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

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"

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

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

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......

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

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?