Raindrops Make Things Beautiful 2

He Who Pays The Bills Makes The Rules

2012-02-11T20:02:00.001-05:00

There's a war going on in Twitter between some people over the above video. I'm not sure what I think about the Dad's parenting skills, but I don't see that this is an indication that he abuses her. Among the comments on Youtube is the information that Child Protective and the police have interviewed Dad and his daughter and are on the side of Dad. How they know this is not explained. I understand Dad's frustration. I have had step-children for whom I was responsible part of the time. Youngest never seemed upset when I enforced the "my house, my rules" dictum. However, after telling me that I was actually a more consistent parent than his Mom was, he is raising his children the way his Mom did rather than my way. Guess he didn't like those rules after all.He also complains constantly that both his children seemed to feel that parents are unpaid cooks, housekeepers and chauffeurs on demand. My Grandson seems to feel that his Dad is supposed to drop everything when his friend can be picked up to come and play games. It's never the friends parent that provides transportation, it's always Youngest. If you've ever seen a 14 year old boy throw a moody temper tantrum, you'll understand my frustration. Somehow said 14 year old seems not to understand that Dad has other things to attend to first. Like doing all the chores HE was supposed to do but didn't. Yeah, maybe Youngest should shoot my Grandson's laptop so he'll actually do something instead of spending time playing games.Oh, and for those who haven't figured it out yet. When you give a child everything they want without making them work for it, they respect neither you nor the expensive things you've been buying them. They come away from their childhood with an over developed sense of entitlement and have a very hard time coping with real life. You know about real life? The place where you don't get everything you want without working hard to get it for yourself? Yeah, that place. The place I've lived in for 62 years and have been told by those much younger than I am that I don't understand. My lack of understanding is probably why I am able to live within my means and not have to worry about bankruptcy every month. Ignorance really is bliss.

Good News...Bad News

2012-02-09T16:49:00.000-05:00

Bad news first. Doctor says my spondylitis is spreading. I could have told her that. It arrived in my ankle last week. Either that or someone grabbed a railroad spike from somewhere and sledgehammered it into my left ankle. I'm rooting for the latter since that would be a one time deal. However, I'm pretty sure it's the former which means that walking is going to get a whole lot more painful. I told the doctor I was stubborn, she felt that word has negative connotations and prefers the word sturdy. Ok, I'll accept it, either way I'm not giving up.

Good news is that my blood pressure has finally come down to normal and my weight loss plateau has developed a tilt. Only 25 or thereabouts more pounds to go. Funny, I was listening to a commercial that stated that WOMEN over 40 had to work out at the gym for 1 hour a day just to maintain their existing weight. Hell, I'm 22 years past that and haven't been inside a gym since school. I'm losing and all I'm doing is eating whole foods rather than the processed junk I've eaten for years. Red Beans and Rice for supper with a nice big salad. Not out of a box made by Zatarians either.

Planned Parenthood...NOT Just An Abortion Clinic

2012-02-05T08:52:00.000-05:00

The above picture was taken from an information site for the genetic disorder called Epidermolysis Bullosa. This was the kindest, least disturbing picture I could find. It is the first picture in a series of pictures that shows how to wrap the baby's body in gauze to protect the child from further skin damage caused by simply touching the child.

EB children lack the connective tissue which keeps the outer layer of skin attached to the layers beneath it. Any kind of contact can cause massive blisters to form, which will break open and seldom heal again. They eventually lose their fingers and toes and sometimes their lips and teeth. Since they're little more than walking bedsores, they are prone to all kinds of deadly infections.

Until they die, usually by the age of 14 or so, children with EB in this form suffer the constant pain normally associated with second or first degree burns. One of my nieces has 2 of these children. She wouldn't have had the second had she been allowed free access to our local Planned Parenthood. Please note, she would have PREVENTED the pregnancy, NOT aborted it.

The month of her appointment for renewal of her birth control method our local RWNJ anti-abortionists were picketing. It was such a hostile situation that even Dr. Robinson's patients didn't cross the picket line to enter the building that Planned Parenthood shares with other businesses. Dr. Robinson is an ORAL SURGEON. A fact these people didn't care about when they were there. They prevented her from obtaining her birth control pills and she became pregnant during the time she was without. She, and many others like her use Planned Parenthood because they simply can't afford to pay for these services anywhere else.

