Little Old Ladies

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??

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

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

The Male of the Species

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

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

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