the area. I did not agree after viewing the video and reading the article. I think the girl was part and parcel of a bunch of rich kids without enough to do. I don't give them anything but disgust at their behavior.

As I stated before, if you want to protest something, do it in the daytime. This is vandalism and vandalism alone. There was nothing to protest by them, but there sure was a lot to protest from the folks who's property they damaged. Let's get things into perspective.

Let's Make a Deal

2010-04-07T16:16:00.000-07:00

Have you purchased a new mattress lately? I haven't, but I have to get a new one now. I think it's time. I'm getting tired of wrapping the broken spring that's sticking out of the side of the mattress with duct tape. Now don't get me wrong, the duct tape works, and it sort of matches the duvet cover I have on the bed...However, this morning I scraped along the side of the bed and felt my skin tear as I hit the broken spring. I looked down and sure enough there was blood...It's time to do something about it...

Whenever I buy something new I do research to find out about the purchase I'm about to buy. Mattresses used to be pretty east to buy. You went into a furniture store and the salesman showed you two or three sets, you laid on top of them and said, "OK I'll take this one". You gave him your money and the thing was delivered in a couple of days. There weren't many kinds to choose from. There was usually the manufacturer, Sealy and some unknown name. The Sealy was more expensive, but then they also had the word, "Posturpedic" attached to the name. There were no choices of color, style or any other of the myriad things there seems to be today. Who knew you had to get a PhD in "mattress-ology" to purchase one today, but it seems you do.

I had an idea of what I felt was a fair price. I knew I needed a firm mattress and I thought it would be a piece of cake to get a mattress that would fit my needs. Not that easy, I found out...

Armed with my notebook, pens, sticky notes and an assortment of flyer's, I walked into the first "mattress store". Walking into a store that specialized in mattresses only was my first mistake. I almost fainted when I saw the prices on the mattresses in the front of the store. I first one I saw had a "sale" price of $2,600.00. That was just the mattress. That price did not include the box spring, sorry, I meant to say, "foundation". (apparently I showed my ignorance by calling the box thing that goes under the mattress something that only idiots call by the name of "box spring". So shoot me?!?)

Honestly, I had a rough time speaking to this guy, my eyes were still glued to the price on the sticker. I had to ask the guy what could possibly make this mattress worth so much money. He laughed as he "educated" me in the finer points of mattresses...

Little did I know that mattresses were based on the number of "coils", whether or not the "coils" were wrapped or not, the "loft" of the fabric, and the foam content. That was just the beginning of the education. Who knew? I thought my research was pretty complete when I walked into the store, but I was sorely mistaken.

The gentleman was very patient with me as I asked questions I thought were pertinent to the purchase of this big rectangular thing made of cotton, foam and metal springs. I mean honestly, the bottom line is they're all made with the same materials, it's just how they're put together and what name is one the top that makes the price. Oh, and of course, how much money the company has spent on marketing the product. I think the reality is, that's why some are so much more expensive, they are marketed to the hilt, so someone has to pay the advertising costs.

By the time I left the stores that first adventure into "mattress-land", I was thoroughly discouraged. I had laid on about 25 mattresses, fell asleep on 1 of them, (the salesman let me rest to see how I liked it. He came back a few minutes later to wake me up, I was snoring so loud the other sales man couldn't hear his customer on the phone. I think that's the mattress I should have bought that day, but true to my way of shopping I had to check a few other places).

I went home with enough paperwork, flyer's and salesman's business cards to wallpaper my bathroom. I arranged all the paperwork and by process of elimination I narrowed my choices down to two sets, from the same store.

A couple of weeks went by, it was time to jump in and buy the mattress. I went to the store, grabbed the salesman, said, "I was here a couple weeks ago. You gave me some information, I'm now here to buy this mattress". He looked at me and said, "Oh right, the lady who fell asleep..." . I sort of wished he'd have remembered my red hair or some thing other than the fact that I snored so loud I had the whole freaking store laughing....but alas, it was not to be. He did remember me, I guess that was what counted.

Of course the mattress I wanted was out of stock now, so I was back to square one. The salesman was really cool about it. He found a similar mattress gave me a "Breathe-Rite Strip" ( you know the things you put on your nose to stop you from snoring?) and said he's come back to see how I liked this one.

I wasn't sure if I should be offended or not. I did think it was thoughtful he had one of the no-snore strips, but on the other hand I wondered if I had set some kind of precedent in the store....

Why?

2010-03-06T06:59:00.000-08:00

This is a plea to ask folks if it's just me, or am I one of thousands?

Right now I'm fit to be tied. My stomach is in knots and I took a "happy" pill to calm my nerves....I think I'm an intelligent woman but I just don't understand men. I've lived with one most of my life, between my Dad and now my husband of 43 years.....I should know all about the species, but I don't.

What I'm alluding to is the fact that the one I'm married to won't stand up and say something if anyone if he's unhappy about something. Oh...he'll say something to me about it, but confrontation between him and the person he should be talking to doesn't happen.....Instead he acts as though everything is fine and life is great...With a little laugh and a smile.

What's that all about? Now, if I was analyzing this, I would have to say this is a man who has kept his true feelings inside all his life. I would point out that life for him is in two houses. One house has the man who everyone sees, good natured, happy, friendly, an all round good guy. He doesn 't make any waves as he goes about his daily business. Never would anyone think he was anything but what his facade shows.

Now, in the other house lives a man who is angry. He's angry at everything and anything. He sits in his chair yelling at the TV. He slams papers down in frustration. He looks at the neighbors houses and says they're all a bunch of idiots and wishes they would die. Just their presence in the neighborhood makes him angry. He loves movies but won't go to them because he hates all the people that attend the movie. He finds something wrong in the house, usually something that has been remodeled or changed in some way, and he seethes on the problem until he can't speak about it at all. He badgers me to "call those people and get them here to fix this". When I do, and they come, he won't come out of his room to speak to them. When I ask if he wants to talk to them he says, "Why, I can't say anything that you haven't already said." He then calls me and tells me to ask questions of the guys repairing the stuff. I tell him he should ask the questions himself and he gives me looks that would melt glaciers.

When the repair guys leave, he's all over the repairs, usually not happy about the repairs. Then the yelling starts about, "Today's shoddy workmanship, the young workers who don't know jack shit (by the way, what's "jackshit?")" and the fact that he feels he's been personally screwed.

When I read Dennis the Menace in the newspapers I think Mr. Wilson and my husband have much in common. I've taken on the role of the ever understanding Mrs. Wilson who tolerates the miserable curmudgeon Mr. Wilson with a smile and a "yes, Dear".

If I understand this behavior correctly, I think it's just a way to express emotions. It's not to be taken with great seriousness. I think my job is to nod my head up and down and say, "Yes, Dear", then go on my way smiling.

I've learned over the years not to take on the attitude and moods of others, so I don't. The problem with that is, I get told I'm unfeeling and cold. So be it.

I come from a long line of folks who call a spade a spade. We don't gloss over things and try to make people "like us" by saying what they want to hear. I tell it as I see it, for better or worse.

Most of the time what I see from this man is a person who will not confront anyone mildly. His idea of confrontation must take on the form of fighting, arguing, anger and frustration. He loses his temper because he stuffs his feelings in all the time, then explodes. No one but me sees that side. Although, lately others have seen cracks in the veneer, so they know he's not all sugar and smiles.

We'll see what's to happen in the next year or so....things are not pretty right now and I'm getting very tired.......

Oh well...just another bother.....

Snake Oil and Charms

2010-02-17T09:42:00.000-08:00

If you're alive, a woman, and of a certain age you've been to a craft fair....The ones that are supposed to be the best are the ones advertised as, "Juried" shows. Down here in "God's Waiting Room" (Gulf Coast of Florida) there are tons of these shows. Most of them are the same vendors going from city to city with their little tents and canopies selling their wares to the same people that have seen the same ^%$# before at the other fairs they've gone to down here...But...sometimes you get a bit surprised, that happened today.

The town we stay in was blown off the face of the Earth several years ago with Hurricane Charlie. You can still see signs of damage and the place isn't back to normal yet. The damage was extensive and they lost many of the tourist trap places that brought folks to the area each winter. Consequently, they try all sorts of things to promote the City. There are art shows, wine tastings, evening walk abouts, Arts and culture events (not much art and the culture? well I'm sure they're trying.....). This is the second year they've sponsored a "juried" arts and crafts fair.

Everything here starts in the morning. I guess the old folks like to go and get home before lunch so they can eat, take their naps, have some cocktails, eat dinner, go to bed, then do the same thing again the next day...that is if they haven't gotten killed in a car wreck in the meantime....

I decided to see what this thing was all about. I went alone, because Larry would rather watch paint dry than walk around looking at crafty things. The weather down here has been windy and cold, I knew the place would be quiet. It was. I was the only "live" shopper at the time I arrived. Oh, there were other people there, but I'm not sure they were really "alive".

There were the usual things to see, but there were some very different things as well. A pleasant surprise. I was approached by a woman who dragged me to her booth to look at her wares. She was selling, selling hard mind you, some kind of lotions she guaranteed I would look 20 years younger if I used them...hmmm...snake oil??hmmm...

I let her go through her speech and watched as she smoothed on this lotion stuff on the back on one hand. She spoke to me the whole time she massaged my hand. After about 5 minuted I looked at my hand and it was devoid of all wrinkles and spots....The other hand looked like my grandmother's hand...What could I do? I had to buy the stuff so both my hands looked as thought they came on the same person.....I spent $25.00 on this stuff and ran like Hell away from her before she could get me into her spell again.....

I ran from "snake oil lady" directly into "gadget man". This guy had me mesmerized in 10 seconds flat....He was pushing some kind of grater-scraper thing and a bunch of other "must have" gadgets. Luckily he wasn't as persuasive as "snake oil lady" I only bought one thing from him.....

By that time I was lighter by about $60. and figured I had to make a bee line to my car before I started to turn out my pockets and give them lint....One last person got hold of me and sold me a tee shirt, that said "Group Therapy" it had pictures of my favorite cocktails on the front and a tiny little Martini glass on the back..How could I walk away from that?

All the stuff is in my suitcase...Larry will never know...

The Waiting Room

2010-02-17T09:15:00.000-08:00

I'm down here in "God's Waiting Room" on the west coast of Florida. I swear each year when I come down here I think it'll be the last...Not that I'm planning on kicking off, but I'm sure I'm going to be killed by some old, really old, shouldn't be driving old, person behind the wheel of a car they can barely see over.....honest.

Coming down here gets us out of the worst part of the winter in the north, but this year I think we brought it with us.... We've seen some pretty odd get-ups on the folks walking around trying to stay warm. The folks at the Goodwill have people coming in there asking if they can "rent" warm clothing. They don't want to buy, just rent....

One lady walking around the Farmer's Market in Punta Gorda had on a ?fur? coat...Now I have to tell you, if I was to guess as to what kind of fur it was I'd have to say, something that should have kept it's coat because it was really bad looking. I followed her around, not so she'd think I was a stalker but long enough to see that the thing she had on her body was a cloth coat (with moth holes) and a fur thing over the top of the coat...It was a black background and the fur stuff was white, gray and black.

As she walked she left a wake of fur balls and strands of something that didn't look natural. Now honestly I'm not being catty, there were other folks looking at her as well. When I got closer to her I noticed she was very old. I'm thinking the coat thing was probably something she got as a present....when she was living in an Igloo in Iceland.

Most of the folks are smart enough to wear layers of clothing and understand the weather is a bit erratic this year. Other folk though, I'm sure they have no idea what they look like when they leave their homes.....

Water, water everywhere...but not a drop to drink!!

2010-01-18T19:45:00.000-08:00

Anger Management

2010-01-10T16:01:00.000-08:00

The title is "Anger Management". That's what this blog is about, anger management. Thank God I have somewhere to vent, yell and generally rant about things that are getting to me....

Again, it's the news. I stopped watching the news when I found myself yelling like Archie Bunker at the anchors who were reading the news articles. I intellectually understand that they are the mouths of the writers, but it's kill the messenger as far as I'm concerned.

Tonight was a prime example of why I don't purposely watch the (expletive deleted) news......As I walked by the TV I heard another story that immediately sent my blood to boiling levels. It seems that someone has defaulted on their home mortgage payments and the bank is trying to foreclose. However, some financial blood sucker has given the homeowners perhaps a round about way to get some of the money they owe from the Feds...(that's you and me...if you didn't realize it....)(not that these folks were ever really the homeowners -the bank gave them the money to live in the house with a contract that clearly stated..."I promise to pay the money back with the interest you are asking for"...got it?).

Here's the deal....The people that bought something that ended up being more than they could pay for, can try to get the Feds to go to bat for them to get the bank to reduce the principal on the mortgage. Then the bank can refinance the new amount to reduce the mortgage payment. The bank can then file for some kind of payment from the Feds (you and me....) to get some, if not all, of the loss they are taking by allowing the principal to be reduced. The bank won't be out so much money, the original mortgagee gets a reduction and we (the tax payer) get the shaft.

What really gets to me about this kind of thing is, some people think this is a great solution to the ongoing mortgage defaulting problem. How is it great? Someone has to pay, and so many folks think the Feds will be paying for this, and they're right....but the Feds need money to do that and guess who gets the tab??? Better start looking around for a second or third job, you need to find some extra money to give to the Feds so they have enough to give to the banks. Oh wait, I have a better idea....

Here's what we all have to do.....Starting tomorrow, all of us need to open a bank account and put money in it....I don't care if you have to sell your blood to get the money....or maybe a kidney...whatever it takes....Then people that can't afford to pay for their house, even though they agreed contractually to pay for it, can forget the middle man and call you or me up and tell us to send them the money we put in the account....Just think how much easier that would be for everyone....

Here's another idea....since social security is not giving seniors a cost of living increase for this year (or next, for that matter) but the Congress got a small raise (hmmm...sounds a bit skewed...or is it just me.....) there must be masses of money sitting in a "slush fund" down there in Washington waiting for someone to ask for "help" to pay the bill they "contracted" to pay....

Don't be telling me that there are masses of Greedy Geezers out there just waiting for a handout from the Feds. I see more of the type that need every dollar they get from the Feds in the form of monthly social security payments to stay alive.

For that matter, I'd be satisfied if the Congress got the same retirement bennies that most of us not in politics get. I want them on Social Security, Medicare, and all the other fantastic, "make us wealthy" (not) systems that most of us are on right now. Yes, I know there are some Seniors out here that are making money from their investments and don't need the benefits from the Feds that everyone else clearly needs, but the system doesn't, and never did, exclude people because they made too much money.

I get angry with this kind of thing I hear on the news because we live in a house that we own. We started out with nothing, worked like horses, saved money on things and didn't live above our means. We paid the mortgage off early because we made sacrifices that I don't see people today willing to make. Our kids learned what it meant to earn money to have things they wanted. They weren't given things, we all earned what we had. We didn't have credit cards, consequently we didn't have an over abundance of "stuff".

The folks in the news report were living in a house that I'd love to have, but I can't afford that kind of house, nor could I ever afford that kind of house. The reality is, if you can't afford to pay for something, you shouldn't have it.

I remember when I was a kid thinking, "If ever I get to the end of the week and there's $20 left in my wallet, then I'll know I'm wealthy". Now, I'd have to say there has to be a bunch of $100's. The problem is, I don't have any cash in my wallet, I have credit cards...but I pay them off every month.....

I know there are lots of folks out there that must use the credit cards to get through to the next paycheck, but I wonder how many of those same folks would be willing to write down every cent they spend every day for two weeks, to see where they could tighten up a bit. It's way too easy to use the plastic, and it becomes a habit for all of us.

I now know I'm old...I'm talking like my parents did and other older folks I listened to as a kid growing up. I used to think they were nuts and didn't know what it was like to live in the "real world", but now I realize that it was me who didn't know what the real world was, and didn't find out until I was old, like them.

oh well......

12/31/2009

2009-12-31T19:55:00.000-08:00

I promised someone I would write a blog on the last day of the year and I have about an hour, so here I go.

I must say, I won't miss 2009. It's been a pretty strange year. We've been lucky. We're at an age where the economic crisis didn't affect us as much as many of our neighbors. We went through our rough times when we were in our 20's and 30's so I guess we all have to go through some rough patches to learn how to deal with adversity. No one told us life wasn't fair, we all just assumed it was, and when bad things happened we blamed whomever was closest at hand...

2009 was a year of doctors, dentists, pharmacies, and therapies of all sorts. I won't miss the ass end of the year, and I look forward to 2010 being better than the last year. But honestly, whatever it brings, it will be my decision how to accept it.

A long time ago I learned that I have choices in my life. In the morning I can wake up and say, "Oh my God, what a crappy day" or I can say, "OK this is the first day of the rest of my life and I'm going to make it a good day". It's my own choice. I know it sounds all phony and fake, but it's really the truth.

The happiest people I know are those that are not millionaires. They're the folks that love life, all of life. They don't wait for good things to happen to them, they go out and make the good things happen. They don't have all the newest and greatest of things and material wealth, they have love and cheer in their lives.

Most of us in this country have more than we need. Some need more to make their lives easier, but if anyone in this country wants to get ahead, there are ways to achieve it. You have to be willing to accept less and do more. It's not hard to understand that, but it is hard to accept it as your lot.

I am in the middle of a "semi-crisis" within my extended family. None of the crisis will affect me in any way at all, but I have been asked to look at some affidavits and records and give a synopsis of the problem as I see it. It's not unusual for me to take on this role as confidant, but this is a bit more than I need to know.

I bring this up because the reason for the problem that exists with this family member is all about greed, and the need to have more than they were entitled to have.

For some reason, we in this country, (and look in the mirror, because I don't know many American citizens that don't fit this description) seem to think if we want something, we should have it. Some of us realize we can't have everything right away, but by damn, if we want it we'll get it. I'm not talking about some gazillion dollar doo-dad, I'm talking about something that may be a bit of a stretch for us in this paycheck, but we'll figure out a way to get whatever it is at our earliest opportunity.

The extended family member wanted it all, and now. They did something that was not legal to embezzle millions (think ENRON) and they got caught, not as quick as they should have, but finally were caught. Now, it's "hang your head down and beg for mercy time"...I don't think so...it's not going to happen. It's big time jail time and rightly so. They had the same choices that you and I had and chose to take from someone else, so they could buy the cars, houses, businesses, more houses, more cars, go on extended trips and say it was all because of a large inheritance...yeah..right...

They will pay dearly for the fun in the sun they once had, but will never have again. I hope they liked all the great road trips they took in the hotsy-totsy cars they had, it will be a cold day in Hell before that happens again. Life will go on for them, but not the life they had, nor the life they could have had if they had made better choices when they woke up that first day they decided to take what wasn't theirs to take.

It's about choices in life, and I think we all need to remember that we are our own destiny and the choices we make today will most definitely affect us tomorrow. Everything we do has some affect on us at some point in our lives. I could say it's Karma, but it's really Physics....If you push one way, something has to fall away from the push some other way. What goes around, comes around...Watch those choices....they could well put you away for many years.......That's the truth...

Good Bye 2009

2009-12-02T16:18:00.000-08:00

Do you think the whole month of December will be about Tiger Woods and his paramours? Do you really care? Who the Hell cares? I think it's nuts.

When I heard the first murmurs about the "car accident" I was concerned about the guy. Then I heard a bit more... I said to husband Larry, "You know what I think? He took off out of the house for his life...yep...he did something that the big Viking heard about and she's pissed". Larry thought I was nuts and said, "No, not Tiger". I looked at him and said, "What? He's a man, he's got tons of money, with money comes power. Those are the things that women look for when they're on the prowl. You can't honestly think that any guy who thinks he can get away with it would say, 'Please leave me alone...I don't want to hurt your feelings, but I'm married and I can't betray my wife'. All this as she's grabbing him and probably hanging over him with her bodacious tatas hanging out.

"What? Are you nuts? He's been doing the deed and not with his wife. She found out and slapped him silly. He ran out for his life". Larry wasn't convinced, he thought I was a vindictive nasty thinking woman...he's right on that of course.

So for a day Larry thought I was nuts...then the story starts to unravel. Lo, and behold, it seems that Mr. Woods has indeed had some indiscretions in the past. Not nice, Mr. Woods, now you know what it's like when big blond Vikings get pissed. If this marriage lasts, I'll bet he's going to be a good boy for a looong time.

2009 has been a year I want to forget. Honest. There's been so many dumb things that have happened, I'm glad it's almost over, I've had it.

Ever notice we all go through these cycles. It might be a series of illnesses, or maybe everything you touch falls apart in your hands, or it could be that every appliance in your home decides to die at once. It happens to everyone...but not at the time it's happening to you. No, you're going through some kinds of craziness and everyone else is eating bon-bons.

I thought when I got to this age I'd be cool, no problem, I can handle everything and still keep on going strong. Not.... I'm tired and not physically. I'm tired of watching the same three news stories every night...some kind of frenzied news reporter telling me with sensationalism that the world is coming to an end...and soon. If I change the station, another 10 year old looking news person (got to be P.C. you know) will be telling me the same story, only this time with a different and probably more sensational spin on the story.

I thought this year was one of the worst for news reporting. I think if you pitted the crucifixion of Jesus Christ against the death of Michael Jackson, Jackson would be the clear winner in the news reporting category. One day, all the channels on my TV has something about the Jackson death at the same time, even the weather channel (I didn't check the golf channel...but then that was before the Tiger story so who knows what they were reporting on).

Between deaths, illnesses, lousy TV reporting, and an assortment of other weird and strange things, this year will be a pleasure to see go.

I do have some things to be thankful for however, I wrote the NaNoWriMo book (74523 words) and I have a new grand baby coming any minute now...so I guess the end of the year was pretty good...I don't know if it made up for the rest of the year though....

Where is everybody?

2009-11-27T07:53:00.000-08:00

It's the day after Thanksgiving, "Black Friday". My neighborhood is quiet, deathly quiet. I can't believe what I'm thinking, but there's really no other explanation for it...They've gone to all the sales. Imagine that?

The last time I woke up early to go to a store was over 20 years ago, and the only reason I did that was because I had to open the store. It was a frantic, ridiculous thing. I arrived at the place at 4:00 a.m. The place had to be opened at 5:00.

When I got there, there was a line of people waiting to get into the store. They had blankets, chairs, and snacks. I still think about it and wonder why they thought it was so important to be there to get the sale on the piece of junk that would end up in a dump not long after this all important waiting game.

When my kids were younger I would try to get to the sales, but I didn't go nuts. It wasn't that important to me to get things for $10 or $20 dollars less than the regular price. I didn't, and still don't understand the mind set that seems to permeate through this society.

Why do we think everyone has to have the newest, biggest, greatest and best new piece of junk? I think back to the days of the Cabbage Patch Doll frenzy, and wonder where those dolls are today. I'm betting they're in a dump somewhere, at least the majority of them.

Then, remember the Beanie Baby frenzy? I do. I bought a couple because they were cute and put them on my desk to humor kids who came in. I swear those things started to breed. A few days after I brought in the couple I bought, there were more added to them. After a short time I had to buy a storage shelf for them. Customers and clients kept bringing them to me. They spilled over the filing cabinets and onto another desk. I gave them away to kids who came in, but that just seemed to make them breed faster.

One morning I arrived at the office to find a policeman waiting for me. We had been robbed in the night. The officer asked me to look around and see if anything was missing. I went into the office and noticed the only thing missing I could see was the Beanie Babies. Can you believe that someone broke into the office and stole Beanie Babies? They did. They took some other stuff as well, but the majority of the theft was those bean filled animals.

In a way I was kind of glad. They were getting out of hand. I had too many in the office and I couldn't stand them all. I still have some of them in my house today, but I keep them separated so they won't breed.

I hope my neighbors are getting good deals today. Gosh, I wouldn't want them to be losing out on any little doodads that someone else will get. Something like that would be so sad...

I think people are nuts, and at this time of year they really show their nutsiness most.

O.F.T.

2009-09-23T05:54:00.000-07:00

So, the title is O.F.T.. Want to know what that stands for? Old Farts Travel...

You can sit there and laugh and your younger self can think, "What the Hell is she talking about?" Guaranteed though, some of the "more mature" of the readers will understand and take pity.

Let me enlighten you to the "fun" of old farts travel. You decide you're going somewhere, anywhere, it doesn't make much difference if it's far away or a day trip, the drill is pretty much the same.

You go to bed the night before trying to remember all the stuff you must take for the upcoming trip. If it's a day trip it's not as bad, but gees, if it's a trip that you'll need a suitcase, God help you...

Recently Larry and I went on a Fossil Bus tour (read below if you don't know what that is). We were really in trouble the very first moment of the day we were going on the %^&$ bus. Our bus left the meeting site at 5:30 am. The last time we left that early for something we didn't go to bed the night before knowing full well if we did it wouldn't be a pretty sight for anyone who saw us that early in the morning. We should have remembered that.

Larry has a routine in the morning that CAN NOT BE MODIFIED or else life as we know it will cease to exist. I hear him get up and I pull the covers over my head. I know better than to rise at the same time as he. It's either get up earlier than him, or wait until the coast is clear to get up after him. There is no exception...usually.

His day starts as follows: You hear him swing his legs off the bed with a resounding "THUD!!". Then the expletives start..."Holy #$%^, jesum-h-christo, life sucks, omigod, %^&$#, whatthehell....oh gees, freakin'foot^&%$%, (now mind you this is all before he stands up). Then you hear the movement to the bathroom (it's not walking...it's kind of a shuffle with a bunch of expletives thrown in for good measure). The bathroom must have some kind of hidden agenda because the room gets a slap as he walks through the door. I'm still under cover at this point so I'm not sure what's going on, and I'll be damned sure I'm not getting out of my blanket fort to check it out....I know when I'm safe.