The picketers intent was to shut down Planned Parenthood who, in their minds, is the biggest abortion clinic in the United States. The FACT that Planned Parenthood is a low income women's healthcare clinic seems to have gotten lost in the abortion issue. Despite Sen. John Kyl's statement that 90% of their services are abortions, which he then said was "not intended to be a factual statement", the actual number of abortion procedures is closer to 3% to maybe 10% of their services. The figures provided by Planned Parenthood indicates it's 3%, I'm including the 10% because I've seen it suggested elsewhere and am using it for the sake of argument.

The bulk of the services provided by Planned Parenthood is in the form of testing and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases, birth control information and cancer screening via breast examination and pap smears. They do this through private funding as well as Medicare/Medicaid billing.

Due to the need of some people to interfere in what should be a person's decision based on personal knowledge and ones conscience, ABORTION has become a political issue. If you take a good look at supporters of Sarah Palin, you will find that it exists largely because of her stance on the abortion issue. They focus on abortion because of their very narrow belief systems. Unfortunately, the Susan G. Komen Foundation's decision to withdraw funding from Planned Parenthood was met with gleeful support by those who are so rabid in their anti-abortion stance that they refuse to acknowledge the good done by that organisation.

My problem with all of this is that the very people who are unwilling to stay out of the uterus of women are the ones that will not acknowledge the results of their interference. They would cut the funding to my niece which pays for medical care of these two children. The feeding tubes, because they can't swallow. The numerous hospital stays because of infection. The price of the gauze to wrap them daily. The cost of homeschooling for the oldest one because he can't go to public school since there is no way to protect him. Even the local CHRISTIAN school has denied him a place in their classrooms. I can't blame them really, the cost of providing some form of protection from the other children would be prohibitive.

However, had people focused on the good that Planned Parenthood does instead of calling it an abortion clinic, some families might not have to stand silently by and watch these children suffer. All these kids want to do is play and not suffer pain.

I'm asking you to think about it, and instead of donating to the Susan G Komen Foundation, send your money directly to Planned Parenthood to be used for birth control education and supplies. Having had access to her pills might have limited our suffering to one child. If you have the stomach for it, Google Epidermolysis Bullosa and click on the pictures to see what it is we're dealing with and ask yourself whether you could handle that or not.

Goodbye Tricia, We Will Miss You

2012-01-31T20:32:00.000-05:00

One of the most loving of women died this past Friday. A victim of the "best healthcare in the world". She was sick to her stomach on Friday morning, and felt badly enough to go to our local Emergency Room. Our local hospital has a brand spanking new state of the art Emergency facility where they appear to not understand when someone arrives with a life or death problem.

An opportunity that I will never have would be greatly appreciated by me. An opportunity to ask any of the staff on duty when she was there why, when she was so overweight and with a broken foot, did it not occur to them that they needed to do some tests to determine if she was having a heart attack? Why, in light of her other problems, did it not occur to anyone that she had a blood clot? What part of women having heart attacks seldom show the usual signs of one, escapes you still?

I would love to ask since she's the third death that I know of in young women who were sent home with stomach aches, when they're going to figure out that they need to do something besides dismiss them? So, because they're overburdened by people without primary care physicians seeking medical care that should be handled by a doctor's office, our family has lost a daughter, sister, niece, aunt and cousin.

She had a doctor, who like most of our physicians today double book and don't seem able to fit a patient in when they need to be seen. They offer appointments that are so far in the future, whatever ails you will either cure itself or make you worse. Might even die from it, even if you go to a state of the art Emergency Room, where you sit in the waiting room for hours before they see you, and then they send you home to die.

She was my niece. She was 46, and she died while availing herself of the best we have to offer. In a place where she should have gotten help, she was not offered a chance to continue living. She was simply sent home to die.

The OMG Moments Of Life

2012-01-27T22:13:00.000-05:00

I didn't have a number 340 painted on the side but THIS is the color and look of my Baby. The finish was a dark metal flake green that would look black or navy in some light. It didn't have a 340 engine it was a hopped up 318 V6. On my only outing as a street racer I blew away a Pontiac Bonneville on a short drag. He ran out of road before he could overtake me. The Bonny had a bigger engine, it didn't have my hop.

It was the most reliable car I have ever owned. Although one of the most unlucky. While it never failed to start, it attracted more than it's share of unusual problems. My parking space was next to this big old tree that lost a huge limb one hot humid August night. We'd just gotten home from visiting friends, walked into the house and weren't home more than 5 minutes when we heard this horrendous crash. Walked out front to see what it was and didn't see a thing. A neighbor came running out of her house to tell me my car was wrecked. She was right, that huge limb was standing upright in my trunk on top of the spare tire well. Held steady by the side porch roof which was also damaged. Not a breath of air stirring anywhere and a tree drops it's biggest limb into my car. Figure that one out.

I remember how devastated I was and the police officer trying to keep me from falling apart. He never knew how close he came to getting slapped upside the head when he told me he wasn't sure how to write the report. How does one report that a tree attacked a car anyway?

My insurance covered it and a couple of years later Baby lost her gas tank while I was sitting in the parking lot at Hancock Airport in Syracuse. It was strapped under the spare tire well, which probably was damaged when the tree limb fell into it. A couple more winters of snow and road salt did it in. We used a tire iron wedged across the spare tire well and wrapped a chain around it and the gas tank to drive home. The friends sitting in the back seat, who were the reason we were there to start out with, probably prayed all the way home. My mechanic, the wild and wooly Mike found a tank and mounted it to the frame since there was nothing left of the spare tire well when it rotted out.

The following year it was totaled while my then husband was driving home from a meeting. He was T-boned at 55 mph. Both cars were traveling at that speed. The driver of the other car ran a stop sign. That accident was the end of my car. In a way, it was also the end of my marriage. During tests made necessary by his injuries, it was discovered that he had inoperable cancer of the brain.

There were times in the next few months when I would have killed to have that car back. She had been my refuge when my world was falling apart. I could just hop in, turn the key and purr on down the road. Today's cars handle better than she did, but nothing will ever equal the feeling of piloting a muscle car like the 74 Duster with the pedal to the metal on the open highway. It's a high you just can't duplicate. One I will never have the pleasure of again.

Good Things Are All Around Us

2012-01-26T15:08:00.000-05:00

So, my doctor was right about shutting off the computer and the TV. With much less online time I'm doing much better. Even managed to recover enough to sit for 20 minutes at a time instead of only 10. I'm still limiting my online time to 1 hour per day. I have a common kitchen timer I set to the amount of time I'm going to spend goofing around and I close out whatever I'm doing when it alerts me. With only 10 minutes a stretch, I wasn't really capable of doing anything, but now I can sit for 20 minutes, it's much easier to keep up with what I want to pay attention to.

Withdrawing from the smoke and mirrors of the internet has been extremely beneficial to me so I don't plan on returning to my old habits. I'm painting again which is a much more positive pursuit. This month I've completed an order for someone of three pieces. I didn't charge as much as I should have, and I don't care. I'm having more fun painting for me, doing what I want to do rather than doing something for someone else. I made enough off that order to purchase some replacements for paints that didn't fare well when I wasn't using them.

I hadn't realized how often I have been focusing on the negative. I'm certainly not going to say that is caused by the internet, but I can say with some surety that it contributes. Less of it has made me a much calmer person, and my blood pressure is again coming and staying down. My physical pain has been reduced through less sitting and over all I'm beginning to see that having a positive attitude is part of the improvement. I am seeing the good things in life rather than sitting here arguing politics and wondering where that mess will leave me next month or next year or whenever.

A Lesson Learned From "King Of The Modifieds" Richie Evans

2012-01-23T11:55:00.000-05:00

He was a friend of my Husband's family having spent the first 16 years of his life living down the road from them. He was typical of most of the farm boys I've met. Laid back, good hearted, helpful people, with a wild streak that makes you want to shake your head at their antics and wonder whether there's something in the air on top of that hill. Maybe it's learning to drive tractors at a young age, or possibly the aroma of cow manure they're exposed to, but they all seem to have a need for speed. A need which life seems to lessen as they age, except in Richie's case.

He left the farm, learned auto mechanics and opened his own garage in the city I lived in some 12 miles from his home. By the 1970's when I first met him, he was an established stock car driver on many of the short tracks found in New York State and surrounding areas. I knew him and his future second wife through my place of employment. They were customers there. She was a flight attendant. I saw more of her than I did of him, but he would come in when she wasn't in town to pick up their things.

I wasn't a NASCAR fan. I'd been to the Utica-Rome Speedway once in the late 1960's, and thought it was ok, but nothing I'd ever find myself following. He was just a customer at the dry cleaning establishment that I worked in. I blame the fact that my first car was a muscle car on Richie. I've also often told my Hubby it was probably all Richie's fault that we married. My brief experience with Richie taught me that there were some very desirable qualities underneath all that country boy craziness. Things like honesty, loyalty and a willingness to help when needed. Of course, you do have to hang on to those qualities for dear life when you're traveling at 90 miles an hour on the fast lane called living. Those country boys give the phrase "misspent youth" a whole 'nother meaning.