After a couple of minutes, I hear the toilet flush (a good sign... there is life and the toilet hasn't been demolished in the morning "hate") then the "clomp, clomp. clomp" sound of heavy footfall down the hallway. Our hallway is short, but honest to God you'd think it was the length of the corridors on the way to "old Sparky" to be electrocuted.

When he gets into the kitchen, he hits the button on the coffee pot...(thank all that's holy for that invention). He ambles into the living room where he drops into his chair...The TV goes on and he waits with half opened eyes until the coffee pot extends its welcomed hand toward him in the form of coffee scent...

OK you have the idea. Now, put all that in your mind and imagine what it's like when you have to be somewhere early in the morning. Do you think the sight is pretty? Do you think it's easy to get out the door in time?

I usually have everything I need in a pile on the table. I take time a day or so before to assemble the necessary items I'll need. No sweat. Larry however, has a different approach. He waits until the last minute to decide he wants something to wear that was stored in the cellar last fall... You get the idea. He has gotten better as he's aged, but there's still something that won't be where he wants it, when he wants it and it will be the worst thing that's ever happened to anyone ever, ever, ever. I don't buy into that, by the way. I go on my merry way getting myself ready.

In the past we could grab stuff, put it into a back pack and be on our way. We had sports cars so we couldn't take much stuff anyway, but we didn't need much. However, times have changed. When we go any place these days we're looking at plastic bags filled with patent meds, lots of patent meds. In the bag (which we have one always at the ready now-you know "grab-n- go") we have: aspirin, ibuprofen, salon pas (stick on liniment pads), tums, q-tips, Maalox, moleskin patches, nail file, tiny scissors, a pillbox (filled with enough meds we can sell on the street for big bucks if we find we need money???why???), eye drops, tucks pads (if you don't know what they're for you're too young to be reading this) and an assortment of other "necessities".

With the bag and at least one change of clothes we're ready, almost, to go. Then there's the question...do I need a jacket? do I need a sweatshirt? What if I spill something on myself, I may need a different shirt, oh gee, if I bring a different shirt, I'll need other pants, should I bring another pair of undies? The list goes on...

When you think everything is correct, you're ready to leave, after you go to the bathroom again... and that dear friends is a shortened version of Old Farts Travel...

I'm walking on Egg Shells

2009-09-22T16:23:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had days when you knew you should have stayed in bed, but were too stupid to listen to yourself? I don't know why I'm asking that, because I know you have had days like the ones I've had lately.

Through no fault of my own, and that's not the usual case, I seem to be in some weird dimension that revels in making my life a living Hell. Since the past weekend I have had some of the strangest things happen to me and all I'm doing is breathing. Honest, all I've done is breathe. I haven't tried to alienate folks, but I have. I haven't tried to hurt myself, physically, but I have. I haven't tried to make people uncomfortable in my presence, but apparently my being alive is enough to put some ill at ease.

Now, maybe some folks would think this weird ability I seem to have attained is a positive asset. Maybe some would think I have control over others just because I'm breathing, but I have to tell you, I'm not crazy about this feeling as though I'm walking on egg shells. For the next few days I'm planning on staying either in my house, or when I do go out, I'm going to keep my mouth shut. Keeping my mouth shut is going to be rough, but I must do it, either that or find a nunnery somewhere I can stay for a while.

I have to go to a funeral tomorrow. A friend passed away unexpectedly, and I sort of wonder if this may be the reason for the strange events of the past few days. I'm not really into the "woo-woo" stuff but I'm beginning to wonder about some of it.

Oh well, one day at a time, I guess.......

Fossil Buses

2009-09-18T16:47:00.000-07:00

If you Goggle "Fossil Bus" I think you get some buses doing archaeological research and some video tape of kids on a school bus, although I don't get that one...

The Fossil Buses I'm talking about are neither of those. No, I'm talking about the buses filled with Senior Citizens going on "adventures" to places they don't want to drive to, or can't go on their own, or don't want to go on their own. There's a definite place for these buses, but I have to tell you, it's a mind blower the first time you go on one.

We went down to NY city on one....I saw the trip advertised in the paper. It was inexpensive, going to a place we wanted to go to, and I knew some of the folks on the bus.

The bus trip was organized by a Senior Citizen group and it was...a bit different. I am a Senior Citizen. I know I'm old. I know I don't do things the way I did them in the past, but I don't think I'm quite old enough for Fossil Buses, yet.

I enjoyed the trip. We had a good time but, and you knew there had to be a but, I have a difficult time going on a bus with few folks I know, listening to horror medical stories about colons, gall bladders, lower intestines, stomach, pancreas, prostate, breasts and vaginal discharges. All spoken about with laughter and jokes...

OK, admittedly, these topics were common ground, but honest to God I thought I'd gone through to another dimension and came out in "Hospital-land". You'd think conversations about poop would be discussed quietly, if at all, but not this bunch. There was a discussion on one side of the bus about the best anti-diarrhea meds. On the other side the discussion was about constipation and how eating prunes wasn't the best method to alleviate the problem these days. At the same time I heard all about someones colonoscopy and the polyps that showed up. The answering comment included a dissertation about colostomy bags and where you could get the supplies almost wholesale (I'm shelving that for future reference).

When it wasn't about poop, and all it's facets, the topic morphed into the surgeries they have had, their spouses have had, they were going to have or someone else's surgery. Then it went to the Doctors they had. Who the Docs were. What their specialty was and how many divorces the Docs racked up...

I learned more on that bus trip about my neighbors colons and breasts than I really needed to know. The Docs, well I would've liked to hear more about the divorces and the rest of the gossip I couldn't hear. Next time I'm going to bring one of those ear phone things that make the conversations around you easier to hear... I think I missed some really good tidbits of info...

Why write?

2009-09-02T10:41:00.000-07:00

Look, I will admit I like to gamble. I like the adrenaline rush of a winning hand or the sight of the numbers rolling the way I want and I'll admit it, I like the sound of the one armed bandits as they spin. I don't go into a casino with much money, only the amount I'm willing to lose that day.

The problem is, a casino of sorts opened less than 2 miles from my house. Knowing how I like the adrenaline and the sounds, I stayed away at first. Slowly I learned more about the place, so I decided to check it out.

It's one of those normal looking casino places, all glittery, noisy, people bustling around, officials and floor personnel walking the gauntlet of aisles searching for people either in distress or people getting ready to take a sledge hammer to the machines. It wasn't different from any other gambling establishment I've been to.

I've been going on and off since the place opened. I don't go everyday, but I go at least a couple times a month. The most I've ever brought in with me is $50.00, that's big spending to me. I play certain games that make me laugh or I try to figure out how they work. After that I leave.

Every month I get a flyer from the casino. It's as if there's some subliminal message on the page trying to entice me to go more often. Usually the flyer gives me some incentive to go into the place to get free "something". I don't pay for food there since they give me free points if I bring the coupons in that are on the flyer.

I've written before about the people I see in the Casino. The majority are o-l-d. I'll bet the average age in the "neighborhood" casino is 75. Sure, there are others who are younger, but honest most are old, in wheel chairs, those blasted scooters, walkers, with oxygen, canes, braces, you name it.

I have no problem with older folks, Hell, I'm one of them myself, but some of them shouldn't be in there with all those people.... Their sneezing, coughing, choking, grunting as they sit with the glazed over look in their eyes, hitting buttons on a damned machine.

My friends are concerned that I have a "gambling problem". Maybe I do, but I think, like the older folks I see, it's a "boredom" problem. Most of the folks I see in the casino are passing time. That's all. I know all of them want to win that "Big Jackpot in the Sky", but the reality is, if they won it, they'd be back in the casino as soon as they could to hit the buttons on the machine again.

It's time to think about this boredom thing. I need to analyze it...but I'll wait until I get back from the casino........

Is it just me?

2009-08-30T15:51:00.000-07:00

Can someone please tell me what the Hell is happening to us in this country? I'm not talking about politics, this is a general question. I'm really stumped. I'm wondering if I'm the only one who is noticing this stuff and I'm so old I'm out of touch with reality or something.

Today I was in a Dollar Store. I hate the Dollar Stores, but sometimes they have something I want and certainly the price is right, so I cave...

While I was looking for the "must have" thing I wanted, I noticed a woman sitting on the edge of an end cap display. She was crying and I started to walk up to her to ask if I could help. I realized she was on the phone to someone. Now, honestly, I thought she had gotten bad news about a death or something, so I found myself wondering how I could approach her to give her some comfort. I truly felt empathy for her obvious distress.

In my mind there were all kinds of scenarios going through my head. Her Mother, Father, brother, sister, husband had died, was maimed, fell out of an airplane, fell off a roof, was in an accident all kinds of things. While I was going through all the tragedies in my head which would cause this distress, I heard her say, "I've had it with you! I spend my life trying to make sure you have all that you need. I put things off that I need, so you have the resources to do what you want. I'm through". Clearly this conversation was not about the death of a parent or any other family member. I was sure no one had fallen out of an airplane or off a roof. I felt better about that, but then I started to wonder, why anyone would have a conversation like the one I witnessed in the Dollar Store?

What is there about cell phones that make people feel they can bare their souls in public, then look at the people around them with disdain because they're listening to their conversation? For God's sake don't sit on the end cap of a counter having a private conversation in the damned Dollar Store. If you're in a restaurant and you get a call where you have to start to talk about some personal hygeine issues, or health issues, take it away from me...Actually, don't talk on the damned cell phone while you're in the reataurant at all. I you don't have the cell phone on you at all times, is the world going to end>? Are you so important you need to be available 24/7? I think not. Am I wrong?

Cell phones are a great little invention, if they're used correctly. Don't take the damned thing into the restaurants, theatre, or the library. Honestly, I don't want to hear your conversation. If you're having a fight with your significant other, go outside, sit in your car and talk to the jerk, I don't need to hear it. I sure don't want to hear about your sex life. I don't care about it.

When did the cell phone take priority over sitting and speaking face to face with someone. I can't stand it when I'm in a conversation with someone at a restaurant, deep into the conversation and their cell phone rings. What I hate more is when they hold up their hand to me as if to say, "hold on", then they answer the &*^%% cell phone. At that point I have all I can do to sit and "hold on" to my temper. I am obviously not as important to them as the nameless (to me) entity on the *&^%% cell phone.

I'm making a deal with myself as of this moment. When that happens again, I don't care who it is, I'm getting up and leaving the table. I have had it with rudeness, and that's what it is...rude.

We all have our own opinions

2009-07-17T17:02:00.000-07:00

Aldi’s Adventure

I have a bumper sticker on my car that states: Don't like abortion? Don't have one. Seems to be a reasonable statement to me, but I've had several folks stop and challenge me about it. I actually had a problem at a grocery store.

As I left the store I noticed that another car was parked so close to mine I was unable to open the driver's door. I stood and waited until the person came out of the store. As I was standing there I noticed the car was filled with all manner of literature depicting right to life info. Some of the stuff was really offensive and nasty. The back seat was piled high with bibles and some pamphlets that resembled some extreme conservative types of literature.

After a couple of minutes, I noticed a woman coming towards the car and she was Hell bent on getting in my face from the get-go. She angrily stated, "I wanted to make sure YOU couldn't get into your car before I let you know that I DON'T appreciate your bumper sticker…" I thought she was talking about the one that says, "Christianity has Pagan DNA", or maybe it was the one that says, "I haven't been the same since that house fell on my sister",but that wasn't the one she took offense to. No, it was the abortion sticker. She went on a tirade and I just looked at her and said, "Isn't it great, we live in a country where we can all have our own opinions and we don't have to worry about someone trying to shut us down?" She went completely nuts. Unbeknownst to me there was a man on the other side of my car who was listening to the tirade and he stepped in to defend my right to my opinion, and to defend me, while this woman decided to defame my character, my car, my bumper stickers, my clothes...you name it she was on a roll. I just stood there. How the Hell I was able to keep myself from blowing up is beyond me, but I thought at the time that I was witnessing, first hand, a sociology/psychology experiment. I slipped around to the other side of the car, crawled into the driver's side, over the console between my seats and started my car.

The two of them were still going at it tooth and nail. I eased the car out of the parking spot and drove away. I looked into the rear view mirror at the sight of them poking each other with pointed fingers. I just smiled and thought..."oh well..." I choose the battles I fight, and if I see that battle is going to be with someone who's fanatical, I will always retreat to fight another day. Some may find that cowardly, I say its self preservation.

I just can't find it!

2009-06-21T08:11:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this as a public service for those of you that haven't gotten to this point in life. I'm not blaming it on the age thing, because there's more to this than just aging.

This happened to me this morning, so it's fresh in my mind. I'm in the middle, actually the end, of a kitchen remodel. The old kitchen has looked the same for the last 20 or so years. After careful deliberation I decided the whole thing had to be gutted and reconfigured into something for the 21st century and not some vintage 1960's Beaver Cleaver Mom's kitchen. I've been writing about the kitchen remodel and the education I've gotten regarding new kitchen stuff, enlightening, to say the least (also "lightning" my pocketbook at killer speed as well).

Today, while hubby slept, I decided it was time to clean up the appliances. I started with the glass topped stove. I put the polish goop on it and did the best I could. I realized I needed to get one of the scrapers I use to get the little stuck-on stuff off. The problem with that was I couldn't remember where I put the widget thing I use for this purpose.

My search took me into the depths of the garage where all the contractor's tools and equipment is being temporarily stored. I had put all the contents of the old drawers and cabinets in the garage in the interim. As the new cabinets were installed I emptied the boxes holding all the essential contents of the old cabinets into the new ones. Let me tell you this, not everything went into the new cabinets, I had some pretty used up crap I was still holding on to (why? I don't know. You'd think I was raised during the depression...that's the one in the 30's not the one we're currently in... Why we all keep junk is beyond me...). The crap went into the garage sale box (like someone is going to buy this junk?).

I pulled apart every box in the garage. I stood on ladders looking for the stupid thing on the top shelves. Then I decided that &*^% hubby must have seen the thing, moved it to some other spot. I had some very choice words for the man of my former dreams, who at that point was dreaming in his #$%^^&%% bed, as I was looking for the #%$%^&& widget thing to clean my stove.

I went into his work room in the basement. I tore through all the cartons, tool boxes, and shelving. As I did that I began to straighten out the mess down there, finding all kinds of goodies I could use in the new kitchen. I figured if the #$%^& creepy hubby could move or take MY widget, I could appropriate some of his little organizer things. I classified this as the Right of Imminent Domain. I, being the "imminent", "domain" being the new kitchen rehab.

Still not finding the widget, I went into my studio and searched all the nooks and crannies in that hovel. No luck finding the widget thing, (you know what I'm talking about, it's a razor blade in a plastic holder). By this time I was sure when I found the damned thing I'd use it to slit my wrist, or better yet, hubby's, since I KNEW he moved the &^%*@ thing.

Upstairs I trudged, carrying all the new found goodies from the basement work room. My new cabinets are the kind that go to the ceiling. They are really tall, I'm not. I have a convertible chair/ladder that works great for me to climb so I can reach the top cabinet. I almost get a nose bleed on the top stair, but that's OK. The cabinets look cool, so I'll deal with that...

Up on the ladder, I decided to check every cabinet for the offending widget. Peering into the cabinets, I decided they needed to be better organized. When you get something like new cabinets it takes months to finally settle on where things are best suited. There's lots of movement of stuff as the stuff gets settled in it's new home. Nothing is permanent for quite a while.

By now, three hours have passed, trying to find the %$#%&* widget. I could have used: a knife, a razor, a spatula or probably some other utensil, but no, I had to have the &^*^%$$ widget.

I've used every dirty word in my vocabulary. I've called the Father of my children, the love of my life, my best friend, every rotten expletive I know, all over a $2.00 little plastic razor thing. All because I won't use any other thing but that ^%$%$* widget for this job. What's that all about?

I lose things on a regular basis, oh there in the house, they're not lost forever, but when I need them, they're lost. This was different though, I knew HE moved it. I almost gave up looking, grabbed a pot of ice cold water to throw at him in the bed.

As I gave up the quest for the widget to get the pot I was going to fill, a sudden glimmer of remembrance came fleeting through my thought processes...hmmm...I remembered putting the widget thing into a plastic bag, then dropping it into a drawer. I stopped in my pot grab stance, and looked down at the drawers. I opened the bottom drawer, and there in all it's glory was the baggie with the widget. I think I'll go give hubby a little peck on the cheek.......

New age marriage

2009-06-10T03:04:00.000-07:00

I was reading the paper the other morning, there was a story about a young couple getting married in a couple of months. The story was explaining all the ins and outs of the prenuptial aggrement they were writing prior to the upcoming nuptials. This couple weren't celebrities or from families of great wealth, they were regular folks. In fact, they live very close to my home. Is this a trend?

I can understand a pre-nup if you have tons of assetts and you want to protect them, but I think it says something about the younger generation. They go into marriage pretty much thinking it won't last, so they need to protect their stuff from the future partners stuff.

Wow, when I got married I was glad to have a suitcase full of clothing and a toothbrush. I didn't have much of anything else. I don't remember any of my friends worrying about a pre-nup agreement with their future spouses.

I have to laugh at the seriousness of the young folks, maybe I'm naive, but to me they take everything way to serious in their lives. I don't get it. When I was their age the most serious thing I thought about was where I was going to go on the weekend.

I'll have think about this more.....

The kitchen remodel chronicles....

2009-05-30T14:41:00.000-07:00

OK here we are at another episode of the kitchen remodel....

Well so far we have the cabinets in, a microwave that was in but was sent back, and another new one waiting to take it's place (the first one had missing parts- I know that because the contractors called it some very colorful words as they were trying to get the thing into it's new home and in mid install found the factory that made the microwave must have had some "Quality Control" issues the day they sent it out because the damned thing had no hardware attached to it for installation on the cabinets.....The contractors taught me some new words I'm thinking I shouldn't use at my grand kids day care center.....), the granite folks will be here next week to measure the granite and get that here. The house is covered in sawdust and sheet rock dust. We have no counter except a piece plywood over one part. The sink is leaking because a pipe has to be changed but we can't do that until something else comes in (I'm not sure about that....)I have an old Tupperware container catching the drops (a lot like the way I lived in an apartment in the 60's when we had no money to fix anything...Thank God for Tupperware containers. But other than that..the job is coming along nicely...

We are trying to keep everything cool and collected. We each have a set of silverware, a glass and a mug. We're using paper plates mostly, and at times we don't even wash the previous food off the bowls, just wipe it out and reuse.....I've taken to eating my veggies either frozen or out of the can. But it's OK...I'm on a diet anyway.

This remodeling stuff is not my favorite thing to do. I thought it would be fun and a challenge to get all the supplies and make the decisions on the products I was going to use. In fact, some of it has been fun, but more of it has been a drag. I now understand why designers get so much money. There's a lot to do when you remodel, even a small kitchen like the one I have. There are many more details than I realized.

I'm a child of the 60's. Give me a sleeping bag, a cup of tea, bread and cheese, and I should be happy...Yeah...right. I've gotten soft (either that or I've gotten smarter). I want all the cushy things available. I'll pay enormous sums of money to make my life easier. I don't want or need to "prove" how "cool" I can be living off the sticks and twigs of nature. I want all the techno gadgetry available, and I want it in my kitchen.

I've sold out...

So big deal...shoot me...but first let me get a cup of cappuccino.

Kitchen edition continued...part 3

2009-05-23T03:32:00.000-07:00

Who knew there were so many choices of flooring? OK, so I knew there were an huge assortment to chose from, but honest to God, I didn't realize I was stepping into a class I like to refer to as, "Flooring 101" when I walked into the floor store...

The day I bought all the other essentials for this kitchen remodel, I decided I wouldn't go home until I had purchased the flooring. My original plan was to install tile or slate. I didn't want vinyl at all. I have nothing against vinyl, but I figured if I was cutting off one of my arms and legs for this remodel, I may as well go all the way and spring for something a bit more upscale.

I needed something that has some give when you walk on it for the sake of my last leg....I didn't need the pain that's associated with tile and slate. Also, Larry drops lots of things. I swear on all that's holy the statement, "like a bull in a china shop" was written for him (and for that matter his two brothers as well...Do you think it's genetic?). I decided I didn't need to be buying new dishes and glasses every week, and that's what would have happened had I purchased tile or slate.

My success in the faucet store and the tile place gave me the confidence to walk tall and straight into the flooring store. I was ready for whatever was thrown my way...

The colors accosted me when I opened the door. There were all hues of the rainbow screaming at me... Here's where I should tell you something about me and my problem. I have this thing about big box stores and warehouse stores. I get overwhelmed almost to the point of panic in these places of material consumption. I'm pretty simple when it comes to purchasing things. I buy quality stuff so it lasts (forever sometimes...). I like to shop in smaller shops where I don't feel as though I will be absorbed into a pallet of "stuff". I don't like to walk down the aisles of the big warehouse stores and feel like I'm in the Grand Canyon with cliffs all around me waiting to collapse on my head. I hate buying in bulk (although Larry LOVES to buy in bulk. I think I've discussed the "retired guys" transition from working guy to retired guy and their need to buy everything they can in bulk...think 96 rolls of toilet paper, 48 rolls of paper towels and giant bottles of detergents, that I can't lift...). Anyway, the bulk thing gets to me.

This store was all floors: tile, slate, vinyl roll/tile, hardwood, laminate,cork, carpet, bamboo, you name it, they had it. In each category there were subcategories to include everything mankind could think of to make the choice harder. You could choose color, thickness, quality, this was not going to be as easy as the last couple of purchases.

The owner of the shop, seeing my eyes with the "deer in the headlight" look, ambled over to me and gently sat me down at a desk. He asked me what I was looking for in a floor and all the other pertinent questions for making an educated decision on the flooring. The space I have is small so I was limited with some of the stuff in the store, but still there was still a bunch of things to choose from...I was getting that panic feeling...I could feel the heart start to pound, the beads of sweat were beginning to form on my brow, I started to look around for a paper bag in case I started to hyperventilate.

The owner was very helpful and let me collect myself before he proceeded to show me some of the best stuff he had to offer. At this point in the remodel all thoughts of cost have been thrown out the window. I'm at the point of not caring about costs, just get me something to put on the damned floor...To be honest I would love to go away for a month and come back to the job completed and all the stuff put back into the places it belongs. I walk back into the house after my month away and say, "Thank all that's holy, the job is done" and get on with my life. Unfortunately, that's not how you can do a remodel. It's work.

Do I care that some of the flooring comes from the wilds of some country I've never heard of in my life? Actually, I probably know where the country is, but the name has changed so many times I don't know the newest name. Frankly, when I look at a World map I'm still trying to find the Belgium Congo and some of the other African nations who change their names more than I change my socks. It's nice to know where the material comes from, I guess, although I'm not really impressed. My main concern is the floor is something that won't poison me, put me into cardiac arrest, or make me break out into scabs and running sores.

I'm all for "green" and all that, but I'll take something that's not so green...Saying that probably makes me a "bad" person these days, but come on, this is a freaking little 10 x 10 kitchen remodel. If I buy something that's not totally "green" is it going to make that much difference in life in America? I think not.

After careful thought, and understanding what I needed, the owner showed me what I wanted. I bought something that looked like slate, but wasn't. I was 80% "green" (wow) and floated on the floor. I still don't have a clue what that means. When someone says something is floating, all I can think of is a pool with a raft, me on the raft holding a plastic martini glass filled to the brim with vodka and relaxing in the sun. I don't get the concept of a "floating floor". But I bought it.

to be continued....

Kitchen edition continued

2009-05-15T12:40:00.000-07:00

If you read the last blog, you'll know about my kitchen remodel. I've been educated in the finer points of the remodeling gigs. It's not fun.

Some of my friends are laughing at me. Most of them know me well enough to understand I'm just not into the perfect house, perfect decorating, perfect, perfect thing. I don't see the point. If the house is comfortable, clean (at least mostly clean), doesn't have springs poking out from the couch or chairs, has a place to put my tea cup and an ottoman, I'm happy.

I've said before, I would be more than happy to tell someone what color palette I like (that's another one of the those Home & Garden buzz words) I'd be more than pleased to go away for a month and return to everything completed. I just don't care that much...at least that's what I say. However, truth be told, I am pretty fussy with some of this stuff. I sure know what I hate.

I went out the other morning with a mission. I told myself I would not return to my house until I had certain items needed for the completion of this remodel in my hand our on it's way. I gave myself 6 hours to complete the task.

Can I tell you how many distractions and delays I had? It was incredible. I HAD to get coffee in order to function (I forgot to add that to the equation), so a stop at DD's for coffee. Standing in line I thought I'd better get something to eat, since my plan was to do all this with no other food breaks. I bought something light and yummy. I turned around to find two of my friends excitedly calling me over to their table. I tried (honest to God) to tell them I was on a mission, and couldn't be deterred from it, but it didn't work...I sat down.

One and one half hours later I was on my way again. Oops, I forgot I promised Larry I would stop at the bank before completing my mission. At the bank, I was approached by a long time client of mine asking for some help on one of their missions for that day (I had a fleeting thought that perhaps I could pretend I was my twin (I don't have one, but I could lie) and try to flee. You know I couldn't do that.....

One hour later, after helping the poor guy with his stuff, I was on my way again. You understand , I had yet to accomplish one thing of my mission for the day.

Finally after a complete morning of ADD, (not my ADD but all the other folks who brought me into THEIR ADD) (attention deficit disorder-in case you don't know what ADD is...although in this day and age of acronyms you must be living under rocks or something), I arrived at my first destination.

The faucet place... I walked in, told the nice man my dilemma about the super expensive faucets I had seen and was not going down that road. The guy was very nice about my ranting, smiling and nodding(I know he's been down this road before with other women. He knew enough to let me rant). Finally, when I needed to take a breath, he took a chance and said, " I know what you're looking for and I'm going to show you...". I stopped him in his tracks and said, "Does the faucet have all the features I've asked about? Is it the finish I want? Does it cost a reasonable amount of money? Do you have it in stock so I can take it with me?" He looked at me and said, " Wow, you're really gun shy, huh?" By that point in the conversation all I needed to do was to nod in agreement. He said, "Affirmative! to all the questions". I said, "I don't need to see it. Wrap it up!". He did, I paid, I left. One thing done.

Next stop, tile store. I walked in, found a sales rep, said, "This is what I want. Do you have it?". Showing him my sample (this sample was another story for another time...believe me...). He looked at me and said, "I have others like this...do you". "Stop! don't say another thing. I can't look at any other tile. I need to know if you have this one", as I held up the tile I wanted. He said, "Yes, we have that but....". "No", I interjected, "you just have to let me know you have this in stock and you have enough to do my job. Honest, that's all I want to know". He said, "Gun shy, huh?" "Yeah, yeah, I am. Now please, do you have the tile or not?" "Yes" Thank God, an affirmative answer. I said, "OK wrap it up". He did, I paid and on to the next place I went...

Floor store was the next place. Have you any idea how many floors you can buy out there in "floorland"? We shouldn't have so many choices in this country, it makes us crazy, at least it makes me crazy.

to be continued

Cooking Disasters 101

2009-05-04T20:07:00.000-07:00

Look, I'm a pretty good cook, but I have a tendency to "experiment" at times. Most of the times my experiments are good, well, at least mostly they're edible and you won't die. Sometimes though, the experiment goes bad...A lot like the experiment with Frankenstein... I should explain.

I love farmers markets. I love to buy all the fresh new vegetables and sometimes there are some vegetables I don't know much about so I buy them to try. This doesn't happen often because there are not many I haven't tried and most of them I like...with exception of okra...I can't seem to find a way that tastes palatable to me. It seems slimy and slippery. It's a consistency thing with me. I'm sure there are ways to cook the stuff that would pass muster, but I haven't experienced it yet. I'm just not a fan.

This week was the first week the farmers were outside with their wares. I walked around the vendors looking at what they had to offer. Most of the stuff was green leafy stuff and I bought some of it, but there was one thing I knew about but I hadn't experimented with it before, so I had to buy it.

The stuff is called "Ramps", or spring onion, wild leeks and a number of other names. It can be found in the Northeast and in the mountains of Appalachia. They have Ramp festivals, why? I don't know but they do. It grows in wet lands. Ramps are a cross between onion and garlic. They're definitely more pungent than leeks. In fact some folks think they smell like a combination of garlic, onions and goat sweat... Believe me that's not too far off the mark. Normal people would read that description and shy away from buying it, but I'm the adventurous foodie, not quite as far out as Andrew Zimmer of Bazaar Foods, but I'll try things.

The farmer I bought the ramps from made sure they were meticulously clean. They grow in wet muddy ground so they're usually coated with mud. Cleaning them can be tedious. They looked beautiful. It's great to see the first veggies of Spring. You have to get these things out of the ground quickly because they turn nasty if left in the ground too long...That should also have given me a clue about the little green leafed devils...

I chopped one up and put it into a salad, one mind you, not a bunch, one. The salad was on the counter when Larry came into the kitchen and asked me if I had forgotten to shower that morning. (This was the second clue...). I laughed and said it was probably the onions in the salad he smelled. I wanted to belt him, but I've become kinder in my old age. That, and it hurts to punch someone.

We ate the salad, along with some other food and we lived. I figured I'd find some other recipes online for the green devils for the next night.It sounded like a rational thought.

Ah...potato, ramp soup, sounded pretty good. The base was chicken stock, so how bad could it be? Well, I'll tell you, it looked like normal soup, but the smell was...aromatic? noxious? putrid? I honestly don't know what to call it. It wasn't something that normal people should have to smell.

Larry had been downstairs, he came up and said, "Oh my God, what is that smell, and can we find it to kill it?' I didn't think it was that bad, but then I hadn't left the room for a while so I was used to the smell.

I served the soup along with crusty bread and a small salad. It looked pretty good. As I brought the soup spoon up to my lips, I got a whiff of the smell. Honest to God, it sort of smelled like paint thinner. Stupidly, I ate the soup. I ate half of the soup, to be honest. The first mouthful almost didn't go down. You know how that is, you put something in your mouth and something about the substance isn't right. Your brain is saying to you, "listen, numb nuts, you better not ingest that, cause I'm going to rebel". Did I listen? No, I didn't. (when will I learn?). Larry, good sport that he is, really tried to eat it, then I think God took mercy on him and caused him to drop the bowl and spill it all over himself. He got three spoonfuls into his body before the reprieve.

We both thought better of eating more of it. The toilet ate it. I thought we were going to be OK, until an hour later. All Hell let loose, as well as my bowels. My brain rebelled and told my bowels to expel the offending stuff from my body ASAP. My insides must really be scared of my brain because they listened to the brain and nearly exploded before I got to the bathroom...

Larry is still in hysterics, laughing his head off. The house smells like goats have been working out with weights and treadmills in an over heated gym, and haven't seen hide nor hair of any deodorant or showers for days. I'm hoping it's warmer tomorrow so I can air out the house.

"Ramps" that's what they're called, stay away from them. This has been a public service announcement!

Remodeling, your space? your head?

2009-05-02T12:25:00.000-07:00

I think the Home and Garden network is out to get the American public. I have friends who now speak the, "H&G language". You know what I mean; "designing on a dime", "staging" their house, "bang for your buck","curb appeal",generation renovation". You get the picture.

It seems as though every sentence pops with a buzz word from the H & G channel. Most of my friends are far better "designers" than I am, and I'm intrigued by the lingo they use, so I figured, what the heck, I'm getting ready to remodel my kitchen, I'll sit and watch some of these shows to get some ideas.

There's no doubt some of the shows have some great ideas, if you're living in California, have an unlimited budget, or you're under 35. Since I am none of those, I find the programs a bit off putting. I thought the program that touted being able to design something new and different without selling your first born, would be the show for me. Unfortunately, I guess I don't fit the demographic they're trying to lure. I have a hard time trying to convince Larry that sprayed aluminum pie plates are the next artistic wave of the future. The folks who were doing the spraying on TV must have been in an enclosed room too long with the spray paint if they thought their "work" looked good. It didn't. My friends who watched the same program thought it was bit of a stretch as well, so I'm not that far off the mark with my comments.

I did watch a program with a host who showed how to redecorate a home in California. As I watched the show it had potential, I thought. The couple were not much younger than me, so I assumed they would have similar thoughts on decorating. I didn't think we'd be seeing spray painted pie plates on this show. I was correct.

This couple had moved quite recently from the confines of their apartment in New York City. They needed "space, to spread themselves, to understand who and what they were". (puke) They were moving lock, stock and barrel to the west. California was the place for them. Yep, they traded one coast for the other coast. Far enough, I thought, a need to change their lives. What I didn't know until after the break for commercials, was these folks were over the top wealthy. They didn't seem to think they were, but trust me they had big bucks.

I kept watching the show to see what they were going to do with this perfectly good home to make it, "more theirs". The house was 5000 square feet, of palatial interior, not to mention a gorgeous landscaped yard. Their furnishings gushed wealth. The biggest problem they faced was how to position their grand piano and the enormous vases they purchased in the bazaar in..Zanzibar? Morocco? South Africa? Who knew, who cared? I was trying to figure out where they had those things in their apartment in NYC. Then I realized, their idea of an apartment and my idea were obviously two very different concepts......

After watching the host, and the team she had helping, the furnishings were "staged" ( damn it, the lingo is catching), so the living room (the size of my whole house I might add-actually bigger than my house), was completed. I looked at the before and after shots they were showing and decided there was never going to be a time when I would have anything that looked remotely like these folks' house, so why was I watching this stupid show. I turned the TV off and decided to get real.

I do need to remodel my kitchen. I'm doing that right now. My kitchen is old and worn. It needs a big face lift. I sat down, pen in hand and wrote all the things that needed to be done. The list was pretty daunting, and I knew for sure this project was going to take experts to complete, not Larry and I. I needed help, and needed it before I started to buy things.

My friend is a designer. Her husband works with a contractor. They're honest, sometimes brutally, but that's what I needed. They agreed to help out. I had no idea what I was in for in this "little" project.

People tell you when you want to do something in your home you should go to houses and see what others do. They tell you to look in magazines, watch the H &G network (yeah, right....after I win the Lottery) and ask around. So I did all of that and came up with what I thought was a pretty good idea of what I wanted, how much I planned on spending and how I was going to finance this venture.

I didn't know how much stress and aggravation I was getting myself into. I wasn't totally naive, I knew there were going to be things that would blow my mind, I haven't lived under a rock these last years, so I had a pretty good idea of what I was facing. I thought. I have been educated this last couple of weeks. I knew NOTHING...nothing I tell you, to prepare me for the onslaught of what I was about to learn.

Are you aware you can buy kitchen faucets for $3500.00? and that's not the most expensive. $3500.00, that's what I paid for my first brand new car, for crying out loud. What makes a freaking faucet cost $3500.00? It's a piece of bent pipe, with a spout, a handle with a valve to turn the water on and off (probably made with some other kind of not so showy metal and plastic- you know it's plastic, and you know it's made in China -and they're not getting $3500.00 for making the damned thing!). How can it be worth $3500.00? That was my first eye opener. There were many more to come.

After the shock of the faucets, I went on the the cabinets...The ones the contractor picked out were OK, but they were very similar to the ones that came with my house 40 years ago. I felt I could spring for something a bit more eye catching. My first foray into the world of cabinetry was like Alice going into Wonderland.

The cabinet salesman (and he was a man-a man I have decided was a savior in jeans) led me by the hand to the books of cabinet listings. He then asked me a bunch of questions about what I wanted from the cabinets (this was more like an interview for a job-or marriage). I was having a hard time understanding the cabinets and I had to be a good fit in order to be happy. Where was I, on some far off planet? This certainly wasn't what I expected from Lowe's. He explained all the variations of cabinetry, the whys and wherefores of options (who knew?), what the cabinet could do for me, and what I could expect from the cabinet. I was clearly out of my depth. I needed my designer friend. I was in the glazing over of the eyes stage. I just about jumped up to run screaming from the store. I felt the old anxiety attacks creeping into my body. I bent my head down, taking deep cleansing breaths, as I said I would be back to continue at another time when I could control my emotions.

I stayed in the parking lot a few minutes to collect my thoughts. At one point I thought my kitchen didn't need to be remodeled. It was fine with the torn wallpaper, the cabinets that were shimmed to level, and the sagging base cabinets. Who cared if the door of the corner cabinet fell off if you grabbed it wrong? Yes, I could live another bunch of years without the dreaded remodel.

I drove home, happy with the thought I would live another day, and be happy with my worn, but loved kitchen. I felt I could rest easy in that knowledge, until, I walked into the house and looked at the kitchen. The door askew from the casing, the wallpaper looking torn and scotch taped, the floor with cuts in it as though some neighborhood toughs were using it for a knife contest. I had to pull myself up and look at my reality called, the kitchen.

I awakened the next day filled with anticipation and hope. I knew I could do this, I would do this, I would be the conqueror. I am woman hear me roar!

My designer friend, Mary, sat with me as a repeated everything I learned from the Lowe's savior in jeans... She listened intently as my inadequacies poured from my lips. She patted my hand, held my hand when she thought I needed it, and spoke gently and quietly telling me it was going to be all right. We'd get through this together.

We walked into Lowe's as though puffy white clouds were showing us the path. The sky was blue, the air crisp and clear. We were on a mission and by God we would prevail. The savior in jeans was at our side in an instant with his books, his knowledge and his ever present smile...

With Mary's help, the savior in jeans and my own common sense, we ordered cabinets. Then on to the flooring, the tile back splash and the dreaded faucets.......I thought I was in the clear. I could do this. I was well equipped to conquer this remodel. I WAS woman. Then I found out I had to purchase all the cabinetry hardware. Who knew it was a separate purchase? I thought you had to pick from two or three choices and it came with the cabinets. WRONG!

So...I'm now going through websites and books to see what kind of cabinet pulls and handles are available. You thought faucets were expensive? Ha! I think I'm going to climb into bed and pull over the covers...

to be continued....

If I'm going to work, I'm getting paid!

2009-04-27T17:12:00.000-07:00

A couple of years ago my boss decided to retire. It was no surprise, we had talked about it. Although, with his retirement I had to make a decision: 1. Retire completely or 2. Create a new position. I opted to create a new position. The question was, how in the Hell to do it...

I had a degree (along with a zillion other people looking for new and different things to do with their lives). I was older (older than dirt). I knew I needed to keep my mind active and I also knew I had to be out of the house part of the day or else be charged, eventually, with murder or at least the manslaughter of my significant other who is fully retired. I was well aware that living joined at the hip with him was not the best thing for either of us.

I had time to make the decision during the month after my boss retired. That was a month I worked for the "Home Office"... shudder. As I worked for them I observed how other offices performed their tasks. I made notes and came up with a plan of action. As soon as my sentence was over (working with the Home Office group) I put the plan in motion.

I wrote to all the other owners of similar businesses and proposed an idea to give them an opportunity to hire me as a "floater" of sorts, to fill in when they needed help, or to train new folks. I had experience in all aspects of the business and could, run their offices for them, for a fair price. I waited for my first call. My significant other thought I was nuts. No one had done what I was proposing exactly before, so I was in virgin territory. I was sure this could be a very good opportunity for both me and the owners. I waited with no calls coming in.

After a month my first call came and I went to the office to help out. I had a blast. I was able to say, I would work when I wanted, for as long as I wanted. If that was OK then I worked, if it wasn't...oh well, too bad, their loss.

The problem I didn't anticipate was the number of calls I received looking for my help. I thought it was a good idea, I didn't realize it was a great idea. I became known as "The Buzzard". I sort of hovered over the businesses waiting to swoop down and work when needed. I kept myself up to date with all the new programs and software so I wasn't overwhelmed when I went to offices after a couple of week away. It's been pretty good so far.

I thought by doing this kind of work I'd have all kinds of extra time to volunteer or at least to learn something new, or join some public service organizations. What I didn't realize was some organizations take up more time than others. I also didn't know how some organizations can almost draw the life blood out of you if you allow it. Sometimes you don't know it's happening until it's too late. I got out in time.

I gave myself a year to see if I could do the work with the volunteer organization. The folks I worked with were very passionate about what they were doing. I was not. I was more concerned about the completion of projects then get on to the next project. They were more interested in tweaking and rewriting the same things over and over again. I felt as though I was trying to run through jello when I was part of groups trying to conquer the unconquerable.

I started to observe the folks in the groups and decided it was me, not them who was in the wrong place. I didn't fit in. I am very direct, blunt and sometimes a bit rude, especially if I think my time is being wasted. I figure I'm real old, I don't have a whole lot of time to waste, so get on with it... This was not the group for me.

I also observed only a core group of folks do all the work. I know that's the way it is in volunteer organizations, but I like to be paid. I was doing work and my payment was not in the form I desire. I want hard cash. I understand when you do volunteer work, the work should be payment enough. But I'm honest, it wasn't enough for me!

Control seems to permeate throughout the volunteer organizations I've observed. Someone always has to be the controller. There is usually a main controlling personality (and there's a need for someone in that position-for a limited time period). Then there are sub-controllers. They're the ones who head committees ( again, you need someone to avert chaos-to a point) Every one of the groups have folks who get drunk with power. It's really pretty funny to watch. I did like my position of observer, for a brief moment I thought I'd stick it out just to stay as, "the observer".

As I watched from my perch, I created names for those in controlling positions. I tried not to be catty, but I didn't win. I became so damned catty I was ashamed of myself. I didn't stop though I just kept it to myself. One I called Captain Hook, involved in everything and sometimes made others ineffective in his quest for the unattainable. Another I called, "Ms. I've been doing this so long, there's nothing new for me here". One of the many I really liked was named (in my head), "Ms. I'll do anything to avoid confrontation". That person was probably the one I will miss the most. Luckily that person will continue to be a valuable asset to the organization and keep it on the up and up.

During my time of observation, I found I was not doing things I like to do, like write. I found I was too tired, too frustrated or just too... to sit down for an hour or two to put words on paper. It took me several days to understand my participation in the volunteer organization was beginning to suck out energy and life from my soul. It sounds drastic and weird, I know, but it was giving me adgida and a big headache.

So, the bottom line...I don't work unless I get paid. I don't have the patience, nor the passion to work in a position that doesn't say "Cha ching!" at the end of the week...At least I'm honest.

God's Waiting Room

2009-01-27T13:51:00.000-08:00

I'm not being disrespectful, honest, but the place I'm in right now (the physical place not the emotional/psychological place) is truly God's Waiting Room. It's cold in Northern New York (freakin freezing) so Larry and I head South to Florida to relax in the warmth and sun of Punta Gorda Florida.

Punta Gorda is on the Southwest coast of Florida, between Sarasota and Fort Meyers ( I know, what do you care where in Hell it is. If you're reading this then look outside to see snow and ice you really don't give a damn about where I am at the moment-but somebody might want to know, so I'm telling them).

Punta Gorda was slammed by hurricane Charlie several years ago and you can still see signs of the hurricane all over the place. Where there were buildings, there are holes, like someone who has missing teeth when they smile. Last year we saw many buildings in the state of repair, but most of the other buildings didn't survive the hurricane so they've had to rebuild, a lot. We are witnessing a rebirth of sorts here.

Most of the folks who come down here, and the ones who live here are old. I mean O-L-D. I don't think I've ever seen so many scooters (not the kind you ride for pleasure, the kind that gets you in and out of shops and down the aisles in markets running over those of us on two feet-without even a "sorry") or other wheeled conveyances in my life. The ones in the conveyances are the good ones. They can get around. Most of them have big huge vans with little hydraulic platforms on the back of the van for their little scooters, so they can move about freely. They're the ones with the handicapped hangers on the rear view mirrors...(They can't see when their vision is not obscured but yet they put those hangy things on the mirror to further mess up their vision-nuts).

Honest to God, I think some of these folks are the living dead...This is an observation here, not disrespect. The worst part of all is the driving. You must be a defensive driver here at all times.

The men are really bad. I think they feel driving is one thing they have control over, so watch out world here they come. They take the most ridiculous chances when pulling out of parking spots, or worse yet pulling onto a major 70 mph highway. I'm beginning to think this is a new form of attempted suicide for some....or maybe a game of chicken I'm not old enough to know about...I know one thing, I watch out for these nut cases.

The women are nicer about their lack of driving skill. I watched one lady on the same 70 mph highway, hunched over her steering wheel, head pushed forward, squinting...yes, I said SQUINTING as she kept her old Buick at a consistent 45 mph. She smiled as everyone went by her giving her one finger salutes as they passed.

We've gone to some events here. A Banjo band (all the songs sounded the same, they were all 75+, but they were having a ball....), a Robert Burns night (actually I met some folks who knew my family in Scotland...that was a mind blower), A Celtic Festival, and assortment of other smaller events. Everything here starts early in the morning and finishes early in the afternoon. Now, I know what you're thinking, "Things start early to get away from the heat of the day". Yes, that's what I thought too, but that's only part of the reason. The real reason is everyone takes naps in the afternoon so they can stay up until 8:00PM. Then go to bed for the night, to wake early the next morning to be the first at events.

Garage Sales start at 7:30 am down here....and you better get there at 7:15 to get a good spot or else someone in a scooter will run you over in their zest to get at the nick knacks. By 8:00 the frenzy starts to subside, the true garage sale folks have gone on to other venues and the normal folks start to arrive to look over the leavings.

I have to give the old folks credit ( of which I am official one this year, since this is the year I can start to collect Social Security- and you bet your sweet bippy I'm signing up for it ASAP) for their ability to do anything. As I said before many of them look like the living dead. They are not well but down here their life is easier than where they came from. It's a good thing they can be down here in the sun and take advantage of the weather. I just wish some of them would hire drivers.....

Clootie Dumpling, or The "pudding" that attacked the world...

2008-12-24T08:24:00.000-08:00

Some of you don't know that I'm a Brit. Or more correctly, I'm a Scot. I was born in Scotland eons ago and came over here with my parents when I was a kid. It's kind of cool having dual citizenship, I am a dual citizen since I never gave up my British citizenship. It doesn't mean a whole lot, but I do get to have some extra privileges when I go to the UK. I get to go through the customs as a UK citizen, while my husband stands in line with all the US born folk waiting to go through... I stand and smile at him...OK, truth be told, I gloat at him. He hates standing in line, and on more than one occasion he's said, "I stood in line for four years in the Navy, I wouldn't stand in line anymore, even if it was to see Jesus Christ on the cross". That may be a bit of a stretch but then again, I wasn't the one standing in chow lines in the Navy, so maybe there's a bit of truth in the statement.

OK so here's the deal. At the holidays I try to resurrect (no pun intended, after the above comments about Jesus) some of the old holiday traditions I learned from my Mom and her sisters. Christmas was always a big deal in our house. We didn't have any relatives over her in the Colonies so we "picked" our relatives. Our friends were the relatives we lacked. My Mom would have our house filled with friends, and friends of friends, over the week between Christmas and New Year. When I think back to those days, I think she was trying to compensate for the lack of family for me.

She would make all kinds of foods. Some of the food she made was pretty ethnic...You know what that is? Innards and all the things most folks over here wouldn't touch with a 10' pole. But if they didn't know what it was....you get the picture. My Mom was a great cook. She learned all about cooking from her Father, who was a professional cook, amongst other things... Someday I'll go into that....

My Mom taught me all the things she learned from her Dad, and I in turn have taught my kids. Consequently, there is no sauce that I can't recreate after tasting it, nor are there many dishes I can't recreate. I seem to have inherited the "tasting" gene (it helps me when I go to wine tastings...hmm...maybe I should think about a new career change...no, I'd just get drunk).

One of the biggest things (literally) at celebration times was the creation of the "Clootie Dumpling". A "Cloot" is a cloth. A big cloth, usually made from linen, or something that can hold a huge pile of flour, raisins and all the other ingredients.

The recipe is an ancient one, and most families have given up the tradition to make the dumpling to serve on the holidays. I decided this year, since the family party was falling on December 21st, Winter Solstice, we should really do it up and have all the traditional food stuffs, including "THE CLOOTIE DUMPLING".

I found the old recipe, all stained and yellowed. I matched it up with a couple of others I had come across when looking for the "real" recipe. The ingredients were available. At least I could buy them, I didn't have to sacrifice a cow, drain blood and chop innards...Most of the stuff was at my local grocery store.

This thing takes a lot of ingredients and it's messy. The assembled ingredients were all over the kitchen and the dining room. I had the needed water boiling in a vat on the stove (a big vat). I had the cloth ready. I was ready.

I had to dip the "clootie" into the vat of boiling water, pull it out, let it drip a bit, then wring it out. (Does anyone know how to wring out a big cloth when it's been soaked in boiling water, and NOT burn the Hell out of your hands??I sure don't...I had at least 2nd degree burns on my fingers...and the pain....Hell...it was worst than the first kid coming out....). I finally got the cloth out, then I had to spread it over the table and put flour on the wet cloth, spread the flour to the ends of the cloth...(Got it? So now you have a big wet slimy cloth dripping water and what appears to be library paste all over it).

You let the cloth "set" or "rest" while you make the dumpling. Now, as I stated, I had all the ingredients out and ready to hit the decks running, so I figured I'd be golden. I found the largest bowl I own and started putting the first group of ingredients into the bowl. So far so good, I had the flour ( all 6 cups of it) the 9 teaspoons of baking powder, two cups of breadcrumbs, cinnamon, ginger, salt, allspice and the shredded beef suet (1/4 pound of the artery packing cholesterol stuff) in the bowl. There was only one way to mix this...in went the hands, up to the elbows in the mix... I had to make sure the suet was rubbed into the dry ingredients and the warmth from my hands helped to melt the suet into the blob that was forming. I added the eggs, molasses, and milk and continued to massage the blob. I added the raisins and the currants. Last, but not least, I added all the trinkets that make the "pudding" into the celebratory thing that it is. The trinkets are wrapped in tin foil and poked into the mass. A heart for love, coins for wealth, something for good health, strength, and whatever else you want to put in for fortunes for the New Year. Finally I could see this thing was forming into something, I wasn't quite sure what to call it, but it looked familiar...(kind of like the gross stuff you might see at the dog park...)

Now the fun began in earnest. I had to navigate the "blob" over to the "Clootie" roll it on to the "clootie" (the freaking thing was so heavy I needed help getting it to the table where the "clootie" lay in wait). When the "blob" was in the middle of the "Clootie" I had to bring all the ends together and tie with a string...tight...got that? "tight". BUT I had to leave a bit of room for expansion. (Who knew?)

The whole "clootie" now filled with it's science experiment was then placed, carefully into the vat of boiling water. I needed Larry, my husband, who is looking at me askance as I do this recipe, to help lift the "blob" into the vat. The whole time he's lifting he's saying to me, "Tell me again, why are we doing this?" Straining my biceps and standing on my toes to get the "blob" into the pot without burning the rest of my body with burning water, I yell "BECAUSE IT'S TRADITION AND IT"S THE SOLSTICE!!!THAT"S WHY!!!" He forgets the Gods need to be appeased by human sacrifice....I'm just doing my part for the Gods, dammit.