It was September of 1978 and I had decided I was going to buy myself my first car. I'd gone to a local auto dealer who sold used vehicles and was looking at both a 1974 Plymouth Gold Duster and a Ford Torino. I didn't make a decision about which one I wanted because while I trusted this particular auto dealer, I knew very little about cars. I had decided to ask my Dad to look them over and was discussing the situation with a fellow employee when Richie came in. He'd overheard enough of the conversation to know what I was planning and he knew the mechanic at that particular dealership. Richie suggested I speak to the mechanic there and see which one he would recommend. That's what I did and I wound up a single 20 something owner of a fast car. I LOVED that car.

Getting married to my first husband and changing jobs took me away from any opportunity to get to know Richie in any other manner. I never became a fan of his and never considered myself to be anything more than an acquaintence for whom he did a kindness. I know so much more about him now. Partly due to stories told by Hubby's family and friends, and mostly due to his induction into the NASCAR Hall of Fame this past Friday. I had no idea he was as important to the sport of racing as that.

"Rapid Roman" Richie Evans won 9 NASCAR National Modified Championships including 8 in a row from 1978 to 1985 when he was killed running a practice lap in Martinsville, Va at the Martinsville Speedway. He died from a skull fracture after hitting the wall on a turn. So far he is the only Hall of Fame inductee that never drove in the top NASCAR cup series.

This past weekend there's been much laughter and a few tears taking place in the hills of Westernville, NY. For many it isn't the honor bestowed on him by NASCAR that is what holds him dear in their hearts. It's the barn dances and the gas stolen from his Dad's pump with his Mom's collusion. It's the rides at breakneck speed over the hills and in a few cases through the pastures and the woods. For some it may be the knowledge of who it actually was that saw to it that paint from the City of Rome's Highway garage found it's way to Richie's to be used on his first number 61 stock cars.

Since 1987 when I first met my husband, my life has overlapped Richie's life in ways that I would never have imagined back in 1978 when he helped me choose my first car. I've met guys named Speed, Stubby and Cubby who were friends and relatives of his. I've heard their stories and marveled at how he managed to live until adulthood. I bought my current car from the man that taught him auto mechanics. My Oldest step-son owns 13 acres of what was Richie's boyhood home. The barn is directly across the road. I took this picture from the front door of step-son's home back in 2007 I believe. I planned on painting the scene, never got around to it.

Richie was 44 when he died. I didn't really know him so I don't know how he dealt, or if he dealt with the knowledge that every lap he drove could be his last. What I do know is he grabbed onto everything that life had to offer and he wrung from it everything he could in the time he had. There's a lesson there that I think we all ignore in life. We only get one go round, we need to make the most of it. Can't be doing that when we dwell on everything that could go wrong. You know? Maybe I better start that painting. Might not do justice to it, but I'll never know until I try.

Anybody Need A Cat Bed?

2011-12-31T13:46:00.000-05:00

Some of my friends from other places know we acquired Demonkitteh on December 31, 2008. Some of my friends also know why he's nicknamed Demonkitteh, however, since both he and my house have survived these last 3 years, we decided to commemorate the day with a gift. He steals Hubby's shirts to make beds out of so we decided to buy him one of his own. I ventured out on an ill advised trip to Walmart after my case this morning and purchased a SmartyKat CATNIP Cat Lounger.

The instructions say to place the catnip into the cloth bag that comes with the bed and zip it into it's place on the bottom side of the lounger. I did that and set the lounger on the floor. Demonkitteh promptly flipped it over and tried to destroy the bed in order to get the catnip pouch out of it's rightful place. I unzipped it and gave him the pouch to play with so that I didn't have bits and pieces of cat lounger strewn throughout my house.

He played with the pouch for 5 minutes, had himself a light lunch, went and sat in the lounger to take a bath and then wandered up the hall, I thought, to use the litter box. He was in the bathroom for 5 minutes during which time I heard the clothes hamper come crashing over and Demonkitteh reappeared with one of Hubby's quilted flannel shirts.

He dragged the shirt to the cat bed, laid down on the shirt and placed his head in the cat lounger. You know? Maybe I should have spent my money on a sturdier hamper? One that he can't knock over quite as easily?

I have work to do, if I don't get back into Blogger later today, have a safe and Happy New Year.

Making Hard Decisions Doesn't Come Easy

2011-12-28T09:51:00.000-05:00

There is a lengthy and rather convoluted path we travel in life. For some of us that path is smooth with few bumps and for others it's a mountainous climb with many missteps along the way. For most of my life the path has been relatively smooth. Mountainous climbs have usually been of my own making since making mountains out of molehills is a habit of the Type A personality. Another Type A trait is that we dismiss things we should pay attention to and obssess about things we should dismiss.