The "thing" finally settles into the vat of boiling water...and I gotta tell you, I think water gets hotter when you add stuff to it immediately, 'cause this vat was bubbling up a storm and water was flying out of the pot running away to get cool. It was a sight to behold.

The vat was set to a high simmer. The "thing" in the vat had to boil for 3 1/2 hours...Yep, that's right 3 1/2 hours...I had to top off the vat on occasion to be sure the water stayed over the top of the "thing". The "thing" by this time was starting to expand in the "clootie". It was a good thing I left room on the top for the expansion........

The hours went by, I peeked in on the "thing". I told Larry, "Don't leave the house before this is done, I'm afraid of it." I had visions of all those old horror movies about the "things" that came from outer space to kill all the humans, or something like that. I wondered at one time, if this truly was some sort of science experiment that may have turned into some kind of radioactive growth....

Finally the 3+ hours was over and I had to remove the "thing" from the vat of water...boiling water. I could not lift the vat off the stove. I'll bet that sucker weighed in at 50 pounds. The objective was to grab the "clootie" haul it up and place it into a colander to drain. Now, I ask you, who in their right mind owns a colander that will hold a "blob" that has to weigh 30 pounds? I sure don't.

I enlisted in the help of my poor husband again. He looked at the vat, looked inside, looked at me and said, "No way", and promptly started to walk away. I looked at him and said, "By all that's holy...if you walk away from me in my hour of need, you may as well grab the butcher knife and cut out my heart...you chicken.....". I guess my words got to him because I noticed he came back with a smirky smile on his face as he grabbed a towel and we, together, lifted the vat and the "thing" on to the counter. The problem was, you see, you had to get the "thing" out of the water while the water was still boiling. You can't let the "thing" sit in tepid water.

We both hauled the "clootie" out of the pot, put it into the cleaned out sink, in the biggest colander I owned, which was no where near big enough to hold this great mass. It sort of moshed over the colandar and rested on the bottom of the sink. We carefully cut the string holding the "clootie" together and surveyed the "blob". It honestly was the worst looking food type of thing I've ever set my eyes on. The outside was slimy and kind of grayish, when you touched it, it sort of jiggled. I knew I had to dry it but this thing almost didn't get the drying it needed. It was bad. Larry took a good look at it and said, "You're not going to try to get my family to eat this thing, are you?" The gauntlet was thrown down... I said, "You bet your sweet bippy, I'm going to serve them this, AND they're going to like it too..." I wasn't quite sure how I would pull the last part off, but I was determined to try.

The original recipe states after draining the "thing" you place it on a tray and put it next to the fire to dry out for a few hours. (These old recipes are a riot, they never give you exact times or measurements, it's just sort of known...guess what? I don't have a clue). I decided I would put the "thing" into the oven and keep a watchful eye on it. After all, I didn't want to destroy it....

After about 45 minutes of drying it looked like something some homeless hungry folks wouldn't object to eating. As a matter of fact, it starting looking and smelling pretty damned good. Larry came in as I was looking into the oven and he said, "You know that looks really good, and it smells great". Hmm...maybe it wasn't going to be the disaster I anticipated.

I trimmed up some of the sides of the "thing" and placed it on a decorative plate. I poked a sprig of holly into the top and wrapped it for the next day...

The comments from the family were...guarded, but they were all game to try the "thing". I think they were more excited to see what their piece of the dumpling studded with the trinkets would give to them. Everyone of the family in attendance to my impromptu "Winter Solstice-Scottish traditional Clootie Dumpling" unveiling ate (and lived to tell about it) and seemed to enjoy the "Thing" called a "Clootie Dumpling".

Now you ask..."Will you make it again?" My answer to that is, "WHEN FREAKING PIGS FLY!!". I'm still dressing the burns on my hand.

Sacrifice? Does anyone do it anymore? Not around here.

2008-11-07T12:28:00.000-08:00

With all the headlines spouting financial ruin, I decided to observe how people were sacrificing and what they were doing to tighten their belts to protect themselves. It was Wednesday night, the night before the garbage man comes to pick up all the garbage in this suburb.

I walked around the neighborhood, nodding hello (no one really speaks to each other around here, it's just a nod and maybe a slight smile, but usually the nod is the extent of the acknowledgement). Every house had at least one huge garbage can in front of it, some had multiples. We recycle around here, so this was true garbage, no paper or cans.

OK, now you think I'm nuts, but this was a pseudo-scientific study I was doing. One of the neighbors has a dog that gets loose on occasion, usually on garbage night (must be the yummy smells emanating from the containers), so I was able to look at some of the garbage as I walked by.

I saw some perfectly good food stuffs in that debris (no, I didn't take it...I'm not that cheap) as well as some other things I consider "specialty" food stuffs I only have during the holidays (OK, so maybe I am cheap....). The point is, in that can of garbage were the remains of non-essential foods and junk. No sacrifice in that household. At least none evident in their garbage.

The farther I walked, I thought about sacrifice and what it meant to me, in comparison to other people. I've lived the majority of my life in this great country and learned, culturally, what it means to live in this country. We all love this country and some of us think that folks living outside of this great country are envious of our lot in life. I don't think so.

I see this United States as a country of great potential, not only because of our resources and wealth (which may not be as great as it was a few months ago, but I digress..) but for the human resources and culture, if we choose to accept a few sacrifices.

We need to embrace the concept of: neighbors, family, ecology, environment and frugality, instead of materialism, isolationism and greed. I don't think many of us would disagree with that statement. The difficulty, as I see it is, we have to be happy with less. You know the old idea of "Less is more"? We have too much stuff, and the stuff needs stuff to survive. The damned stuff has a life of its own and we're all too stupid, or too entrenched in our quest for "more, more, more" to realize what's happened here. We don't know what sacrifice is. I know what you're thinking, "Isn't it great that we don't know what sacrifice is? That means we have more than we need and have had it that way all our lives".

I used to think it was great to have everything and anything at my finger tips, but it doesn't give me much pride to know that I have so much and so many others in this world have little. What really ticks me off is, I think they're happier than so many of the folks that live here. Wealth and stuff doesn't bring happiness, that's for sure.

The price of gas has caused a reduction in the use of our cars. I see buses traveling the roads with more frequency. The buses have LED signs that light up as they pass by saying, "take the bus-save gas". People are taking the bus more frequently, I see them at the bus stop (who even knew there was a bus stop on my street? I didn't, and I've lived here for 40+ years) as I drive to work. If there was a bus to my work, I think I'd be on it.

I've made a commitment to myself. I'm going to cut back on spending, eating and waste. I'm going to attempt to de-clutter my environment and maybe, just maybe, if I have less stuff I will understand the concept of "Less is More", because I need to understand that, and I'm betting anyone reading this needs to understand that as well.

Willing to give it a try? I don't think it'll be tough...

Why do I live wrong???

2008-10-27T16:14:00.000-07:00

Historical Fact:

Forty years ago this month my husband and I, a very pregnant I at that, purchased the home we still live in today. A simple three bedroom ranch, one bath, about 1000 square feet. It's about 1600 square feet if you count the family room in the cellar.

When we attempted to buy the house, we went to our local savings bank (that was the type of bank you went to for mortgages at that time). We were told we would have to refinance my husband's car (he was paying $52.00 a month for his car payment -way too much to get a mortgage for the house) and we'd probably need to take out a loan on his small life insurance policy. The fact that I was working couldn't be taken into account because I was a woman, and no doubt would get pregnant again and wouldn't be able to work. I'd be home taking care of the kids and making sure my hubby had a hot meal set before him when he came home from work.

We listened in rapt attention, because this man (and yes, it was a man, because they were the only ones capable to give out loans in those days....the women had to do the paperwork, but couldn't make the big decisions...they were probably thinking they should be at home with their kids, making dinner for their hubby's...I guess) knew more than we did about the workings of mortgages and what we could and couldn't afford.

So armed with all the information, we went toward fulfilling the great American Dream of owning our own home. The price for the home was, $16400.00. ($300.00 down, $300.00 closing costs). A pretty high price in those days, especially when the only income to be counted was net pay of $86.00 a week. Our mortgage payment would be $100.00 a month. The $100.00 was double our rent at that time, so this was a huge amount.

OK now stop laughing. I have a point here, listen.

We moved into our house. The months past by and there were some months when we weren't sure how we would pay the mortgage, as well as the mounting bills for the baby we now had, and everything else that life throws at you. I sold my beloved piano, my skis, we refinanced anything we could, I learned how to make things out of nothing. I was probably one of the first "recyclers" in the world. We lived in a neighborhood with folks in similar circumstances, so no one felt alone in the struggle to maintain our houses and our lifestyle in general. We weren't rich but we felt comfortable in the fact that we had a house and we were making it, little by little.

Our furnishings at that time, in this new house, consisted of two pieces of a three piece sectional couch, patio furniture, milk crates (not the plastic kind everyone has today-but the metal ones, stolen from the milk truck.....well appropriated, not stolen I guess), orange crates covered with shortened sheets to make a flowing table cover. Our lamps consisted of anything someone wanted to give us. We couldn't afford to buy any, so we made do with what we could get. We became very creative in our decorating at that time.

Eventually we were able to buy new things, but not until we could pay cash for the things. We didn't have the luxury of credit cards, and to be honest, I think we were afraid of credit cards for fear we would get ourselves into debt. We were frugal and used up things before we bought new things. I never bought anything retail, it had to be on sale, or in a consignment shop. I wasn't ashamed of that, I loved saying I got a deal on this garment or those shoes...so what if someone owned it before me, it was broken in...I just didn't care all that much.

Now, let's speed ahead in time, to say, 2008.

I work for a company that provides proof of insurance on property for the mortgage company. The mortgage company has a financial interest in the property and they won't close on the house unless they have absolute proof their financial interest is covered in the event of a loss at that house. (Got it?) OK...so here's where things get really scary.

Over the past few years, I've come home with all kinds of stories about young newly married folks buying houses with price tags way over their budgets, but still they get the mortgage and off they go into their new dream house. What I've noticed, more than once though, is many of these young marrieds walk into their closing hand in hand, sign the paperwork, but walk out with the closing papers and more than one mortgage on their dream house.

What they've done is to liquidate all their assets, savings, 401K's and any other money that might be hanging around, and use this as a down payment. This makes an immediate equity in the house (money they put down was theirs so they can take out equity in, at least, that amount). Hence, they have money to borrow as a "Home Equity" loan. They can then use their own money to buy stuff for the house, you know the essentials, like a flat screened TV, home theatre, pool table, the essentials...you know...And of course, claim the loans on their taxes, pretty neat, huh?

Both of these newly marrieds I call, "sweet things" have good jobs, both the hubby AND the wife. The combined salaries are certainly enough to cover the bills. No one is really looking at the bottom line, because the bottom line is always waaay down there and we won't really ever have to worry about it. (yeah, right)

They move into their dream house, buy a couple of new cars, put in the landscaping, fencing, and buy a shed for the ride-on lawn mower, never mind that they don't know diddly squat about caring for these mechanical things they now have...What the Hell? Someone can fix them, they'll just "send them out" for repairs if need be.

Next thing happens...a child...maybe two...Hubby's job is shaky...Wife's job is **horrors** "downsized". We now see the "sweet things" in a far different light. The light's not as bright as it once was. They have two mortgages, two car payments, a payment for the ride-on mower, kids are in daycare, Mom has to work two jobs to try to make up for the lost wages due to downsizing. Hubby is staying late at work very often to make up some of the lost revenue they need to maintain this unmaintainable lifestyle...But he'll die trying, by damn!

Life goes on like this for months, then someone gets: sick or loses a job or has to stay home to care for a parent or child, one of the cars gets wrecked in an accident, someone is injured, you get the drill. Life happens to the "sweet things".

They have credit cards, to keep their heads above water in the mean time. They rob Peter to pay Paul, they use one card to pay off the other card. They start paying all their bills by credit card, pay only the minimum amounts due on the cards and continue to live the lifestyle they started when they first bought the dream house that was out of their price range in the first place. Things are really spiralling downward very quickly. Things are getting out of hand. The kids need things, the house and cars need maintenance, the credit cards are maxed out. The "sweet things" aren't so sweet to each other anymore.

"You did this...", "No, this is your fault", "We shouldn't have gotten that:big screen TV, riding lawn mower, new kitchen appliance, etc.,etc.,etc." The "sweet things" are now several months behind in all the bills, including the mortgages...which now number three...Yes, some banker allowed them another "home equity" loan, to consolidate some of the little bills into one larger one, allowing them to make one big payment a month, rather than a bunch of little ones.

The "sweet ones" are beyond trouble by this time. They are headed down a very rough road. It's going to take perseverance and control to get out of this mess. The have few options left. They try all the normal things to get money to help solve this crisis. They call family and friends. They try to go back to the bank that gave them the initial seed money that got them into the mess in the first place. The denial from the bank hits them between the eyes. They're amazed they aren't able to get another loan...The "sweet things" are angry that the big bad banker man won't give them more money to squander.

Pretty soon the "For Sale by Owner" sign is the only thing you see on their lawn. The house takes on that empty cold look that can only happen when the life is being pulled out of the home, the soul of the home is being spirited out, leaving just the shell of the house. This was once a house with laughter and the noise of a family loving life, now it's a big box of sticks and cement planted on a small patch of unkempt grass. The family is gone, both in spirit and in body. The family has left the house sitting on the grass waiting for the bank to take over and replace the "For Sale by Owner" sign with a sign that says, "For Sale-Foreclosure".

Sounds pretty sad, and it is, but it's not my fault, or yours. It's the fault of so many folks who think they can have something because they want it. They've been sold a bill of goods that says, "You can have everything you want, forever...just sign on the dotted line".. Guess what? It's time to pay up. You've had your fun and your overpriced house. It's time to stand in line with the rest of us and pay what you owe.

I'm angry that we, the folks who bought and fought to keep a little house for ourselves, strained and struggled to make sure we paid our own way. We didn't play the system and try to cheat to get more than we were entitled to, we pulled in our stomachs, tightened our belts and stood up tall and worked harder than we were working so we could keep what we had and pay in cash for the necessary items in our homes. I'm going to be really pissed off if my tax dollars, tax dollars that I faithfully pay each and every year are going to be used to help keep folks from foreclosure in their 5000+ square foot houses with the price tags hovering at $750000.00.

This may sound like sour grapes to some, but it's the way I feel about this whole "housing crisis" and if I hadn't seen things happen first hand, I may feel a bit more sympathy for some of these folks, but I don't. What I saw, and continue to see is people who haven't learned from their mistakes and expect others to forgive them for continuing to make the same mistake over and over again. Making mistakes is a great learning tool, but you have to accept the fact you made an error and try to do something different next time. You can't expect to do something, leave a mess and have some one follow you around to clean up after you. Grow up.

I'm sick of all the stupid things I see and I think we really need to lose everything in order to bring some sanity back into this world. I hate to say it, but I don't see a lot of light at the end of this tunnel...sorry...

Fat, fat, water rat=Americans

2008-09-14T15:25:00.000-07:00

OK Americans are fat....I'm fat. I'm not "chubby, chunky, pleasingly plump (God, how I hate that phrase) or full-figured", I'm fat. I'm not happy about it, but at this minute in my life I can't do anything about it. Right now, as I sit at the computer writing this, "I'm fat!". Maybe later I can do some jumping jacks, or lift some heavy weights, but for the moment, "I'm fat!".

I don't have anyone to blame (damn it!) but myself. I eat too much. Yeah, I know I could blame it on: heredity, thyroid, pituitary, liver, pancreas and probably a slew of other excuses, but the bottom line is, I'm fat because I eat more calories than I use up. Is that so hard to understand? Yeah, I know all about how hard it is for women to lose weight, and I don't deny that, but I also know that I shouldn't be eating enough for three people at every meal.

I went to a nutritionist a few months ago. The meeting was a group thing with folks who were there because their doctors had told them to go. Those folks had serious health issues they were dealing with as a result, mostly, because of their diet. I was there because I thought, "What the Hell, I've tried all other kinds of weight loss programs, let's see what this is".

The whole idea of the program was to educate about the nutritional values of the foods we eat. Now, honest to God, most fat people I know are pretty astute about nutrition and what we should and shouldn't eat. Most of my fat buddies are in the same spot as I'm in, we know what we're supposed to do but WE DON'T DO IT. That being said, I have to tell you, I was shocked by the experience I had at this program.

We had to do a bit of paperwork and some psychological testing, nothing difficult, just some things to understand our, "inner soul". (I knew I was in trouble right then). The very knowledgeable dietitian explained to us that we were to attend meetings on a monthly basis but we were to be weighed and measured every week. "No sweat"...I thought, typical of all weight loss programs. I guess I was one of the only folks that felt that way because the amount of groans and grunts that went through the group was incredible. I turned to the woman behind me and said, "What? No one thought they were going to get weighed at a weight loss program? What's the big deal?" Apparently I was on the outside of this group, I felt all eyes peering through me, and I'm sure I heard some growling coming toward my way.

The dietitian explained she was passing out a list of the foods we should try to incorporate into our diets on a daily basis, and the things we really needed to reduce from our diets. I looked at the listings and thought they were pretty good. There was nothing on either list to make me go berserk.

Little did I know I was in a group of fat older folks who have apparently never read a nutritional book, gone on a diet or read the back of a food label. I heard one woman say, "I've never seen the label on the back of a can before". Where's she from? Mars? Then the real objections started. I sat there and listened to some of the most ridiculous comments I've ever heard from supposedly intelligent folks.

"Oh my God! I couldn't possible eat three vegetables or fruits a day". "Does eating fruit flavored Pebbles cereal count as a fruit? I eat two bowls of that every morning...." This woman was in her 60's; not one bowl, but two... Then another women raised her hand and said, (no lie) in a very cultured voice, "I'm sorry, but I don't think this will work for me. I have many restrictions in my diet and I only eat 6 things". To give the dietitian her due, she was really much more calm and collected than I was. She looked at the woman and said, "Well what are the 6 items you eat, maybe we can work something out with them". The woman, with all seriousness said, " Well...I only eat Velveeta cheese, white bread, white rice, tomato soup, grape jelly and peanut butter". Honest to God, I was waiting for a punch line. This woman was dead serious. The Dietitian, looked like she was about to faint. For crying out loud, I thought I was about to faint.

I still can't get over the fact that these folks were all fat, most of them fatter than me, and they had no clue about what made them fat. Nor did they think their diet had much to do with their health issues. My question was, how did they live as long as they did?

As the weeks progressed, most of the folks dropped out. A couple of them had heart attacks and became food Nazi's after their brush with death. Some, like me, got pats on the back for knowing why I was fat and what I needed to do to lose the weight. I received gold stars for knowing the nutritional values of foods and why we needed certain minerals etc...(Man, I'm good....ho hum).
I lost weight and belly fat, which was the goal of the program, and a few others stuck it out and learned some things that will help them with their health issues. But the majority are still out there living in La La land, eating all the stuff normal folks know will kill you if you keep eating like you're 25 instead of 65+. They wonder why they don't feel good....geesh...

The main thing I learned during this program: don't assume things about others. What I thought everyone knew about nutrition and foods is dead wrong. I guess there are many folks out there who never read a newspaper, magazine, listen to a radio, watch TV, read the literature their doctors give them, talk about weight loss, or maybe it was just the folks who attended that program . Gosh, I sure hope so, because if everyone out there is as uninformed as the majority of these folks, we better get some more funding into Med schools, because we're going to need more doctors.

The Topic for today is:Human Nature. Is it Human or is it Nature?

2008-07-02T12:21:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live on a deserted island with no way to leave any time soon. That's not to say, you could never leave. If you desired to leave, you could.

Just think about it for a minute. Yes, you'd have to give up some of the amenities you love where you are now, but think how good it would be to get away from everything and everyone for a while.

I come to this discussion in a very unusual way. The last couple of days have had me scratching my head in wonder. I think I'm dealing with fairly sane people, but then again, I may to over estimating their sanity.

Point in case:

1. I think I've met the living beings of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Those of you in the psych field will be saying, "Oh that person must be bi-polar or some other such psycho label". I say, "Hell no, they're freaking nuts, and they could use a swift boot in the behind". I'm tired of all the excuses for disrespectful behavior. Snap out of it.... Yeah, yeah, I can see all the heads shaking out there in cyber land, with folks saying, "You must be patient and give the person the benefit of the doubt. They can't help themselves. They're ill." OK, granted some may be ill, but for God's sake, GET THEE TO A DOCTOR. Don't be wallowing in self pity, do something!

Now, I'll hear from the psychology establishment that I am uncaring. Not so, I do care, but when things aren't getting better, don't keep trying the same tactic in hopes that they change. You know what they say, "If you walk down the path the same way every time, why do you think the outcome will be different?"

I've had it with this "kid glove" stuff. I'm done with all the soft pedaling and walking on egg shells. I'm turning over a new leaf as of this very minute and I telling it like it is, not what they want to hear. I am Woman hear me roar! (hmmm that was pretty empowering..)

Speaking of empowering:

2. Look, you can only be a doormat if you lie down. DON'T FREAKING LIE DOWN! There I've said it. Don't come crying to me because of some injustice done to you if you don't want to stand up for yourself. I'll listen to your complaints, but it's up to YOU to do something about the injustice. I'll be standing behind you supporting you if you need it, but YOU and only you can make the difference in your life. I can't change the way of things, YOU can change some things, but only if you're willing to get out from your comfort zone and take the steps necessary to make those changes you so desperately want and need.

So many times I've noticed people complaining about their lot in life, but yet they're not willing to compromise, even a tiny bit. It's rough to take on new challenges, but the rewards you reap are worth the bit of discomfort you'll feel in the beginning. I don't think there's been a time when I did something new that I didn't feel as though I had mad a mistake. It takes a brave person to venture into the unknown. For me though, I've come out on the bright side and been very pleased by the outcome. Even if the outcome wasn't was I expected, somehow it ended up being better than my original expectation. I learned from the experience. Sometimes what I learned was...don't do that again. But usually, I was pleased.

You must make choices in life that are scary at times. You must try new things that seem foreign to you. You must be able to say, "Wow, I did it", then pat yourself on the back. You must be your own cheerleader, don't put yourself down. Why should anyone hold you in great esteem if you don't act as if you deserve that esteem?

There isn't a person on this Earth, or who lived on the Earth, who hasn't made mistakes. Go out there make some mistakes. You can laugh at them in the future. Go ahead, have some fun. You're Human, it's your nature to have fun and make mistakes, that's how we learn.

The "Contraption"

2008-06-22T17:46:00.000-07:00

Look it, if you're a guy, I can guarantee you won't understand this, but believe me, the women...oh they'll understand completely. Let me tell you how this began...

My retired husband has become the chief cook and bottle washer in this house since his retirement. He's great, he does the floors, windows, washes the clothes, does all the household chores...you know, like a wife...It's great for me. He's been learning how to properly clean the clothes through trial and error, lots of error...but I don't mind, I like buying new things. I know better than to throw things down the laundry chute that need "special handling" and I have signs I use when I do my "special handling" washing so he knows not to put everything into the dryer. We had a few disasters at first, but then, when I was first learning how to do laundry I did too, so no big deal.

The biggest problem for me is when he starts to kibitz (like I used to with him) about the state of my underwear. You know we all have underwear that's been broken in and we hate to part with it because it sags where we want it to sag, or it's stretched enough to feel really comfortable. You really don't want anyone else to see it, but you can't throw it away. It's sort of become part of the family.

I have several bras that fall into that category. I know they're shot to Hell, but they're just broken in for comfort, and that's saying a lot for a bra. Husband was making some really loud noise about the condition of the "brays" for the girls, so I figured it was time to buy some new ones. What a pain in the neck...

Bras are a contraption made by a man. No woman would ever make something so freakin' uncomfortable. I measure myself and go to the nearest store and buy some pretty good "foundation" things. (Yes, that's what they're referred to in "Bra-ease language")

I was at a department store on the day I was going to "treat" (some treat) myself to a couple of new bras. The store was having a "Professional Bra Fitter" in that day, so the customers could be properly fit for a bra. The signs all over the lingerie department were screaming at me saying "80% of American Women wear the wrong sized bra". I thought OK I'll buy...I walked to the customer service person, asked where I signed up for this "fitting". The woman was very nice, I couldn't help look down at her to see what her boobs looked like. I mean honestly, she's selling these contraptions she should expect people are going to check her out, don't you think? She seemed oblivious to my eyes wandering down to her chest.

I was taken to the dressing room and told the "fitter" would be right with me. I sat down and looked around. There were those blasted three way mirrors reflecting the image of a very fat women with red hair... Realizing it was me, I sucked in my gut, pulled my shoulders back and stood straighter. I was still looking at a fat women...maybe not as fat as the original image, but then I had to breathe, and the very fat broad was visible again. crap...

Before I could run away from the mirrors from Hell, the "fitter" came in. She was about 5 ft tall and obviously from some country that feeds their young rice and veggies, not Twinkies and cocoa puffs. She was this little teeny, perfect figured Mother's darling, and I was the blob.

My first thought about this encounter was, how the heck is she going to measure me? She'll have to walk around me with a measuring tape because she damned well can't wrap her teeny, tiny arms around MY chest. She looked up at me and smiled. She said, " I will give you the tape measure to put around your back and we'll see what size we need to get for you. We have some very nice brassieres for the "fuller figured women" and I'm pretty sure we'll have something for you." Now here's when I have to explain something...something personal....I'm not that big in the chest, I have this back that's as broad as a linebacker's, but the front of me is not that big, honest. In front of this tiny woman however, I was the size of some Wagnerian Soprano singing about the Ride of the Valkyries or some such thing. I was becoming afraid of what kind of contraption she might get for me.

She went out of the dressing room and I heard her rifling through tissue and muttering something about women who were over sized and mean. (Honest, I wasn't mean...I just told her that I wasn't spending all day on a stupid bra, nor was I paying $100 for some elastic and cotton, damn it!).

She brings back a handful of straps, material and little hooks and eyes. I thought she was going to make the damned thing as I was standing there. But no, she had a handful of bras for me to try on.

You know how you see in magazine ads the women with the beautiful bodies? You see little scraps of material around their chest and their boobs seem to be standing tall and straight. Sometimes the fabric is shear and you know the material is soft and cozy. LIES all LIES. I don't know how those pictures are done, I suspect computer enhancement.

This little twit in front of me had bras that were reinforced with hard, stiff cotton and plastic. I don't think 50 washings would soften these babies at all. She turns me around, puts her right knee on my back, pulls the bra around, as she's pushing me with her knee to get the bra hooked. She turns me back to look at her, bends the upper part of my body down, slips her hands into the cups of the bra, grabs the girls and molds them into the shape of the bra cup. All the while murmuring, "I'll get them in there. They'll fit good".

I stood straight up, looked into the three way mirror and gasped... I was in something that resembled an ancient corset from the 1800's. OK it wasn't quite like that, but pretty close. All I could see was elastic, hard cotton strapping, something that looked like those straight jacket clasp things to keep things together. I looked like I was wrapped in white Ace bandages. There was another problem, the girls seemed to look like that opera singer in Wagner, or Madonna in her younger years with the cones on the boobs. I was positively pointed...super pointed. I was actually afraid that I might fall forward and stick into the floor. I was pulled up, separated (that's the big deal here, separation, no one supposedly wants a "uni-boob") It may have been the "correct fit", but it was not comfortable. I thought I was going to explode when she released the hooks in the back. I could almost hear the girls saying, "Run".

To give the women her due, she tried her best to get me to try several others, but I declined and told her I wasn't sure which I wanted to buy, so I'd think about it for a while. The folks in Hell will get a swimming pool filled with ice water before I buy one of those contraptions.

I eventually found some soft cozy bras that fit the girls quite nicely and I think I heard a collective "Ahhh, that's better" when I bought the softer kinder bras, rather than the "contraption from Hell".

Economic Rantings of a middle aged woman

2008-05-28T15:49:00.000-07:00

You know, when I was a kid I had it pretty good. My Mother would say differently, but to me all the things she thought were adversities in her life, were the things that made life fun for me. It's all in your perspective.

This blog entry has come out of a result of a newspaper article. The article was talking about the increasing prices of foods, gas and in general, everything. Some people interviewed were appalled at the things they had to do now because of the constraints the economy was putting on them; Things like, they have to buy regular coffee instead of the Talle Latte's they've become accustomed to. And then there's the lady who was moaning about the cost of the Chinese take-out, and how much more it cost for the gas to go to pick it up. She was quite upset that the Chinese take-out restaurant was going to surcharge her for the delivery service because of their additional costs. Or how about the man who was complaining about the high cost of gasoline as he was pumping an enormous amount of gas into a huge truck he alone was driving to his office job. Why?

I decided to really look at the increases, and there's no denying there are increases in the costs of everyday things. Groceries have gone up around here about 15%. Some things have increased more than that, but generally, a 15% increase is what I'm seeing.

The wacky thing is, some of the stuff that's going up the most are things that I consider an unneeded expense. For example, I like this one kind of salad dressing. No big deal, I buy it once or twice a year. The price before Christmas was $1.79 for a bottle (8 oz). Now, that same dressing is $3.29 and the bottle is 7 oz. At first I thought it was an error. I took the bottle to the service desk and asked about it. It was correct. The dressing was in fact, $3.29. If you divide it out, that's .47 an oz. Multiply that by 64 oz=$30.08 a half gallon!!I don't think so. I'm not buying it. It's a convenience. That got me thinking about all the other conveniences we take for granted. (Honest to God, I feel like some old fart from the depression era complaining about the costs of everything, but that's exactly what this is like).

It seems to me, that everyone needs something to make them stop what they're doing and look at things from a different perspective. Sometimes it takes a great war, sometimes it takes some devastating disaster, an illness, the loss of a loved one, something to make the masses stop and think about what's going on around them.

Several generations have come to think if they want something they just have to have enough money to buy it. They haven't lived with less in their lives. They've wasted and spent, money they didn't have, but may have at a later date, they hope. They've put themselves into debt, in hopes they will be able to pay off "someday". They've never denied themselves anything. With the help of some little plastic cards, they've been able to live a life that's nothing but a facade of wealth. Now it's time to start to pay back, but guess what? They haven't begun to save for this day, so they're now in trouble. I feel bad for so many, and especially the kids that have come into this mess through no fault of their own, but I also feel a bit responsible for not saying, "STOP" to some of them, or at least say, "Do you know what you're doing?"

I understand that it may not be my place, or business to try to tell someone what to do, but when I see younger people doing stupid things I shudder. (Now I really feel like that old fart....)

That little exercise with the salad dressing can be done on tons of things. It's a good way to understand what the true cost of something is. I know we can't go back to the old days (there's that Old Fart again), but there are some things that I do now, and have done for years, that I know some folks never do, nor do they think to do them. I can save so much by doing some very simple things, like make my own soup. When a can of Campbell's soup pulls in $2.19 it's time to learn how to make soup (it's simple...honest) . I can make several meals, really good meals (and I'm fat so I know "good, delicious meals") out of a ham, roast beef, pork whatever is on sale. I don't waste, and that's the trick.

I watched a woman put a cooked chicken into her shopping cart. It was on sale, at a good price. I spoke to her in passing asking her what she did with the chicken. She told me she would have it for dinner that night, with baked potatoes and a tossed salad. I said, "that's all?" She said, "Yes, because there will be no white meat left after that and we don't eat dark meat". Holding my tongue in, I said, " what do you do with the dark meat?" "Well, usually I throw it away". She said. I had all I could do not to belt her. I did say, "Why don't you make soup?" She just shrugged. Is it me? Doesn't anyone make soup? Does everyone waste like that? No wonder we're considered the "throw away society".

I have to work in an office tomorrow. I work there on occasion. It's a nice office, but there are many clients who come in crying the blues about their lives and the cost to live that life. I sit there and listen in amazement as they tell me things they shouldn't, and expect me to "fix it" so they don't have to pay the piper that's come to get his payment. I only work occasionally because I find I don' t have the patience to listen to the crap all the time and smile politely, when I want to say, "listen jerk, you put yourself into this mess, so don't look at me as the villain". But I listen, nod and smile and say, "Sorry, this is the 5th, 6th, 7th etc. time I've heard this and there's not a whole lot I can do". They usually leave, head in hand, but understanding they are in a pickle.

I think we all need to see life as it really is, and not how we hope it is. We need to live within our means and stop being something we're not. That's not to say, we need to lose all our goals and not try and achieve, but understand that not everyone has a mansion, nor do we all drive Ferrari's, and we will not be King of the world anytime soon.

It's a matter of perspective. It may sound trite to say it, but if you're given a bunch of lemons, make lemonade and learn something about what is happening to you. Damn it, learn how to make soup!

Green, Green, Schmeen, Sheesh

2008-04-28T12:22:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is Earth Day....Omigod...everyone is running around spouting about how "green" they are going to be. Walk twenty miles don't drive.....(doesn't matter that when to do walk the twenty you'll probably pass out on the road. The ambulances will come wasting more precious gas to get you to the hospital where thousands of watts, or whatever of energy will be wasted to get you going again....Let alone the gas used to get the ambulance drivers from their homes to the volunteer ambulance garage to get into the gas guzzler ambulances...).

For crying out loud, the way I see it is, we boomers have a lot to fix. We're the ones that demanded so much crap and excesses that spilled over to our kids. That's generally speaking...I, on the other hand have to say, as a child of the 60's. I learned not to waste. So much so that my kids think my husband and I have a screw loose. When we buy things, we take care of them. We don't discard them if something newer, greater, more powerful or better looking, comes along. Consequently, we have some really old stuff we've used for years. So what? It works (probably way better than the "newer, better, upgraded" things)..Recently, we had to have our snow blower overhauled. The fix-it guy took one look at it and said to us, "Wow, I've never seen a snow blower this old look so clean and shiny. Holy cow, you have ALL the original parts on this...How did you do it?" He looked at us as though we were alien counterparts of the humans who lived in this house. Larry and I looked at each other in wonder. I wanted to scream at the guy, "WE TAKE CARE OF THINGS WE OWN, FOOL" But being the very caring person I am, I gently stated, "Well, we know we may not be able to buy another of these things so we make sure to take care of them. It doesn't take much to wipe it off after it's used and put it back where it belongs". Now I ask you, how hard is that? Apparently, very difficult, if I'm to understand what I see and read.

Case in point:

I know many folks who haven't learned the concept of: Just because you CAN buy and own something, doesn't mean you NEED to buy and own something. And, when you do decide you MUST have it, at least learn how to maintain it. These folks have all the "newest, greatest, fastest, brightest, etc" THINGS, and they're smothering under the weight of STUFF in every part of their lives. I don't get it.

Several folks I know would not buy any item Consumer Reports says is less than "the top of the line". Why? I don't get it. Sometimes the top of the line item is good, but then again, sometimes the item that's the top of the line has options on it I'd never use in a 100 years. From past experience I know machines that have "extras" on them sometimes fail more often. The extras usually fail, not the basic machine. O.K., not all the time, but if you aren't going to use the extra little ditty, and you've never seen the need in the last twenty years to have that extra little ditty, why pay extra money to have it added to your basic machine that surely will increase the cost of the stupid machine. I don't get it.

I'm not opposed to technology, I understand the need for things. God, help me I would die without the technological advances that have been made in household appliances over the years, but some of the stuff is getting out of hand. In my house I have: a juicer(so I can juice vegetables to make me thin and trim. I'm not yet there, but I have the juicer just in case I ever decide to use it) , blender(frozen drinks-gotta have that thing), hand held blender(when I want to have only one drink, I can use this instead of pulling out the big blender), hand mixer (I use this when the stand mixer has too many items in front of it and I can't get to it), stand mixer(I use this a couple of times a year, to justify having it),accessories for the stand mixer, (meat grinder-just in case the supermarket has the ultimate break down of grinding equipment-I have my own...Why? sausage accessory-for the times I grind all the meat and want to make sausage-never happened yet...but there's always a first time) big crock pot(for all the stews and things I make twice a year), little crock pot ( for all the dips I serve...),George Forman Grill(actually I do use this thing- mainly because I'm convinced George has a computer chip that tells him when the grill is not being used and he comes to your house and hits you for not using his grill),pannini maker, pizzelle maker, sandwich grill (different from the pannini maker- it doesn't leave lines on the bread), electric fry pan, electric Wok, rice maker, can opener,electric carving knife, electric scissors, popcorn maker, other popcorn maker, ice crusher(yes, I know you probably have one on your refrigerator, but I don't...I also don't use this ice crusher...I find a hammer and a plastic bag is better, and bonus, I can pretend I'm smashing someones head as I whack the ice), etc., etc., etc..

I'm betting you have the same, and probably more of these, "can't live without" appliance do hickeys. Look around, yeah, there are some that make your life easier, but honestly do you really NEED all of them? I'm sure most of us could survive without the use of many of these "so-called" conveniences.

I think back to a time when I was back in Scotland visiting relatives (I was born there and moved to the US as a kid). I will never forget my Aunt saying, "Suzanne, there is one luxury I will never give up....I can give up all others but not this one..." I'm thinking, furs, diamonds, caviar. She continues," I will never give up "hot water". I looked at her in amazement thinking I never gave a thought to hot water being a "luxury". I thought of it as sort of a "right". The "right" to have hot water as opposed to only cold water. I really started looking hard at what I had and what I took for granted. You have to spend time away from your comfort zone to be able to understand what you have.

So going back the "Greening of America" topic. I wonder if it will last longer than just Earth Day. I wonder if we'll all get serious and try to conserve, at least a little bit. I'm doing my part, I'm pounding the ice in a plastic bag small enough so I can throw it into the glass and add the liquor without the use of the big blender OR the little blender.... Every little bit helps....one step at a time...

Camping--MY kind of camping......

2008-04-18T15:26:00.000-07:00

I haven't been writing much lately, I've been too busy in this semi-retired state I find myself in today. I used to work every day. I was counting down the number of days before I could say I was, "semi-retired". I had it all planned, I would have all kinds of time to do the things I've wanted to do in the past, but was too tired to do when I came home from work. I knew when I finally said, "So long..." to the 9 to 5 routine I'd be golden. I don't know what happened, but damn! I'm busier now than I was when I was working full time.

I know the first paragraph has nothing to do with the title but I wanted to ease into the camping stuff slowly. I have a "thing" about camping and all it entails, and it takes me a few minutes to really start the brain blood flowing to make things coherent (chalk that up to my advanced age...the age that advanced another year the other day ...Yeesh...you'd think when you had so many birthdays society would give you a pass on one or two...not so....)

Anyway... I was in a parking lot today and I nearly drove into one of those stupid cement poles the lights are attached to, as I tried to read the banners, signs and bumper stickers on one of the largest RV's I've ever seen. The banners, etc. were professing the owners love for Jesus, the bible and all the other stuff that many Christians feel the need blare out for everyone else to see how pious they are. Now, before you get all hot and bothered about my possible "dissing" (see I'm not THAT old I know what that means...although that's probably not the term used today for disrespect...but you know what I mean) someones beliefs. I think you don't need to BLAST your beliefs from the highest mountain, or in this case the largest RV, in the world...or the Walmart parking lot. But, whatever floats your boat...go for it...(I wonder how the guy would feel if some other RVer had the Koran slogans all over his RV???I don't think that would go over as well...ya think?)

The RV reminded me of the time we had an RV, albeit not one of those giant things. Ours was more like a pregnant large van. It sort of looked as though someone took a van, put a giant straw into the front window and puffed out the sides and the rear end. It slept four, although you had to be pretty small, unfortunately we aren't small. It had all the amenities for little people, not dwarf type little people, more like leprechaun little people. There was a tiny ...imagine a coffin standing upright....area for the bathroom. It was kind of cool. You had to press a couple of buttons on both sides of the coffin, pull out, and the coffin became like a double sized coffin. The carpeted floor came up and lo, and behold the floor became a waterproof area with a drain in the middle:a shower area. The toilet was directly in front of the door, above the toilet you pressed another magic button and a sink dropped down, faucet and all. Yep, the coffin became a full fledged bathing/toilet facility. You couldn't turn around in it, but it had all the amenities needed to do your duty. I must admit though, there were many times when you could see a rear end popping out of the shower curtain. But it could be used as the needed bathroom.

It was OK when two people were using the RV, but if you had more than that, well let's just say it wasn't pretty. Between making sure no one was in the way of the "magic moving coffin" and the door to the outside, we were always struggling to climb out of the way, over the top of things and in general trying hard to have fun, fun, fun. Bahh....It was a pain in the neck.

My idea of camping is going to a motel that doesn't have a sauna, so when this RV thing came into our lives I was less than thrilled. I know, you're wondering why did we buy it? We didn't. I inherited it from my Dad.

My Dad always wanted a big boat (yes, I said "boat"). Mom didn't want anything to do with a boat, so they compromised and bought this, pretty high tech (for the times) RV. He researched it for months and found exactly what he thought was the greatest thing since sliced bread. It really was quite an engineering miracle (for leprechauns). It was state of the art. He convinced my Mom that they could save money on the trips from Florida up to New York to see the grand kids....Why, he even tried to convince her they could come up more often since they would be saving so much money on motels and food on the way up. It worked. The thought of seeing the grand kids more often won her over.

They bought the thing. It was really spiffy the first time we saw it. Although, it did have a pretty good dent in the rear end... My Dad hit a pole in a gas station...the pole was connected to a display of antifreeze...the antifreeze displayed was knocked over...someone trying to avoid the multitude of rolling antifreeze bottles hit a police car...the cop was standing outside the car and fell into the garbage can...My Dad got a ticket........ He was really upset about the whole thing as my Mom was trying hard not to laugh herself into wet pants as she was telling the story...That was the first trip they had taken in the "thing". It didn't bode well for the future.

My Dad parked "thing" along side of our house and plugged it in. He and my husband would sit out there, watch TV and drink some beer. It was the first "Man Cave" I think. He loved it. My Mom, on the other hand, thought it was a pain in the neck. She tried to keep it clean and nearly killed herself trying to contort her body in anything but human shapes to wash, dust, disinfect, shine, polish and all the other things women of her generation do to keep everything looking like no one has ever eaten, slept, walked, or used the bathroom. It was nuts... The result of this was my Dad wanted a place to relax, Mom wanted to make sure that anyone looking at the "thing" would know it was clean, neat and tidy. (for who? the freakin leprechauns?) As I said...nuts....

They did have a few good times with it and I'm glad my Dad got to go in it a few times. My Dad became ill the following year and before he died he gave the "thing" to me........(remember, my idea of camping is going to a Motel without a sauna..).

The kids were older, and the thought of going anywhere with their parents was a fate worse than death to them. Consequently, it was Larry and I who used the "thing" for camping. To give the "thing" its due, it had all the options that make camping easier. It had a furnace,central air conditioning, a generator, gas stove, electric lights, alternate source of power, a control panel, cable connections, portable microwave, sink,built in cabinets and a whole lot of other things that make camping easier for those of us that don't do "dirt, tents, and the like".

We used the "thing" for all kinds of purposes. It moved kids into dorms, out of dorms, into apartments, out of apartments, brought engines home from Canada for cars that didn't run( nor would they ever run...but that's for another blog entry). All in all we did some fun things with it other than camping. It was great to take a bunch of people to football games, (talk about the perfect tailgate party vehicle...it was that). But like everything and everyone, it gets old.

Some of the trips we took in the "thing" were legend though. One in particular...now listen carefully, I can't say this more than once because I'm convinced we're (Larry and I) still on the lam from the Canadian Mounties, or at least the police of Kingston Ontario.... I think we're ok in Nova Scotia, but I KNOW we can never go on the Catamaran from Bar Harbor to Halifax...unless we wear disguises.

We decided to take a trip up to the St. Lawrence River in Canada. Our plan was to cross the river on a tiny bridge in New York over to Kingston Ontario. The weather was gorgeous. Everything was going fine. We went through customs with no problem. We made our way toward the beautiful city of Kingston. Larry was tired so I was the driver. Kingston is a pretty good sized city and we didn't know our way around the city. We had maps, but this was before the days of Mapquest or GPS devices. While I was driving through the city the traffic was building and I was lost (note here...this is not unusual for me..I'm navigationally challenged, unless it's for shopping). I noticed there was a street fair going on and decided we had to stop to check it out. Larry was resting his eyes. At the point where I decided to drive into a parking lot, a car pulled directly in front of me making me pull the wheel of the "thing" sharply to the left, Larry fell off the seat in back, the "thing" lurched, as we drove over a kind of curb....Now, you would think that it was OK, and it would be if this was a car. However, the "thing" had its grey water (not so bad used water) and its black water (the worst stuff you can imagine that comes out of you, mixed with toilet paper, chemicals and water) under the unit near the tires... When I ran over the curb thing, I ripped off the ...BLACK water reservoir, so our toilet was spilling out onto the paved parking lot. I looked in the rear view mirror in horror as I saw little globs of stuff mixed with fluorescent blue water leaving a trail behind me.

Now I ask you, what do you do in a situation like that? Well, I'll tell you what I did. I stopped the thing, grabbed a towel from the coffin bathroom, jumped out and stuffed the towel into the open raw sewage pipe that was attached to the "thing" spewing out its guts. By this time Larry was wide awake and running around the parking lot trying to find our missing toilet receptacle and cap, paper towels in hand, trying desperately to clean up what he could...It was awful...there was no way we could clean it up ourselves and I don't think the city of Kingston had enough water to neutralize the blue chemicals that were spewed all over that parking lot, not to mention the unmentionables.

After a short time we realized we couldn't clean it all up. We did a damned good job. Luckily we had a huge supply of paper toweling and old towels. When we thought we had camouflaged the place enough, we moved the RV to another parking lot so no one could track us....

I looked up to the sky. The sky that was blue and cloudless, and prayed to all that is holy as I said, "Look this was an accident. We didn't mean to deface this foreign land. If you could just give us some rain about now, it would be really kind of you". We honestly didn't know what to do except clean ourselves up (no easy task) and go to the fair.... We were worried, thinking about all the fines we would face if anyone knew we were the culprits of "the toilet that took over Kingston".

I have to tell you I was a wreck. Larry took it in stride figuring if the worse came to worst he'd probably be OK in a jail in Canada, at least he'd get a break from his work. He thought the whole thing was hilarious....He didn't do it...I did...

While we were at the fair, Larry eating all the things I wanted but couldn't think about eating, I was watching to see if the Mounties or the police were coming after us. I looked around and I watched the sky as I witnessed, what I am sure was the hands of the Gods, pushing aside the blue sky and pushing in the storm clouds. It started pouring rain like I've never witnessed in my life. I stood in the middle of the fair, looked up at the sky and thought to myself, "I will never again deny the power of prayer......" And I'm not all that religious, honest.......I'm convinced it was my Dad's hand at work with the help of some higher power, knowing we needed ALOT of water to neutralize the situation a couple of blocks away...

We managed to jury rig the toilet and left the city of Kingston quickly, in the rain. We haven't been back...The story about the Catamaran will be for another day....

Little Old Ladies

2008-03-10T11:19:00.000-07:00

I live in Upstate new York. We're not talking, Westchester county ( We call them "downstaters") we're talking Northern New York, capital district (that's Albany, for those of you that don't know your state capitals---by the way what's with THAT, anyway....we should all be familiar with state capitals....after all this is the country we live in and all the states are part of it....but wait a minute I'm getting off on one of my tangents....sorry) anyway, I live in the North country of New York, Saratoga Springs to be exact (don't give me the crap about...."omigod, you should never tell anyone where you live.... for God's sake you can find out about how many times I poop in a day if you do the research on the net, so what's the big deal about saying an area where I live??? geesh...)

Saratoga Springs is known for all sorts of things, Health (we have mineral springs, baths, and many massage areas...I think I'm supposed to live longer than the average person because I've lived here for so long...although, I don't think the folks that think that way understand that with the minerals comes, radium, strontium 90 (whatever THAT is?),and those things kill you....I figure one wipes out the other so I'm going to live as long as my body wants me too.), Horses (we have the oldest thoroughbred race track in the US that brings the city to a frenzied pace July-September. We get all the rich and wanna be rich folks here at that time as well...I'm not so sure that's the best thing) Houses (we have many gorgeous homes "painted ladies" from a by gone era. Most of them are original, then we have the new ones that look like the originals but with more amenities for modern life. I like the old ones better. Walking into the old ones, you get a feeling of majesty. The new ones have a phony facade, once you step into their "foyays" (a.k.a. foyers) the resemblance ceases. The new beauties are clearly copycats, and not always good ones, at that) and History(We are the site of the famous Saratoga Battlefield and all that goes along with the war things of the Revolutionary war).

We also have the Harness racing track which houses the Racino, gambling establishment. We've always been a city with a gambling history, so when the Racino came to town it didn't surprise me. What has surprised me is the number of little old ladies who frequent the place.

Now, listen, I'm a little (well...maybe not so little) old lady, but I gotta tell you I'm not like some of these ladies I encountered in a recent foray to the wilds of Racino...

Normally I'd say, " Now close your eyes as I describe this..."but since you wouldn't be able to read this if your eyes were closed, imagine this...

I walk in to a noisy, light flashing, machine laden building. People are on chairs in front of machines that are enticing them to feed the machines. The machines have buttons, bells and whistles, and if you can get them in the right sequence you might be able to get about 10% of the money you just lost, back. The people you must watch out for are the little ones with the white,gray,or thinning hair. They usually look pretty friendly, but watch out, they can turn on you in an instant. I mean really bad. You might lose an arm or a leg, at the very least you'll get tripped or have the chair pulled out from under your butt.

These women all look like some body's Grandmother, but it isn't true. They're wearing masks to put you off guard. They're bad asses, listen up.

I sat down next to one of these women. She immediately pulled her sweater over the top of her pocketbook sitting on her lap. She bent her head down towards the bag, shifted her eyes toward me, and I swear to God, her mask started to slip and I'm sure I saw the face of an alien monster from the planet Klingon looking at me. She sort of growled at me when I smiled trying to diffuse what I thought might get ugly. I quickly pulled my players card from the machine and walked away facing her, God help me, I didn't want to turn my back on her... No telling what would have happened. I found a machine by itself with no one near it. I sat for a minute trying to catch my breath and bring my heart back to a normal beat.

I feel it's my duty to warn society about these...women. They look pretty normal. Most of them wear, pants, sweaters with some kind of design on them or sweatshirts that say, "World's Best Grandma"--yeah right. The worst ones are the ones with really badly made up faces. You know, eyebrows that no human should have, round rouged cheek bones, eye shadow in colors that are unearthly, lipstick so thick you can cut it with a knife (that's to camouflage the real lips....). So be on the lookout for this species if you go to a casino, I hear they're all over the place. (The casinos AND the little old ladies (?) ).

Passwords! Who the Hell thought up THAT one??

2008-01-19T19:21:00.000-08:00

OK, OK, I know, we have to have passwords to protect our identity. But I ask you, is it working? My understanding is, the majority of the folks that steal identities are relatives.

So here's my problem. I am not rich, but, I have a portfolio with investments in different financial institutes. Because we live in this new, wonderful modern world where we do things on the Internet, and with all kinds of electronic equipment, and we don't go to our neighborhood bank, we have to "prove" our identity before we can proceed to find out the simplest things about our own finances. It wouldn't be so bad, but I can't remember what I ate this morning and I'm damned sure I can't remember what my password is. Consequently, I have a little notebook with all the numbers, symbols and letters, that I've used in different ways to make up my personal passwords. I think the list is up to about 150 right about now. The problem I have is, I can't remember where I put the notebook. I'm in deep trouble...very big trouble.

At my office, in order to open up my computer I have 7 different passwords that must be kept under lock and key. God help the USA if someone finds out some of the stuff that's in my "my documents" file....(cripes, they may find all the stored e-mail jokes or pictures of my grandkids....).

I have to call in and be "voice recognized" in order to go from one area of the company to another. (What are we the: CIA? FBI? NATO? League of Nations? Super Heroes? What?) The same company, just different divisions. I have to prove who I am at every connection. How paranoid have we become?

My personal favorite is the one password I have to give in two parts, one part to one person and one part to another. I think one person is sitting in an office in Greenland, the other is in Siberia, at least....maybe.

The real reason for this password stuff is to give someone justification for their existence. I swear to God, I truly believe it. Some paranoid jerk decided that we all have to become as paranoid as he/she is and developed a need for the passwords. Then the jerk figured he/she could make a bundle of money if they could convince corporate America that there was a huge risk of corporate espionage and they had to protect their investment. Some other CEO jerk, (who is probably the Uncle of the original jerk who thought up this whole scam in the first place) made sure that the board of directors took the paranoid pills and they all agreed to go this multi-functional-stupid password scam. It makes perfect sense to me.

Every single day I hear on the news, or in a newspaper about someone who's had their identity stolen and they are in all kinds of trouble through no fault of their own. My question is this, I thought this was supposed to be a country that believed in someone being innocent until proven guilty. I guess in the case of identity theft, the operative word is "theft" which means that something, usually money, has been taken from someone else and it's all about the money, not how the money was taken, or by whom. Whomever is at the front of the suspect line IS the culprit, no matter what they say.

I'm lucky, I live in an area that still has neighborhood banks that haven't been swallowed whole by the giant banking conglomerates. I think it's time for me to rethink this Internet, electronic banking system in this country and become better acquainted with my neighborhood banker.

Now if only I could find the original jerk who thought up this password dilemma my life would be complete...after I strangle him/her with my bare hands... hmmm.. I wonder if he/she knows where my "password notebook" is?

I'm afraid....I'm very afraid

2008-01-15T18:21:00.002-08:00

I know when folks get older they tend to look to the younger generation and think...."Holy Cow, what's to become of us...this new generation is: nuts, crazy, lazy, inefficient, slow, unthinking, selfish, etc...". I swear to God I thought I, being an educated, enlightened person, would not be one to look around and say things about the younger folks, but believe me, was I wrong.

Point in case:

Does anyone under 30 know how to make change without the use of a cash register??? I think not.

Whatever happened to "playing store" as a kid and learning how to count back the change?

There's a chain letter going around the Internet about someone going to Mickey D's. It goes something like this"

My daughter and I went through the McDonald's take-out window and I gave the clerk a $5 bill. Our total was $4.25, so I also handed her a quarter. She said, "You gave me too much money." I said,"Yes I know, but this way you can just give me a dollar bill back." She sighed and went to get the manager who asked me to repeat my request. I did so, and he handed me back the quarter, and said "We're sorry but we can not do that kind of thing." The clerk then proceeded to give me back $1 and 75 cents in change.

Now, maybe you think this is funny, and it is, but it's a pretty sad state of affairs as well.

I thought, "well, it's on the Internet and how true can that be?...I know some times we all get ruffled at times and make mistakes. Probably that's some kind of urban legend stuff, rearing it's head again. I really didn't think too much about it until last weekend.

My husband and I went to a local farm stand to buy some apples. The woman in front of me decided to buy a bag of apples ( now, this is the God's truth....I swear...I should be stricken down with a horrible death if I'm lying.....). She proceeded go to the counter and asked the cashier ( a man about 25) if he could tell her how much the apples were by the pound. The bag was clearly written that it contained 10 pounds. The price for the 10 pounds was $6.95. To me it was pretty obvious the price per pound was .69 cents. (.69 X10= 6.90 , OK so .69 and a half cents). The guy looked at her as though she asked him to solve a world crisis....He stammered, "Well, I have to take the bag to the scale over in the other part of the store and it will tell me, come this way..." . They both marched to the other side of the store where he proceeded to place the bag on the scale, plug the scale into the socket (apparently it was an "electronic device") wait for it to warm up(what the Hell....warm up?? give me a break!). I finally walked over and said, " The price per pound is approximately .69 cents. " They both looked at me as I explained how to divide $6.95 by 10 to solve their complicated mathematics problem....

The woman buying the apples said, " I was an English major in college. Math was never my thing". The guy behind the counter said, " Oh, I'm in graduate school, for EDUCATION(!!!) I was never a good math student"

We're all in freaking trouble!!! We better start learning, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Indian, Pakistani, forget the Spanish....

Be afraid....be very afraid

I'm afraid....I

2008-01-15T18:21:00.001-08:00

The Male of the Species

2008-01-01T20:44:00.000-08:00

Can I ask why it's so much more intense when the male portion of a family has a problem? I don't care if it's to do with clothing, eating, drinking, doing chores, or worst of all, being sick.

My significant other has a cold...mind you, a cold; sneezing, running nose, coughing, sore ears, sore throat, you get the picture. Now, before you start thinking I'm an uncaring female, let me enlighten you to the myriad of things that happen when he feels less than his best.

1. He dresses in clothes that I'm sure a homeless person would reject...you know the kind I mean: old shapeless flannel pants with the rear end blown out, but repaired some what, a sweat shirt that saw better days in the 1960's, a ski hat, huge wool socks with slippers over the top, but you can still see the socks because of the holes in the soles of the slippers. Over the flannel and sweats, a quilted flannel work shirt that any self respecting redneck would reject, even if they were going out to dig a new outhouse hole.

2. He sits in his chair with the remote in his hand. The side table is filled with all the things he will need while he sits and complains: tissue, Tums, saline spray, sore throat lozenges, cough drops, aspirin, Tylenol, water, soda, something that with slide down his throat easily. (From my side of the room I look at him and wonder if a knife would slide down easily.

3. Every so often I hear, "Oh God, just take me away." "Is this what my final days will be like?" "Cough, cough-Oh my God....when will it end?"" $%#@ this #$@% cold, I'm freakin' dying here, and nobody cares." "Just leave me to die here...I'll go slowly-just not quietly."

4. When anything is suggested to help alleviate the pain/nausea/headache, whatever, he looks across at me as though I should be drawn and quartered for suggesting anything so benign to help him get through this deadly sickness he alone must endure. When I suggest he do something as logical as "gargle with salt water." I become the victim of eye daggers thrown from across the room to pierce my body, and leave me bloodied.

and so it goes....

Finally, I put my foot down and throw him into the car and head out to the Doctor. He looks as if fire will flame from his eyes as he tries to refuse to go, but I know his vulnerabilities and I've had enough. He knows better than to defy me when I'm in this frame of mind.

The ride to the Doctor is one in silence. He's angry. I'm angry. We're both tired.

The receptionist tries to do her job, asking all the questions she needs to ask to fulfill her paperwork. He's mad. She gets up to go to the printer. He looks at me and says, "Why does she have to ask all the same things that she can read on the computer? she can just read the answers that are on the computer....She's a dope." I say, "I think she has to verify all the information and be sure it's up to date." "No," he says, "she's a dope." I look at him and wonder what happened to the man I married and fathered my kids. Surely this man sitting next to me isn't the same one.

The receptionist comes back and takes us to a "sick room." He looks at me as if to say, "See, they know I'm sick."

The Doctor finally comes in. Asks some of the same questions again. She looks down the throat, checks in the ears, listens to the chest. She sits down and says, " Looks as if you have a cold, and probably a little sinusitis. It's not bad. We'll give you some stuff to take and in a couple of days you'll be back to normal...No problem." She leaves and I look at him. He looks at me and says, "What the Hell is she talking about? I have pneumonia at the very least, probably Bubonic Plague as well."

The Doctor comes back in,, hands him the script and walks out. The nurse says, "OK out you go, Enjoy the rest of your day."

I watch him as he walks to the car. His head is down, he's coughing and sputtering about the lack of caring of all of the females in the world. I hear him say, "They just don't know the pain I'm in...I'm dying here...and nobody cares."

He's fine. A couple of days on the medicine, a good night's rest, doing what I tell him to do to alleviate the discomfort, and he'll be right as rain...Thank the Gods for small favors.

Packaging-American Style

2007-12-28T08:52:00.000-08:00

OK, it's December 28 and I'm sitting at this computer with smoke pouring out of my ears. I've just spent the better part of an hour trying to remove all the stickers, plastic tabs, plastic bubble wrap, molded plastic coverings, boxes, string tags, price stickers, cardboard labels, sticky labels, size chart labels, size labels, and anything else I had to remove to get to the thing inside or under the offending wrapper.

It's nuts! I'm trying to remove all the crap off of the new Christmas clothes in order to wash the stuff prior to wearing it. What? you say....why wash before wearing?You see it's like this....If I wear the stuff before washing it I, or my family, will get all kinds of little red bumps from the probable toxic waste the manufacturer dips the clothing in before it gets shipped to the stores.

For years I've tried to figure out what the stuff is, and I've come to a bunch of conclusions. The best of the conclusions is: the manufacturer had to figure out a way to get rid of the toxins we, the US, probably sent to them for disposal.

Here's how I see it. The US has all kinds of garbage to dispose of, and has no way to get rid of it, since no one wants to make the Grand Canyon into a landfill, so we send it to China. China doesn't know what the Hell to do with it either but they know how to make things out of nothing so they put all the garbage into a compactor to excrete all the liquids out. The liquid has some kind of property that makes clothing stain proof, so they dip all the clothing that's being sent back to the US in the liquid, therefore, giving it back to us.

People like me and my family have sensitive skin so we have to eliminate some of the toxic waste from the clothes prior to wearing. BUT I think the clothes themselves are made out of the garbage we send to China.

After the liquid is removed from the compacted garbage, the solids are then doused with acid to break down the fibers. What is left is a sludge that can be dried and made into cloth. I think this makes perfect sense.

Moral: Wash the new stuff before wearing it. Swear at all the tags, etc as you nearly cut off your fingers removing all the little crappy tags. And be happy....

Holiday Cheer

2007-11-23T16:57:00.000-08:00

Happy Holidays...I received my first holiday letter...I'm so pleased....
I'm sending out this:

Happy Holidays to one and all
This year will be such a great Holiday season for us since everyone has been released and no one is on trial at this time. This will be the first year we don’t have to bring the specialty Holiday desserts we all love to the prison for Larry’s cousin.
It’s especially nice to have another member of the family to be able to join us at dinner on Christmas. It’s too bad he has to come with the anklet on. At least this year we don’t have to set an additional place for the cops that he had with him last year. They were nice but some of the family felt they had to watch what they were saying and they didn’t like having to go out back to toke up. It’s a good thing I remembered to whisk away the needles on the buffet before someone else saw them. I try to keep everyone on an even keel during this time of year and I have to remember to remove temptation.
Larry Sr. has finally conquered the last bout of syphilis. It was touch and go there for a while but the new dosage of penicillin finally kicked in, which we are thankful for. He had such a bad time before the last diagnosis since we weren’t sure where he picked up the bug from. We think it came from a bathroom he was using at a rest stop in Vermont. But you never know about those things, you can’t be too careful these days. I think he’ll finally agree to bring in the antibacterial wipes from now on.
The weeping sores on my legs and arms have finally subsided. I no longer have to wear the nylon netting and thank God, I don’t have to wear the sign around my neck anymore. I had many people come up to me and run away after reading the sign that said, “Contagious, please do not touch”. The CDC people from Atlanta told me that I would be incarcerated if I didn’t keep the general public informed and therefore safe, so I really had no choice but to wear it. It was really a drag as I walked around dripping; so messy, with no animals around anymore to clean up after me.
Speaking of animals…We had to put down the last of our beloved pets this year. Spotty got loose and tangled with a rabid raccoon. He was fine for a long time, and then we noticed his whole demeanor changed. He started to chase his tail, but more than the normal stupid dog stuff. He would circle until he collapsed. If anyone went near him he would lunge, teeth bared as he went for the offending jugular vein. I tried to tell everyone he was only being friendly, but when he bit the little finger off the mail lady, we knew something was wrong. I don’t know why she made such a fuss, it’s not like she needed that little finger to deliver the mail. The cops took Spotty away and both Larry and I had to have a series of rabies shots. They don’t hurt like they used to, and bonus! when you get them in your stomach, you don’t want to eat much afterwards, so it’s a great weight reduction method. We try to look on the positive side at this time of year.
This year we have both cars. Neither one of the cars was repossessed, so we have been able to get to our Parole offices with little or no trouble. After the house fire in March, we realized how important it was to have two vehicles. Larry’s vehicle we used as our bedroom. My car was used for all the rest of the daily needs. In the summer, we were finally able to fill in all the holes we had dug for the outhouses we had to have during our homeless period.
The house is finally finished. It took several months to get all the insurance people to agree and get us back into the house. We still don’t know what took so long. The insurance company said they’d fulfill the contract and paint the charred remains.
We hired three different contractors. The first one came to the house with his “partner” (wink, wink). The only thing we think they did was in one of the bedrooms. We found them in a compromising position one day and they never came back. They had received a rather large chunk of change from the insurance company to do some of the work, and they took that with them too.
The second group of contractors didn’t speak English, which wasn’t bad until I realized they were speaking some Arabic tongue and every time I entered the room, they spit at my feet and screamed, “Infidel, whore woman, scum of the Earth”. I tried to engage them in conversation a couple of times telling them that I too was an immigrant and I knew how difficult it was in the US as a new immigrant. They didn’t seem to want me around. I noticed they had plans laid out on my dining room floor. I guessed they were trying to figure out how to put my kitchen back in order, but I wondered why I needed a gun turret in the back wall. Oh well I guessed they knew what they were doing. I sure didn’t; funny though, a car came the following day and they all got in and the drove off shaking their fists at me. I still don’t know what that was about. The FBI says not to worry; they will get it straightened out.
All in all, the year has been uneventful. Larry and I hope to be able to leave the country in the next few months, before someone finds out what we did with the robbery money his cousin gave us.

We hope this finds all of you happy, healthy and looking forward to the next year with gladness and goodness in your hearts.

Love to you all,

Suzanne and Larry

PS Our prayer for this holiday is:
“Drop kick me Jesus, into the goal posts of life” Amen

Turkey Day Dilemma

2007-11-21T15:33:00.000-08:00

Today is Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. Normally I am in the throes of cooking and cleaning since the next day the family will be here. Not so this year. This year my kids are at their in-laws and we will be at another family member's home.

In a way, it's kind of nice not to have to do all the cooking and clean-up that's required in order for the family to come in and devour everything in 10 minutes flat. In another way, it's sort of sad. The times change so does the family dynamic. I'm bringing the veggies to the feast tomorrow, consequently I've been making our regular veggies: squash, turnip, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, Cole slaw, applesauce, pretty much everything except the bird. This is my choice since I like all the winter veggies and I eat very little of the bird thing. (It's not that I dislike turkey, it's just that I like all the trimmings more). Of course, I ran out of something and had to go to the market, not the best idea the day before a major food fest.

As I knew it would be, the market was crammed with people trying to do all the shopping they should have done last week but didn't, on this day, the day before the feast. As I walked around the store with my list of 5 items I needed, I watched and listened to the frenzied conversations all around me. I finally stood in one place and listened to what I think is one of the most prevalent complaints I hear from folks about the holidays, or for that matter, any large family gathering. The husband (obviously not at all happy to be in the market pushing a cart around as he followed his wife), "Hey, why do we have to get this jellied cranberry stuff? None of us like this, right?" His wife's reply, "We have to get it because Uncle Jerry and Aunt Selma are coming and they always have this at Thanksgiving". He replies. " Yeah, but we don't, and it's at our house so how come we have to have it?" She says, "I told you why". He says, "That's just stupid. What's that round purple-y thing in here." He's picking up a rutabaga or turnip as he's saying this. She replies, "That's the turnip we always have." He says, "Is this the thing, that when you cook it the house stinks like garbage for days afterward?" "No" she says, "that's the cabbage you're thinking about. The turnip isn't that bad and anyway you only get it once a year so what's the big whoop?" He looks at her and says, " I gotta look at all the stuff in here. We don't need all this stuff, nobody eats all this crap". She looks at him (I can see the disdain in her face-she knows this guy she's married to is going to keep this up and she's going to have to defend everything in the cart unless she stabs him in the heart right now before he grabs one more thing in the cart-but no, she knows she can't do that in the middle of the market-it would be too messy) and says, "Your Mother always had that on the table at holidays and YOU were the one that said you wanted to have all the same things your Mom served, since SHE knew how to cook. That's why we have all this stuff in the cart. Do you want to change the menu for tomorrow, and cook it?" (In my estimation this was the gauntlet being thrown down-there was no way in Hell I was moving from the vantage point where I could hear this very interesting conversation. I wanted to see if this guy was going to pick up the gauntlet and accept the challenge so carefully orchestrated by his wife. I could see he was going over thoughts in his head. Obviously, this guy had been married a while, he knew better than to pursue the challenge. His thoughts were almost tangible to me. I could almost feel his brain trying to come up with some kind of plausible way to extricate itself out of this mess the guys mouth had put them in. His face was a mass of emotion. I was holding my breath, hoping that I was far enough away from possible explosion, if this guy was too dumb to realize that he was walking in a minefield. Now don't tell me you don't know what I'm talking about, because you know you do....We've all been on both sides of this kind of give and take and we all know how to tread water when we need to. (or else we'll drown) . I waited with bated breath, unsure of the outcome of this potential disaster I was about to witness, when I saw the guy put down the thing in his hand, look up at his wife and say, "No, hon, I think you probably know best about this dinner thing." She was standing at attention as the man of her dreams, backed down in submission. I could see her eyes, seconds before shooting flaming arrows out of the pupils, quieting to a more humanly look. I finally took a breath knowing how close I had come to being in the middle of a mini mine field ready to blow.

As I left my vantage point, I turned to look at the guy. He was standing still, sweat beaded on his forehead, lips pursed blowing cool air up toward his brain. He too knew how close he came to losing the life he knew and loved in those few moments.

I walked on into the freezer section of the market, just to get a breath of cool air. All around me I could hear mini battles being waged, lost and won. I thought at that time how much a market, the day before a holiday, was much like a battlefield. There were little army's all over the place trying to control other little army's.

Why DO we put ourselves through all this?

The New Demographic

2007-11-11T20:13:00.000-08:00

For years this household has received numerous phone calls from everyone, and just about anyone, wanting to know how we thought about political ideologies, what TV programs we were watching, what paper products we used, and all sorts of marketing research.

Over the years we've tested products then given our opinions on the products or the services. We were the "typical" American family, Father, Mother, girl kid, boy kid, dog, cat, house in the 'burbs, yes, that was us.

As time has marched on we have changed our demographic. The kids have grown up and moved out, the dog died, the cat died, but we still live in the 'burbs. We still do some of the marketing research things but something has changed in the last few years.

The last time the phone rang I picked it up and the party on the other end said, in the very familiar voice, "Hello, this is Mark from XYZ Marketing. How are you today?" I responded very cordially, " I'm fine, Mark, hope you are as well."

I sat down on the chair waiting for the questions I usually am asked about some consumer thing or another. I waited for several seconds before "Mark" came back on the phone and said, "Whoops, I'm terrible sorry Mrs. Canell, but I see you and your husband are over 60. Is that correct?" "Why, yes, Mark that's correct." " Well, I'm sorry but you are too old for this survey. We're looking for people that fit the profile of the "average" American family, and I guess that's not you anymore. Sorry". He then hung up before I could say another word.

I sat in stunned silence for a while, looking at the phone in my hand. I thought to myself how much had changed over the last few years. No longer was I, or my family, the demographic needed to give the opinions to the advertisers. No longer was my opinion of any use to them. Apparently, when you hit the age of 60+ you are pushed on to the iceberg of advertising and sent out to sea.

When my husband came in, I told him of this strange phenomena that had occurred. I said to him that I didn't remember a time when I felt this "out of it". I didn't feel as though I was "out of it", but then maybe I haven't really spent time looking around at the things I see now, I didn't see before.

My mailbox is filled to the brim most days with advertisements about Medicare, Medicare supplements, what to do with my estate, how to survive grief, how to spend my money in retirement, how not to spend my money in retirement, who I should send donations to, who I should see to increase my libido, what vitamins I need at this advanced age, what I should do to avoid falling, how Medicare will pay for my "scooter", where I should go to retire not to mention what type of dwelling I need now that I'm in the "Winter of my years". The list goes on, but apparently I am no longer needed to tell the advertisers what and how their products are.

The worst slap in the face came from some snot-nosed creep who called from Mini USA. We have a Mini Cooper and we had one of the original ones as well. When we bought the new one we were constantly being sent information about the Mini and what a great car it would be for us. The car supposedly would bring back "fun" into our lives. (How these folks knew were down trodden and "fun-less" is beyond me, but then again maybe it was because they knew of our advanced age, old age=fun-less). Anyway, we were invited to all sorts of adventures and did many of the Mini trips. The Mini folks didn't seem to object to taking our money for the adventures. Somewhere, somehow, things changed. Now the Mini is a "young, sporty fun car" and the demographic age group that is needed to sell this vehicle is not a couple in their 60's.

I started to look at the folks on the commercials as well as in magazines. It seems to me that I may as well just find a hole in the ground, jump in and fill it in with dirt. The products I see on the TV are not for me...at least a majority are not (there's still the incontinence stuff, erectile dysfunction pills, and an assortment of liniment things I guess I'm supposed to be buying).

So I wonder if anyone else feels as though time has marched on and decided to leave them behind.

Who's your Daddy or whatever.....?

2007-10-15T14:41:00.000-07:00

I read the paper faithfully everyday. I stopped watching the news on TV because it's so damned depressing to watch all the same stuff over and over again. I tried to watch on other channels and they're doing the same stories. Isn't there any other news to report in the world other than the few same stories carried by every channel?

I find it a bit strange, in the whole world there are only four or five news worthy stories to report. Well, maybe I'm wrong and there are only four or five things going on in the world on any given day. But I don't think so.That's why I stopped watching the news reported on TV, I get more information from the newspaper. I read the whole thing, sometimes though, I read the headline of a story and decide whether or not to pursue it.

I've taken to reading the little write ups under the engagement photos as well as those under the baby photos. I'm not so sure I could keep up with who is who unless I had a score card for some of these folks. Let's talk about the engagement ones first.

You know what I mean, you see a lovely couple standing or sitting on top of each other with smiles plastered all over their faces. The photo is usually a professional one so you see them probably in the best light. Under the photo it says, "Joe Smith and Amanda Small engaged". It goes on, the parents of Joe Smith, Jim Smith, his wife Annabell Carling-Smith of Cassenova and Courtney Alveres-Smith-Porter and her husband Elijah Porter of Syracuse, step-father Rodrigo Alveres and his wife Sophia Johnson-Alveres and Sharon Coe-Small-Stanhope and her husband Jacob Stanhope, and Michael Small and his wife Elizabeth Cosby-Tryon-Small would like to announce the engagement of their son, step-son, daughter, step-daughter. I get lost after the first two and who the Hell cares anyway?

The babies are ever worse. They name the parents, the step parents, the grandparents, the step grandparents, the other step parents the god parents, sometimes the Aunts, Uncles, the brothers, sisters, step siblings, the whole gamut. I understand that everyone is elated at the new arrival but honest to God doesn't it seem that you could get your name into the paper in a better way than as a laundry list tagged to the diaper of a baby?

When I first started reading all bits of enlightening information in the "Society Column" as it was once described in another life I thought that these lists of names after the baby or the engaged couple was uncommon. However, in the last few months I realize that I have been sadly mistaken. It seems that everyone today has multiple names to add to their family tree. Now, don't misunderstand me, I do believe it takes a village to raise a kid and all that, but do I need to know everyone's name who wiped the nose or the butt of a kid?

I recently had the opportunity to attend the shower of one of my young relatives. There I was in the presence of a bunch of folks I had never set eyes on before. These were people that were going to become part of my extended family, sort of. I looked around the room trying to figure out who was who. I realize at these affairs there are many folks you don't know, that's why we have them, so people can get to know each other, but honestly this was more than I could grasp.

The soon to be groom had: a natural mother, a natural father, a step-mother, another step-mother, a step-father, another step-father, 2 grandmothers,great grandmother, 2 step grandmothers, 2 grandfathers, great grandfather, 2 step grandfather's, 6 full blooded aunts, 4 full blooded uncles (they're from both sets of natural grandparents) , 12 half aunts, 5half uncles (still paying attention?), 3 sisters,2 brothers, 5half brothers, then there was the adopted group....no lie.

Just family alone, there were over 150 people from the one side. I sat with my daughter and we looked at each other in astonishment. I kept looking over the crowd and all I saw were warrens of rabbits. I had to physically close my mouth with my hand.

Honest to God, I know that I live differently than some other folks, but I venture to think that this was a bit excessive. I started to wonder about all the women that had sex with the groom's Dad. I thought, "Man I can't wait to see this guy. He's got to be something special"...(NOT---by the way).

As I was looking around I thought about the ages of the group. The great grandparents didn't look like the visions I had of great-grandparents. I thought of a great grandmother's as wizened old sages, rocking away the hours, not so this bunch. The one great (it might have been great great) grandmother had on a pair of fuchsia Capri pants, a pink and fuchsia low cut top with a gold belt, platform (albeit low heels) shoes with a fuchsia bow on the front. Her hair was piled high atop her head with a pink bow holding it all precariously in a bunch at the back, small tendrils of curls cascading down her back. Go, Granny go! She was not alone in her youthful appearance. A couple of the "older" women looked and dressed younger than their daughters and granddaughters. Bizarre...

This was at the shower, I sat in wonder at what I might see at the wedding when the "men-folk" would be in attendance..... to be continued....

Failure is not such a bad thing

2007-09-09T18:33:00.000-07:00

I'm a creature of habit. One of the habitual things I do is read the Sunday papers. I especially like to read the opinions page. Usually I read it, sit in the chair and make silent comments about what the writer is focusing on. However, today as I read the opinion page, I found myself sitting up straighter and reading an article with a bit more concentration.

The article was written by an English teacher. He was writing about his annual apprehension regarding the beginning of the school year. He went on to say that every year he starts out with a bit of trepedation, not knowing who or what the upcoming year will be for him. He laments about a past event that seems to have tortured him for the last twenty years.

Apparently in one of his classes he had to fail a young woman. Since that time he has wondered if he did the right thing. The girl was, what today we would call learning disabled, in those days was classed as "slow". She was able to do her homework, but testing was a trial for her. In order to graduate she needed to pass the final exam. The teacher had two students he was concerned about; one was the typical "Jock" and the other the shy, timid girl. He offered both of them extra help and waited the next day for them to take advantage of his offer. Neither of the two showed for the additional help. The "Jock" barely passed, but the girl failed. Because of this failure she was not able to attend the graduation ceremony.

He still feels guilty over this. He wondered if by failing her he was somehow on some kind of "power trip". I was OK with the article up to that point. When I read how he thought that failing her was wrong I jumped up from my comfy seat and went to the computer and wrote a response to the newspaper.

See what I wrote and tell me what you think about this subject:

Reaction to a “Viewpoint” on Sunday, September 9, 2007

I haven’t finished reading the paper yet, but I felt compelled to write a response to one of the articles in the “opinion” section. The article I’m referring to is the Jack Rightmyer article titled, “Failure can stay with student and teacher for life”.

When I read the title I thought, “Yes, failure can stay with someone, no doubt”. I went on to read the article and as I neared the end I sat up straighter in my chair as I read the subtitle, “Right was Wrong”. Rightmyer wrote “What purpose did it serve to fail her” Was it some power thing?” At that point, I put the paper down and thought about the words he wrote. I jumped up from my chair and here I sit in front of my computer in response.

First of all, I think it is not “wrong” to fail, even in this case. As the article states, Rightmyer gave additional opportunity to the student for extra help in the subject matter. The fact that she was a “nervous, shy kid” is a factor, but none the less, she was given ample opportunity to get the help she needed. I applaud Mr. Rightmyer for maintaining the failing grade. It is my opinion that many students today are allowed to glide through when they should be failed, due to the feeling that failure is a permanent scarring on the emotional well-being of the child. Not everyone succeeds in the real world and I believe that should be learned from an early age. In that way, young people learn how to pick themselves up, brush themselves off and start anew. They learn how to become resilient. Yes, it’s hard but anything worth doing is usually hard to do. I think we’ve forgotten that in this society.

I realize I’m probably in the minority with these thoughts about failure, but I think it’s about time that all of us look around and see what’s happening in today’s society. I see folks on a daily basis who feel someone owes them something just because they’re breathing. I see people buying things they can ill afford because they feel they “deserve” it and they have some sub-prime lender offering them the loans to buy what ever it might be. Are you asking what this has to do with failing? If someone understands that it takes hard work and effort to succeed maybe there will be less of these folks that feel they’re “entitled” to things because they want it. Just say, “No”, shouldn’t be the mantra for drug use, say it when it’s necessary for everything. I don’t think we say it enough, for fear that someone will feel, slighted, unworthy or a failure.

Let’s go back and think about “Kris”. She may, as Rightmyer says, still be “living in that little New Hampshire town” and that may be fine, she may be happy as a clam. However, she may not be living in that town, she may have gone to summer school struggled through, gotten her diploma, decided she needed something more and moved away. Perhaps, she went to a community college and went on from there to become a teacher, like Mr. Rightmyer, knowing that hard decisions must be made, for a reason, for the good of all concerned.

What ever happened to “Kris”, I think Mr. Rightmyer made the only ethical and principled decision that could have been made given the circumstances. I only wish there were more teachers around like Mr. Rightmyer.

Just my opinion…

White and Black

2007-08-16T19:24:00.000-07:00

Who’s who?

By what right does a person have to take the life of another human being?
When does a person become a fanatic?
Can anyone become fanatic?
Does it just take a certain type of person?
A certain religion?
A certain skin color?
Who’s wearing the white hats and who’s wearing the black ones??
I can’t tell anymore…I should be able to tell who the good guys are, shouldn’t I?

Breaking news.....for whom???

2007-08-02T17:50:00.000-07:00

Do you really care if Nicole Ritchie is pregnant? I don't, and I think most people feel the same way. Why and when did all the crap that's Hollywood become the end all and be all for the news? And why is it on all kinds of TV, radio and newsprint? Who cares? Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe everyone in the country was waiting with bated breath to hear about my pregnancies and I disappointed the general public. Was Larry King waiting for me to call him and tell him how I vomited out the door of my car as I was going to work? Did Jay Leno want to know about my fainting spells with the pregnancy of my son? Maybe they did and I was to selfish to "share". Forgive me if I was uncaring of the feelings of America.

To tell you the truth I find it difficult to believe that America really cares about someone other than itself. The way I see it is, if it doesn't directly affect someone they don't care about it. So what if our kids are dying in Iraq. Who cares if people are starving? I'm not, so why should I care. That seems to be the attitude I'm seeing all around me these days.

I went to the pharmacy yesterday to get a prescription filled for my grandson. He's 19 months old and he had a fever and an ear infection. The kid clearly didn't feel good. He was flushed, hot and wanted to sleep, but I needed to get the meds for him before getting him into his bed. As I was standing, waiting to pay for the meds with a very understanding pharmacist helping me, an older lady literally pushed me aside (and in turn pushed me so the baby was squashed against the metal shelving). She leaned over the counter, where the pharmacist was completing my order, and said, "I haven't got all day. You have to do this script immediately. I'm late for an important luncheon." I, being the person I am, a grandmother, holding a baby who's sick and has just been jostled against something that hurt him, brought my foot up and slammed it down on top of her toes with my whole weight. I was ever so sorry, I had lost my balance as I was trying to protect my grandson from being continually hurt buy the metal shelf...

I thought she was going to grab me as she called me a number of disagreeable things. I smiled and said very quietly and with my eyes never leaving hers, "I'm ever so sorry, but if ever you push me again and it causes my grandson to cry because he's being hurt, I'll do more than hurt your toes. Got it?" She stepped backward and walked to the other side of the counter. The Pharmacist said, "Are you and your grandson all right?" I said, "Yes, I think so, and I thank you for asking".

I bought the stuff and waited until I was sure the "lady" was ready to leave. I went out just before her, turned to her and said, "Next time you're in here I hope you're a bit more careful." Her face was bright red, as she stammered, "I'm very sorry." I looked at her and said, "I'm not".

I noticed she was limping a bit...

One good turn-this is reality

2007-08-01T06:09:00.000-07:00

There's a slogan out there that says, "One good turn deserves another". I think it should be " One good turn shall not go unpunished".. It seems that every time (or at least most of the time) when I do something for someone else I end up getting the short end of the stick. Something invariably happens that causes me to ponder why in Hell I did the "good deed" in the first place.

I had an opportunity to help out two people. One person was in need of money and sold me something that another person I knew desperately needed. I paid the person and asked for help transporting the items that needed to be moved to the person who needed it. Of course my vehicle was about 1 inch too small to do the moving so an alternative method had to be found. This is where the problem has become a nightmare. I am now the person that is in the middle of a bunch of folks trying to find a vehicle that this thing will go into. I guess it's my fault for getting involved in the first place, that's why I say "One good turn shall not go unpunished".

The party that is getting the item is happy that they're getting the thing but the logistics of moving it is becoming the problem for others. In retrospect I should have checked out if I had a vehicle that could carry the thing but to be honest I didn't think about that. My concern was getting this thing, giving the person who needed the money, the money, and getting the thing to the person who could use it.

I seem to have alienated folks by doing this. At the same time I'm trying my best to resolve problems that are affecting others by listening and keeping out of their business. Keeping out of their business is difficult to do, since they seem to keep trying to pull me into their stuff.

I have several thoughts on this and this is the correct forum to write them out.

We are not islands. We all need others, whether or not we admit it, or like it. Those of you that are trying to be loners are nuts if you think you can be a freaking hermit and live off in the woods on your own. I bet there's less that 1% out there that could make it without the help of others. Think of your sustenance alone. If you buy food, there were tons of others who helped you to get that food, the farmer, packing plant,packers, truckers, all the people in the store where you bought the stuff from. If you grow your own food you had to get the seed from somewhere and more than likely you bought it from someone who packaged the seed. You get the picture. To think that you can live without help from someone else is pretty shortsighted.

Since we've concluded that we need to have someone other than ourselves to exist, normally, let's put this into perspective, shall we. Suck it up and deal with it. Don't get all upset because you have to ask for help. When you do ask for help be courteous about it. If you're the person who's giving the help, if things don't go smooth, don't go back to the person that asked for the help and give them additional problems by yelling and carrying on about how they should have done this.....or that..... That's why they asked for help in the first place. The last thing the person needs is more anxiety over what ever they asked for help with. The person knew they couldn't manage alone that's why they asked for help in the first place.

I think I'm going the hermit route. Geesh...

City Chickens? Give me a break

2007-05-31T13:40:00.001-07:00

Unbeknown st to me, there's apparently some folks who live in cities that are raising chickens. At least that's what I'm hearing. I guess the idea is to have them as pets. The benefit being, they pay (at least in part) for themselves, by providing eggs for their owners.

OK here's how I see this. I imagine somebody who lives in a co-op ( that's co-op, not coop) wants to experiment with livestock because they think it's the cool thing to do. They decide a pig, cow, horse, or goat won't really be the best thing in an apartment setting (probably up on the roof) so the next best thing is a bunch of chickens. Now, I have to tell you, most of my experience with "city folk" from down state (read New York City) is, they think anyone who lives north of Westchester county lives on a farm and sits on porches chewing bits of hay. So I can't imagine what in Hell they think they'll have to do to keep chickens. They've probably read some "how to" book and now they're "experts" in all the whys and wherefores of chicken rearing.

As a kid I lived on a chicken farm. Yes, it was a hundred years, or so, ago, but I have friends now who live on a chicken farm and things have not progressed as much as you'd think over the years. They still have to clean out the coops, keep the chickens, warm or cool, depending on the season, check the perches, watch for avian diseases, (not to mention Avian Flu today). If they go away for more than a day they need "chicken sitters". They must check feed daily, put those cackling things outside during the day and back into confinement in the night. It's work, hard work... What? For freaking eggs? Go to the store and buy them, or better yet, find a farmer or farmer's market and buy them from the poor guy that's trying to make a living doing the work that you, in your city, shouldn't be doing. These city folk are quite literally, nuts.

Get a cat.

Free Will-no Free Willy

2007-05-27T06:25:00.000-07:00

Ok let me preface this with saying that I don't really care what you think of me for writing this. You would write it too if you had the nerve. Don't go on about it's not the polite thing to do or any of that BS. Truth be told if you're honest with yourself you will see yourself in what I'm about to talk about. And don't give me that, " God wouldn't want you to say that. He/She/God/Goddess wouldn't have thought up "free will" if he/she/them, whatever, didn't expect some fireworks.

Did you ever know someone from your past that you just didn't like? You know the type, really pretty/handsome, self assured, always smiling, seeming to have everything you aspired to, but you couldn't quite get there. The one I knew was a couple of years older than me and she drove me nuts. Luckily I didn't see her often, and when I did it was from afar. But none the less, she was in my sights at times and I really didn't like her. I kept my feelings silent because everyone else thought she was the greatest thing since sliced bread.

I would watch her in school and think to myself, " I don't think she's what she is. I think she's fake. Fake hair, fake smile, fake cute little body, fake friendliness, fake, fake, fake". She was in all the prestigious clubs, she sang like an angel (that wasn't fake) so she was the darling of the:Drama Club, Select choir, Chorus, Music Department ( even the mean old accompanist that hated being there, hated all the kids, hated the piano she was using and hated all the plays and performances she had to attend because that was her job, really liked her). I didn't. I was envious, jealous, whatever, I know, but I didn't like her and I wasn't ashamed to admit it to myself. So what? She didn't know or care if I existed and as I said, our paths seldom crossed and when/if she looked at me she saw nothing. That's not any psychological, lacking of self-esteem on my part, it's just an accurate observation about the situation as it presented itself. Again , don't get all weird on me, this is my blog, I can say what I want, so there! ( I've never really grown up don't you know?)

She graduated with all kinds of accolades and honors. She marched across the stage, turned to the audience, blinding most of us with her dazzling smile ( at one point I thought I truly did go blind in one eye). She was going places and would be, "someone to be reckoned with in the future". All the rest of us finished High School a few years later, graduated, and we were going to go into the world in the shadow of the ,"girl with the golden voice, smile, personality and looks".

I didn't think much about her until a few of years after I graduated, so it must have been 5 years or more until I saw her again. I was dating my future husband and he wanted me to meet his best friend and his wife. Yep, I walked into the apartment, all cute and perky, and lo, and behold, who stands in front of me but, "Fake Girl", the one I had taken such a dislike to in high school. There she stood, hair, still fake, smile, not quite so bright ( hee hee), cute little shape (even though there were kids crawling all over her body as we stood there).

We shook hands to say "hello", and sat down on her cutesy little dollhouse furnishings, in her pink and pretty living room. (Gag, gag) I had all I could do not to say, " What the Hell happened? Why aren't you a star or a CEO or something other than, Mommy?" (Don't get all uptight here, there's nothing wrong with being "mommy" this is just an expectation thing I was dealing with, and I was absolutely amazed, not criticizing just amazed).

It was obvious she didn't care for me in the position I was in, on the arm of her friend, my future husband. She had met another "potential" ( at this point I was unaware that I was being posed as the "potential" by the way) and liked that girl better. The other girl was Chinese and apparently gushed at "Fake Girl" (I'll be referring to her as F.G. from now on-those quotation marks are getting to me).

I have never been one to "gush" over things, so I guess she thought I was too simple minded or something. She was pleasant to my date, but I guess I was invisible to her because she didn't extend pleasantries to me the way she did to my date. I must admit she was preoccupied with the gloms, called her kids, so perhaps I should've given her the benefit of the doubt. No, she ignored me.

The evening finally came to an end as she stood, smiled the not so brilliant smile she once had, gave my date a hug and said, " Come back again, Larry for dinner and some wine and we'll talk about things we all did in the past". I thought, "Hey, wait a minute, I never did anything in the past with you guys, so I guess I'm not being invited back...hmmm...I don't think she likes me". ( I'm a little slow sometimes...plus, I have to say I found her a bit intimidating on her home turf).

Larry and I married later that same year and his friend, F.G.'s husband was his best man. F.G. didn't attend the wedding, citing some unfortunate reason why she couldn't attend. I didn't think much about it the day of the wedding, but I did think about it later and I was miffed ( that's not as angry as being "pissed" but pretty damned close). I don't think I mentioned it to Larry but I guess I never really forgot about it.

Years went by and we didn't see them anymore, as a matter of fact we never saw either of them again after the wedding. Larry wanted to get in touch with his old friend several times over the years, but couldn't locate him. It was as if they dropped off the face of the Earth. We tried to find them by normal channels, phone book, last place they lived, friends of friends, to no avail. I often wonder how bill collectors can find so many people when I can never find a tenth of the people I look for at times. Obviously, I don't have the resources (or nerve) they have.

We did hear from time to time about them and still were unable to locate where they lived or how to get hold of them. The things we heard made me smile (ok...not a nice smile...more like a..."ohhhh, toooo bad" sort of smile). We heard that F.G. , after High School got a job in a coffee house in Boston (where I think she was going to college) and sang for a while, then left the place for some unknown reason. She came back home after a very short time in Boston and got pregnant and married Larry's friend. She had a couple more kids and became a stay at home Mom, complete with rules and regulations and she lorded over everyone with an iron whip. Her kids were perfect. They were only allowed to watch, "Family Affair" (remember that? Mr. French, Sissy, Buffy and Jody) and named her kids after the characters in the show. (How weird is that?)

I wonder what life has brought them. Years (40 at that) have gone by and with that many years under your belt you're bound to change (sometimes for the better, then again I've seen some go the other way as well). My wish is that she got fat( I know this is probably a pipe dream for me but maybe, somehow, her thyroid went bad on her and she gained a ton of weight and is now struggling to lose the last 50 pounds.....), her hair is no longer pretty, it's now straw like( so many years of peroxide takes it's toll you know), she has dentures, (ok they're not so bad if you have to have them, but I'm being nasty so I hope she had to get them because she had some periodontal disease she got from using some artificial teeth whitener in the past, see I told you she was "fake"). The reality of the whole ting is, she's old, just like me, and no matter what, she can't change that (or fake it for long) so I think I have a pretty good idea that life and time is the ultimate equalizer.

Garage Sales a.k.a.Anthropological Studies of Modern Man

2007-05-18T16:11:00.000-07:00

Let me tell you about Garage Sales...

For the last few weeks I have slaved over junk in my cellar and everywhere else I have junk, to ready myself for a Garage Sale. I made the mistake of choosing a date for the thing and telling folks about the impending fiasco, so I was committed to do it.

I went through boxes that had been packed away years ago when we thought we were going to make a move...We didn't move, and neither did the boxes of stored stuff.....it stayed where we packed it and I forgot about them.

I closed an office in October 2006. At the office I had lots of things that I quickly boxed up as we were shutting off the lights and leaving for the last time. The offices boxes were sent to the cellar to become neighbors of the other boxes I had stored.

Opening the stored boxes for the first time in years brought about memories of times past, both good and bad. The items in the boxes reminded me of things I had stored in the recesses of my mind and I'm not sure I wanted to revisit at this time...but too late... I had the boxes opened and the memories came flooding out, along with the "stuff". Looking into the first box I realized this Garage Sale was a good idea. Why do we keep stuff that we're not using? The stuff in this box could have been tossed in the garbage the day I packed it and I would never have felt the pain of the memories the stuff unleashed. It did give me some merchandise to sell however, so it was kind of a good thing, I guess.

The office stuff, now that's another story. Why I packed the things I did is beyond me. Again though, it gave me some more merchandise to sell.

The night before the sale I remembered past sales and the number of people who showed up at my door hours before the actual sale. I wrote, in very large letters on poster board, "GO AWAY UNTIL 10:00" and " Nobody gets to see the Wizard, Not no time . Not no how...before 10:00", and plastered it on my garage door. This was supposed to deter the "early birds". It did it's job...sort of.

At 9:30am the cars started to appear at my driveway... The cars were running and in each window of every car were pairs of eyes. I could see them peering at my house and the garage door. I slipped out the back door to put some things in the car port and nearly died of fright as I turned the corner and walked into a tall stranger looking through my fireplace wood pile. I asked him what he was looking for and he said, "How much do you want for the wood under this tarp?" I looked at him and said, "The sale doesn't start until 10:00 and the wood's not for sale. Go away and get a cup of coffee for a half an hour please". Wow...I thought, I think I'm in for some fun today...No truer words were thought or said...

The day was overcast and I feared I'd have to contend with rain. I had hopes it wouldn't start to rain until later in the day. This was Friday and I hoped that most of the stuff would sell this first day so on Saturday I could mark everything down and practically give things away just to get the stuff out of my sight.

I had signs on the outside doors telling people when the sale was to start, but as noted before, apparently some folks can't read. I guess there's a certain number of folks who cruise garage sales trying to be first so they can get the best pickings. They remind me of the buzzards you see in the desert overhead, waiting for something to die so they can sweep down and get the juiciest pieces of carrion. It's kind of creepy when you think of the folks that come first as the "pickers of flesh".

The first guys ( and they were men, which floored me) came looking for tools, old cabinetry, guns (gees, I never would think to put guns in a garage sale, what its this? the Wild West?), fishing equipment ( I later found out that fishing lures were heavy duty collectibles...Boy would my Dad be mad...he threw away a veritable fortune in old lures over the years). I stood by and watched them as they surveyed the junk, whoops, I mean good stuff. You could tell what they wanted to buy and what they wanted you to think they wanted to buy. It was like watching a mating game with birds. They would kind of preen around the stuff they wanted, but then walk away quickly, hoping I wouldn't realize they wanted a prize on the table. (In reality I wouldn't have cared if they pocketed whatever it was, I just wanted it out of my sight!). They would then pick up something totally different, turn it over and over, inspecting it for, who knows what and put it down. The next thing was to go back to the original treasure and do a side glance at it, look it over again, pick it up, hold it up and say, "How much did you want for this?" Knowing full well the price was on it. It was really interesting.

Some people were happy to get things for the stated prices, but most wanted to wheel and deal. I didn't give a cat's whisker, just give me something so I could say I didn't waste all my time doing this stupid sale...

The ones really got to me were the ones that told me their whole history before getting to the crux of the matter, which was buying something from me at a lesser price than I was asking. Then there were the ones with the kids in tow. That was quite a trial. Kids touch everything; they drop things, they try things out, they take things apart ( that aren't supposed to be apart). In general, they're a pain in the neck at a garage sale. I also think they act as the distraction when some unsavory characters come to steal from you ( and yes, that does happen, not a lot mind you, but it happens).

I had folks tell me my stuff was junk. I had one lady who was angry with me because I sold something she wanted to someone else before she could get here. (That was weird...) One man told me that he'd take everything in the garage for $50.00. (That included the stuff that wasn't part of the sale: snow blower, lawn mower, rototiller, motorcycle helmets, strollers, highchair, etc. I politely sad, " What? Are you nuts?Get out of here!" One lady said I'd do better if I served tea breads and coffee as the shoppers walked around ( I think she thought she was in some Rodeo Drive store or something...I offered her a glass of water....). One man wanted a chair to sit in while his grandson took apart all the toys and undressed all the dolls...That lasted about three minutes... One man walked into my house through the back door looking for furniture that I may be selling. (Honest). It was a nightmare.

Finally Friday was over...just Saturday to look forward too...NOT!!!

Saturday, the rain started to fall at 10:00am sharp, just as I was opening the garage door. In front of the door stood three people. They were very polite but wanted to know if they should immediately reduce all the prices on the merchandise in half since it was raining. I thought about it for a minute, then said, "Nope, if it doesn't sell I'm donating everything that's left to the Childrens Hospital in Beijing China", turned around and smiled all the way to the back of the garage.

Saturday was nasty. Missy (daughter ) and Kelly ( 3 year old granddaughter) came over to help and open a lemonade stand ( it would've been better if they made hot chocolate, it was freezing, raining and miserable). People bought lemonade and rice crispie treats (Kelly wanted to make those for the sale as well, I wondered where that lady that wanted the tea bread and coffee was, she would have been happy with little Kelly's contribution to the sale).

People did buy stuff and I made a profit, so I guess it can be said the garage sale was a success. I can't retire on what I made but when I figured out what my hourly salary was it came to just over minimum wage...1n 1965.

What to wear, What to wear

2007-05-13T18:47:00.000-07:00

Venting

2007-05-01T18:42:00.000-07:00

Has anyone had this experience or am I overly sensitive. Let me explain: I had to go to pick up some jewelry at a very nice private jewelry store in a town a distance away. I was dressed very well. I had come from a training session at work where I was the trainer. I walked into the store. There were four (4) clerks ( customer service people, whatever) in different parts of the store, all in sight of the door I walked through. One was on the phone talking about the car he was trying to buy. Two were talking about what they were having for lunch or dinner that day. One was lounging against a display case FILING HER FREAKIN'NAILS. I walked to the service desk and stood as the guy on the phone turned around to continue his bargaining with, I suppose the dealership. I stood for a minute (full minute) I looked at my watch and walked to the woman filing her nails. I said, "Excuse me, I wonder if you could help me?" Honestly, she looked at me as if I wasn't there and continued to file her nail. For a split second I thought, "maybe I died on the way in here and I'm a ghost and I don't realize I'm dead...they can't see me". Then I remembered a program on TV about people who were overweight complaining about the lack of service they received in stores, boutiques, etc. They thought it was because the clerks didn't see them because they didn't fit the profile of what a customer was supposed to look like. So I gave this twit the benefit of the doubt and again very nicely said, "Excuse me is there someone I can speak to so I might purchase this 16 Karat diamond tennis bracelet ?????" Amazingly, everyone perked right up, and seemed to be delighted to see me... At that point I asked to see the manager.. After a moment he came out and greeted me with glee...I lit into the jerk and told him exactly what had happened. My husband does his jewelry purchasing there...but noootttt anymore dammit. I picked up my pearls that I came for and had them erase our names from their data base. I will never set foot in the place again. This has happened to me in the past in other places and I've let it go assuming that people are busy etc. But not anymore....I'm done being Mrs. Nice Lady and I'm going to be extremely noticeable when I enter dammit, even if I have to trip and fall into the damned store....I will NOT be dissed!! Ahh... thank you for the forum to vent.... Suzanne The bold and brazen!!!

I souldn't go out alone

2007-04-19T08:27:00.000-07:00

I can see the headlines now:

60 year old woman charged with indecent exposure

let me 'splain. Larry and I went out to Stewart's for his morning walk and to get the papers. I decided to continue on a walk listening to one of the tapes a friend sent me. I went to the bank then continued down Hutchins Dr a to walk back home via the Crest. It's about a 4 mile hike over all. Honest to God as soon as I start to walk more than my usual amount my bladder decides it's full and starts to protest...painfully and loudly.

So here I am on Hutchins Rd by the woods and I think....I'll just nip into the woods a do a quick pee....(how hard is that? people have been doing that since time started for God's sake). I forget that I'm not as spry as I once was so I climb over this bank, over trees, through mud and muck to an area that I think is secluded, tripping and nearly falling at every step. I go to pull down my pants and I hear in the far off distance, a sound. Now mind you I have my pants pulled down and my bare ass is stuck out in back as I'm trying to balance while doing the deed without splashing all over the place....This is not as easy task for women....Men have it easier, just whip it out and hose down the area.

The sound is getting closer, I'm not stopping the flow, it keeps coming and coming as the sound gets closer. I envision everything, including someone with a gun, camera or a group of reporters coming towards me. Still the stream flows from my body. Finally I stop and attempt to pull my pants up and I turn around, there just barely behind me is a deer looking at me like I'm totally nuts.. I wasn't sure if I should move or what. We stared at each other and the deer finally took off running. Honestly I shouldn't be allowed to go out by myself....

What to wear?? What to wear?

2007-04-17T15:27:00.000-07:00

You know guys have it great. They can pack for trips in no time at all. They need a pair of jeans, a pair of Khaki's ( or something like that), a button down shirt, golf shirt or tee shirt, a couple of pairs of underpants, socks, shoes, a light jacket and maybe sneaks. With that assortment they can go and do almost anything. Yes, of course they need their toiletries, (what? deodorant, a razor, toothbrush and toothpaste? Big whoop...) but they can get along with these few things and be away for a week or two.

Women on the other hand have a bit more difficulty. Now don't get all worked up and tell me:
1. That I don't know how to pack.
2. That I don't need so much stuff.
3. That I don't need all those shoes...

Let me explain what I, and many of my friends who have discussed this with me at length, say about this topic. We women have to wear things that are comfortable but at the same time these items must conform with the culture we're visiting. (and yes I'm talking about all the cultures we have in this world, including the bunch we have in this country alone.....in the south you wear brighter, lighter clothing. The north, you wear duller warmer clothing on top of other duller, warmer and bulkier clothing, The Midwest you wear matching outfits, the west it's denim and rhinestones, the far west...well you know, just about anything goes out there. Once you determine where you're going then the fun really starts, figuring out what to pack.

As a woman of substance, both in stature and age, there are things I don't wear, no cutesy thongs, tube tops, bikinis, short shorts, ripped denim jeans, tops cut to the navel, or dresses that look as if they're made for my three year old granddaughter. That's just stupid to wear that stuff at my age. ( Oh stop... you know as well as I that an old fat woman doesn't look great in a bikini nor a tube top, and don't get me started about butt floss....). My wardrobe is not considered conservative by any means, but it's not on the edge either. I am what my kids call, "modified Hippie". That being said, I have to agree with them. Many of my friends just look at me and shake their heads. I can't help it if I like Hawaiian Print shirts as over shells, they're bright and cheerful and you can wear a multitude of sleeveless different colored shirts under them. To me they're like a basic black dress, you can wear it almost anywhere...OK maybe not a funeral...unless you're in Hawaii, I bet there you could wear the shirt.

So knowing what I like to wear I determined I could probably get away with a couple of pairs of shorts, a few sleeveless "shells"( you know what they are...nondescript scoop necked, sleeveless, knit shirts that can be worn under just about anything.), a pair of jeans, and something dressier to go out to dinner, sort of business casual with a scarf, possibly a thin jacket as well. I thought that could take care of almost anything that I might need.

I don't know how you pack, but I do things this way: First I wash everything I even remotely think I'll be taking, then make sure everything is in "company condition", no holes, threads hanging, tears in seams, stains on the boob area...(yes I do have that problem...dropping stuff down the front of my shirt. I have a friend that puts an appliques on all her "dribbles" then says she's "personalized" her clothing...she just camouflages everything...she's not fooling anyone anymore, but it's not a bad idea...) no ripped out hems. When I've determined that I have all the best of the best, I lay anything I think I'm going to take on the couch in the living room and decide what looks the best on the couch. I eliminate most of it, put it away then look at the pile again. Although by this time I have put the outfits together so I can really see how I think the items will look when I wear them.

Now comes the fun part. I try on the stuff I think I'm going to take, to see if:
1. it still fits(this is a biggie for me. I never know if something I wore 6 months ago will still fit me or maybe it'll be too big-not usually-this is what is known as a "pipe dream")
2. it looks like I thought it would look like on me
3. I don't look like: The Bride of Frankenstein, The Cookie Monster, Swamp Thing (I did have an outfit I called "Swamp Thing". It was Army green in color and had strings , like fur, all over it. It had a "shell" and a jacket. Every time I wore the "thing" old men would come up to me and want to touch it....sometimes I didn't mind that, but at other times it freaked me out...) or the Loch Ness Monster (I"m Scottish).

When I've determined what is the "chosen" I start to do the packing. Usually this is the time my husband says, "Hey, Suzanne, do you think I need more than one pair of pants and a shirt? I'm packed." ( Even after 40 years he honestly has no idea how many times he's been close to death).

I get the underpants, bras, night attire, socks, shoes (another biggie- women need more shoes than men and that's the absolute truth...even my husband agrees...We can't bring one pair. We need the shoes to match the outfits, culture, agenda and weather. No brainner, right? Well the damned shoes take up a lot of room. I wear the "average" size 8, so don't think I have huge feet. My heart goes out to the women that have larger shoe sizes...how the Hell do you pack your shoes?? My own take up the whole bag, consequently I don't pack them in the suitcase...If I have to pack them I pack in, around and on top of them. After the determination of the shoes ( this is pretty tough to do, believe me I'm not making light of this. This shoe dilemma can make or break the vacation....don't kid yourself about that... Ever go to a place that's all cobblestones in a pair of soft calf leather flats??? Not a pretty sight ( and I mean the feet) after a day of trying to walk without crippling yourself... There is absolutely nothing worse than having shoes that don't fit your needs on vacation. Forget about the thought that you can buy something where you are... My experience has been when I figure out I have the wrong type of footwear I'm in a place that either: doesn't understand my dilemma, or doesn't carry the type of footwear I need. (Example: I was walking on Edinburgh's Royal mile. The rain was falling horizontally and had soaked my feet and socks, the wind was blowing gale force winds, the sole of my shoe decided at that moment to disintegrate ( these were new shoes I bought for the trip-leather,small heels, very proper walking shoes...so they said...they were not...). My first thought was to find a pair of Nikes, Addidas, Saucony...something that would afford me the comfort I was seeking, the dryness I desperately needed, and a sole that wouldn't die as I was walking on it. I went into a shoe store prepared to spend any amount of money for a pair of freaking sneakers. The salesman was ever so polite as he assured me he didn't think any of the shoppes on the Royal Mile sold "active wear shoes". They were more into the "fashion wear" shoes. I looked down at my, dead "fashion wear" shoes and looked up at him and said, "Can you repair these? or maybe, just give me some plastic bags and a few rubber bands and I'll fashion my own "active wear" shoes out of the remains of these "fashion wear" ones." That's the experience I've had, so I don't leave anything to chance any longer...)

I start to pack all the stuff I'm going to need, and some that I think I'll need, maybe. This is when Larry walks in and says, "What? You're not packed yet? What have you been doing?" Let me tell you it's a damned good thing the knives are far away from the living room. I would plunge one into his chest if they were nearer... I look up and him and he realizes that, perhaps he shouldn't be near me at that particular moment. He retreats to the "Man cave" in the cellar, leaving me to continue my task.

By the time I have everything assembled into a huge rolled pile (rolling keeps the clothes from becoming a wrinkled mess...that way I can eliminate the need for the stupid little travel iron. The one that has left scars on my hands over the years. It's a deadly device, invented by someone from one of the death camps during WWII, I'm convinced.) I place the roll into the suitcase. If I'm lucky, I can get it into the case I've chosen for the adventure in traveling I'm about to do. Usually, I have to adjust my thoughts about the case or the items to put into the case, sometimes both.

By the time I zip up the case, (what ever case I finally decide on) I've changed my mind several times about the contents. I have a rule I try not to break. When the case is closed, I don't go into it again until I get to the destination. It's my way of eliminating those last minutes additions or subtractions of clothing that would mean repacking the whole case again.

My objective is to wear everything I've brought with me on the trip at one time or another. I'm pretty good at packing what I'll use, but it isn't something I can do in 10 minutes , like the other person that lives with me.

The moral of this blog is: " Stay away from the other people who are packing at the same time. Don't watch them and don't remind them what they need to take. Laugh your ass off when you get to the destination and they realize they forgot their underpants".

Jeans Talk

2007-04-03T11:46:00.000-07:00

I went into "Chubette Bryant" today (a.k.a. Lane Bryant) to see what kind of cutesy stuff they might have for the upcoming trip to Hawaii. I'm not looking for much, I have enough stuff right now to clothe a small (maybe medium) third world country, but I'm always looking for something cool and different.

Chubette's has changed somewhat in the last few years. Apparently all this talk about the "Obesity of America" got to their buyers and they actually started to find clothes that weren't something out of 1950. The kind of stuff they used to sell was really bad. Honestly, I wouldn't wear it to the proverbial dog fight ( where is that dog fight anyway? Has anyone been to a dog fight recently? Probably not since our relationship with our dogs has changed so much in the past few years. Dogs are now up there with kings, queens and super powers. They are held in higher regard than most people today. Look how much of the news has been spent on the "poisoned food" of late. Don't get all up in arms, I love dogs but they're dogs, not people for God's sake. When you here about a kid getting abused it's a story once, maybe twice, but if it's about the abuse of a dog, or any animal for that matter, this country goes berserk-what's that all about?)

I digress, sorry. As I walked through the aisles of my neighborhood Chubette Bryant I couldn't help but overhear a couple of the other "chubette's" in the store talking about the way they buy jeans. Man, you have no idea ( or at least it was news to me) what some people do to a pair of jeans.

The one woman, who was a good 250lbs was telling the other she found a way to get into the jeans that were clearly too small for her. She went on to say how she stepped into the legs of the jeans, then grabbed hold of the dresser in front of her, leaned over the dresser to brace herself. She then proceeded to try and do a split from side to side, then one foot in front of the other, all the time stretching the denim. (I felt sorry for the fabric). She went on to say as she stretched the bottom of the jeans she pulled the pant leg up further on her legs continuing to do this shimmy routine the whole way. She stretched and strained until the pants were under her substantial buttocks then she would do some deep knee squats. Deep knee squats! If she did more of them she wouldn't have to do the splits and shimmies I thought. (I'm fat so I can be critical about this- you can't if you're not fat too). This woman did more exercising putting on these pants than I've done in the last three months. Listening to her I was calculating how many calories she was burning as she attempted to become sausage filling in these jeans. I thought about the scenes I've watched as sausage was being squeezed into casing and the comparison was weird but it was similar.

I walked behind them listening at the same time pretending to be really interested in the 48 DDD bras I was looking at. (Man those things have to reinforced like crazy) . The young woman continued her explanation on the final stages of this amazing exercise routine.

She said after she had the pants about half way up her rear end she then fell backwards onto the bed and pulled her legs up to her chest. (Can you see this?) She would then wiggle back and forth and pull the waist until it pulled the back of the pants over her buttocks and the waist band was almost at the correct place on her waist. She then lifted her rear into the air and pushed her stomach in, kneading the flesh and whatever into the spaces she could find in the jeans. ( What spaces? She's probably pulled the fabric to the breaking point by this time, I would guess) She pulled and tugged at the waist band to button the top of the pants at the same time pushing the flesh and fat into the casing, I mean jeans. She grabbed the zipper tab and started to pull it up slowly as she sucked in all her breath, lifted her butt, and compressed her thighs, legs and stomach. She pulled until she got that sucker up to the top, then dropped her butt back on the bed and tried to breathe. She said she would lay there for a minute or two to rest ( freaking right! rest! she's lucky she didn't have a stroke or a heart attack!). When she was rested a bit she would stretch her legs and pull her knees up to her chest again to continue the stretching of the fabric.

Now, listen, I have to tell you after going through all that don't you think that when she stood up she'd have a huge roll of fat falling over the waist of the pants? I know I do if I put pants on that are too tight. Apparently her friend thought the same because I heard her ask about the excess flesh that she had squeezed up and out. The woman laughed and said she wore big over blouses and no one knew what was under there. Want to bet?

Dead or Alive

2007-04-02T21:06:00.000-07:00

I think I've finally lost it. When I can't seem to get myself to sleep at night I sit at this computer and play. I look on sites that have information, and I find things about stuff I never knew existed and to tell you the truth I didn't care if they existed or not but I found out about them anyway.

Tonight was one of those nights where I just couldn't settle down to sleep, so I thought I would go to the computer and find out about a new website I read about in a magazine. It's called Eons.com and it's for the "more mature" person. So it's for old folks, OK?

They have all sorts of information on the site and one of the things seemed to be intriguing. It's called brain games or something to that effect. They list a bunch of games you play and the way you respond measures your brain capacity in some way.

I figured I'd see what games they list. I played some word games ( I'm in the "expert" category on these, probably fifth grade, games). It was fun, so I continued to navigate through until I hit on the game called, "Dead or Alive".

I don't know what brain function this game measures but I really don't care. I got sucked into this game and then I realized it was much like the gambling people do at the beginning of the year when they make up the "Dead lists". They bet on who they think will die during the next year and at the end of the year the one with the most, "deads" wins the whole thing. A bit macabre but healthy fun, I guess.

I continued to play the game until I realized that most of these folks weren't much older than me and then I felt the game wasn't all that great anymore. I looked at the faces who were dead and tried to remember how old they were when they died. Yes, they were older than me but not like 20 years older. No, some were only a couple of years older than me, some were even younger than me. I decided to play the fifth grade version of the word games and leave the dead or alive to someone else to play.... I think I'm getting a bit too serious about these games...

Flaming E-Mails

2007-03-30T12:04:00.000-07:00

You know it's one thing to turn on the TV and see some news or weather person trying to scare the Hell out of you by telling you about the Armageddon that's about to over take everyone. I know I've become desensitized by the hype. I listen and think, "Oh well it looks like tomorrow is going to be the end of the world...yawn..ho..hum". I can turn the stinking thing off and go on my merry way. But sometimes you get sucked into the thick of all the hype very innocently.
Case in point:

Who in the world is writing all these e-mails that tell us all about the horrible things that can happen to your kid in a bouncy ball play yard? I received one that had all kinds of warnings about what can happen to your kids if they play in the balls at McDonald's or Burger King, or anywhere that has one of them. It scared the crap out of me and I immediately panicked thinking about all the kids in my life. I was going to forward the e-mail and I thought better of it. I'm not sure how much is gossip, how much is hype and to be honest I'm afraid if it isn't all true it might give some nut case some additional ideas to do some of the things that this e-mail contained( that's not to say the folks I'd forward it to are nut cases but you know how fast things spread over the Internet).

I remember as a kid all the urban legends (although we never heard the term "urban legends") we heard about. I still think they started out as someones Mom telling someone to stop doing something and other Moms took the thought and added to it. You know like that game "gossip or telephone". One person whispers something in someone elses ear then that person whispers what they thought they heard in the next person's ear. By the time it goes around the message is so messed up it's nothing like the original. I think that happens with e-mails. It's the cyber game of "Gossip". Now don't get up on your high horse and tell me that these e-mails are doing a service to help us. Maybe one out of a hundred, but really think about all the stuff that's being hawked as, "truth". The e-mail usually starts with a disclaimer about whether or not it's real ( that should be our first clue that we need to really check this out). There's usually a part that tells us where to check on the basis of the story (that's usually true BUT there's usually more information about the event printed after the initial story and you never get to see that- so who knows what they find out how, what and why something happened. In the mean time all of the USA is panicked into thinking their neighborhood fast food joint is a haven for terror- it is but because of trans fats not usually a "nest of copperhead snakes" (yep that was part of the e-mail). AND don't get me started on the "trans fats".

So in conclusion ( aren't you glad) I'm going to try to hold off sending all this stuff to everyone I know. First of all, why should I scare the Hell out of them when it might be hype, and secondly I don't want to be the one who's promoting all this hype. I want to leave that to the television folks, they're much better at it.... watch the nightly news and you'll see what I mean....

Mind clutter

2007-03-27T18:40:00.000-07:00

I keep reading and seeing all kinds of things on how to "de-clutter" your life. Apparently that means every part of your life, not just the part you see, but the way you think and act. I read one article and it told me the first thing I had to do was to sit down with paper and pens and write down pros and cons about things in my life.

I got the pens, paper and a hi-lighter,( knowing I would want to emphasize some of the items I would be writing in yellow). I sat at the kitchen table and looked around me. My eyes rested on the wall in front of me. On that wall I saw picture frames with little affirmations written on them. One said, "To thine own self be true". I thought about that for a minute and decided that little statement was what I needed to read at that moment.

Here I was sitting at the table, pens and paper in hand ready to make some kind of list that someone else told me to do to clear myself of my clutter. Who was that person that wrote the article and how do I know that they're correct. Yeah I have too much stuff and I should get rid of lots of it, but why should I let someone I don't know put the guilt on me to do something that I'll get around to in my own time? Who are they, my Mother?

That got me thinking about all the other things I've done because "someone" said I should do it for my own good. Why? I read articles about how I "must" eat five vegetables and fruit everyday or I'll get sick. Do people who live in third world countries who don't eat five fruits and vegetables every day get sick because of that? Or do they get sick because of something else? What about the hype from the dairy industry that says if we drink more milk we'll lose weight. I've been drinking milk everyday all my life and I'm fat. For years scientists said it didn't matter if we went outside with wet hair, we wouldn't catch a cold because colds were caused by virus's not wet hair. My Mother told me that if I went outside with wet hair I was going to get a cold. I didn't listen to her, because I could spout back, "the scientists say something different Mom..ha ha..." Guess what? The scientists are now saying that maybe our resistances are a bit compromised when we go out with wet hair making the cold virus get us.... Mom was right after all.

I could go on, and so could you. We all get sucked up into the junk that's thrown at us. It's amazing, we go to school to learn how to think for ourselves learning the knowledge of our teachers and we end up falling victim to the hype and Madison Avenue press releases and advertising.

I don't know what's to become of us. ......

Remembering

2007-03-25T16:21:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Larry and I were trying to figure out what we would do for the day. Since he's been retired I'm his main source of entertainment it seems. When ever we have free days he's not satisfied to do things around the house or even do nothing (which is what I like to do sometimes-you know sit and catch up on reading, or even napping). No, not Larry he wants to go out and have an "adventure". Now I have to tell you we're rather famous for some of the strange things that we've gotten ourselves into in the past. For example, we don't know if it's safe yet to go to IHOP because of something that happened (not really our fault) years ago. We're also pretty sure that we won't be welcome in Kingston Ontario sometime soon...(this was another thing that really wasn't our fault). I'm not so sure that we should go back to Scotland any time soon either...The list can go on and maybe some day I'll write about our adventures, but not today.

Anyway, we decided since it was such a beautiful day we'd venture out to a Farmer's Market in another city not far from here. The sun was shining and all was well with the world. It's spring time here and the left over snow is starting to get that dirty, muddy look about it. When you step out of your car you're liable to land your foot in either a mucky puddle, or go ankle deep in mud. I got the puddle this time. Oh well such is the time of year. You have to take the bad with the good. At least it wasn't snowing like crazy, which can happen here in the spring.

We arrived in the city and found the parking lot we always use when going to this place. This is a town in northern New York that's seen better days. It was once a vibrant place with all sorts of specialty department stores that I shopped in when I was a teenager. To go to this town to shop at that time was like going to New York City on a smaller scale, but with many of the same stores with better prices.

It's not the same town. Now you have to be diligent and watchful while you're walking the sidewalks. The people you walk by look as if they're waiting for an opportunity to pounce. It's scary and if not for this great Farmers Market that makes use of an indoor facility I wouldn't go near the place. It's really a shame. When I walk down the familiar streets in my minds eye I can still see the stores with their gorgeous window displays. I can see the towns folks milling about carrying packages and scurrying to get their shopping done. If I close my eyes ( which I don' t for fear of getting hit over the head) I can smell the roasted peanuts from the Mr. Peanut shop on the corner. When reality hits I see the truth. No longer are the department stores vibrant. They've moved to the suburbs and into the Mega Malls. The Mr. Peanut shop is boarded up. If you look through the slates of wood into the shop you can almost make out shapes and things that may have been shelves that held the yummy treats in that shop. If you take a deep breath there's a faint smell of that old familiar smell of roasting peanuts.

I know you can never go home again, that life is a constant changing being, but we can wish. We can hope that what we have now is enough, and in the future our kids will look back with remembrances of the good times they had. They won't know what they could have had so they won't miss what they never had.

Where's her parents!

2007-03-21T16:32:00.000-07:00

Look I know I'm old but this is getting ridiculous.

I'm filling in for someone at another office. I don't know the staff, nor do I know the clients so I figure I'm pretty safe in this office. Whatever I say or do to anyone has really no relevance since I may never see them again ( or at least by the time I do see them they'll have forgotten what it was I said or did). I gotta tell you though this has been an exercise in restraint for me. This office is in a middle class, no, maybe lower middle class area. The majority of the clientele are working people, not a huge number of professional folks are clients in this office. It does a good business mind you, but you don't have the rich, very rich and ultra rich frequenting the office that you might see in other offices not too far away. Keeping that in mind I've tried to be open minded but today was an eyeopener and to be honest it probably has nothing to do with the socioeconomic status of the area.

As two young women walked in to the office, I noticed that my co-worker seemed to suck in her breath and went into the back room. I wondered what was up but I let it go I had to take care of these two women. One young woman looked at me, smiled, said ,"Hi" and sat down. The other girl who had business to do with me grunted. She sat down and proceeded to toss onto my desk a note written by her mother about the payment she was about to make. I picked up the note (which had powdered sugar on it...for a minute I was concerned about the white powder-I wasn't worried about anthrax, I thought it might have some extra cocaine she might want....sorry) . I looked at the note then I looked at this girl/woman, no kidding I thought my jaw was going to drop to the floor. This young woman had on a skin tight, slit down the middle (to the waist) top on with a "balcony bra" ( the kind that the boobs look like two globs of milky (in this case) white jiggly mounds of flesh held up with a couple of stringy straps and some lace). She leaned over and I was sure those globs were going to drop into my business card holder. The temperature outside was 10, it wasn't summer for cripes sake. This kid was 17. She came into this office directly from school. I thought, "Wow I bet she's popular". I know, I know I'm bad.

I looked up at her and noticed she had some sort of smudge on her cheek. When I looked closer I realized it was a small black ink tattoo. OK, a tattoo on your face isn't where I would put one, but then I don't have any of them anywhere on my body so who knows, maybe this is a new trend. Above the tattoo was a piercing with a stick like thing with a skull at the end of it. He eyebrows were pierced in three places. (Each of them)Her ear lobes, I lost count of how many piercing were in those. Her hand, the one that she tossed the paper at me with, had some birds tattooed on the space between her fingers ( you KNOW that had to hurt). Honest to God I had all I could do to stay seated as I looked at this kid.

When she was finished with her Mom's business she said to me, " Oh yeah I have to give you this". Another toss, another paper. I looked at the official paper in front of me and realized it was her transcript. This kid was an "A" student, member of National Honor Society and probably she 's going to be the administrator of my nursing home someday, or better yet, maybe the administrator of your nursing home.

She stood up and I got a full view ( and an understanding why my co-worker beat feet into the back room) of this Mommy and Daddy's darling. She was a tiny thing( except for the boobs, I might add) with the shortest skirt I've ever seen that was able to cover a rear end, platform shoes (man I'm really out of it, I didn't know they were back in style again), and bare legs. She had on a teeny, tiny little jacket over the top I described before. It was 10 degrees outside. I swear to God, I thought about telling her how sore she'd be if her boobs got frostbitten.

She walked out of the office and into her car. My co-worker came back into the office, sat at her desk and said, "I'm sorry I couldn't stay in the room as you were going to work with her. I knew you'd be in shock and if you looked at me I'd lose it and it would've been bad".

Where's her parents? How the Hell do you let your kid dress like a two bit 'ho and sleep at night. I'd be in a frenzy every time the kid went out for fear she'd be grabbed and taken somewhere so she could ply her wares..... When I was in school, believe me the folks in National Honor society didn't look anything like this kid....I'm definitely out of it...and you know what, I'm kind of glad.......