I was diagnosed, in my middle 20's with ankylosing spondylitis. That was back when doctors were demi-gods and one didn't ask questions. Had no idea what it was and since all I heard was "arthritis" never bothered to ask what it was. It's a form of rheumatoid arthritis that affects the spine's sacroiliac joint. Which accounts for all the lower back, hip and leg pain I've been experiencing for the past year.

It's not that I didn't have pain before, it would come and go periodically. Much of the time it would exist at a level that I could and did ignore. It wasn't until I did a music post about Motley Crue that I encountered the term again. Mick Mars has it, and had a hip replaced so he could rejoin the group when they tried to reconcile around the middle of the last decade. Once I found out what it was, I decided there wasn't anything I could do about it since I don't have health insurance, so I resumed ignoring the problem. That reality check bounced. Fortunately, this time I have a doctor who can guide me through this flare. Good thing, because it's lasted more than a month.

I'm having trouble writing blog posts since I can't sit for long periods of time. I've maintained my Twitter account by posting a couple of things and then moving away from the computer to do things that will keep me from stiffening up too much. It's not humanly possible to move constantly, but if I'm not moving, I'm supposed to be lying down to keep everything straight. That too is pretty difficult.

During a conversation with my doctor at my last appointment the subject of internet usage and TV watching came up. She believes that there is a correlation between what happens in the mind and ones level of health. When we expose ourselves to unresolved negativity, it will effect us one way or another somewhere else in our bodies. Her view is that we'd all be farther ahead if we shut off our TVs and limited our online time to less than half an hour a day.

I'm not sure what I will do about any of this. That half an hour isn't much and won't allow me to be as social as I might like to be. I thought about closing my blog and just spending my online time in Twitter. I'm finding that Twitter is a major source of the negativity that may be having an effect on my problem. I finally decided to step away from the computer for her suggested 30 days in favor of other things until I can make up my mind. There's just too much garbage in, garbage out going on and I need to concentrate on me and not obssess about what possesses others to behave so badly.

Today's Society....FAIL!

2011-11-10T17:13:00.000-05:00

I don't know what to rant about first. The GOP Fail which is self evident in their presidential candidates or the Penn State Jerry Sandusky/Joe Paterno Fail. Better yet, maybe I should rant about a society FAIL!

The words that come to my mind are "morally bankrupt." What are we doing to ourselves? Next question...WHY? How have we gotten so far away from doing the right thing and into doing that which is expedient? What part of sticking your head in the sand is going to correct this mess?

How did I end up living in a society where politicians think it's OK to steal from the poor to give to the rich? When did sexual harassment become an excusable offense because the perpetrator is in a position of power? Why was it fine for people in positions of authority to condone the abuse of children in the name of having a winning college football team? What part of treating women as if we're chattel is acceptable because it's being done in the name of religion?

For some strange reason I keep thinking about something I read back in 2007. I was doing music posts for my Blogstream blog and had been listening a lot to Dio. I was trying to find a way to do a post about a song of his called "Killing The Dragon". It didn't really make any sense to me until I found an interview he did about the album that song was on. He wouldn't use a computer or much by way of what we call technology these days. He referred to all of it as "heartless little Gods." Said some day we'd be sorry we worshipped at the altar of technology. I'm beginning to wonder if maybe he wasn't right.

We used to know that not everything we want to do should be done. We used to understand that as a human, we had baser instincts that were best not indulged in. Now it seems that anything goes. We can do anything we want to entirely because it feels good to us. If it doesn't feel good to you, then too bad, I'm the only one that matters to me. Apparently for some it feels good to debase women in the name of sexual satisfaction. And for others it feels good to corrupt children and make their lives a painful experience. One that will damage them, in many ways, beyond repair.

I have far too many questions and no really good answers. I just know that I am glad I don't have my whole long life ahead of me. I'm afraid to see what the next 50 years is going to bring. If the changes I've witnessed in my lifetime are any indication, we will have entirely lost our souls by then.

Undercover at Smithfield Foods, Supplier Of The Pork For The McRib

2011-11-05T14:53:00.000-04:00

My grandfather was a farmer. Born on the family farm and as an adult went back to work on a farm after losing his factory position during The Great Depression. He was a beef eater, which is probably why he died young, but one thing he would not eat was veal. He couldn't stand the method by which the calves were raised for the veal market. He believed that putting an animal in a box, not allowing it to roam was inhumane. I wonder what he'd eat now since we seem to have moved the veal box into mainstream meat raising?

The more I learn about farming methods today, the less appetizing the products look to me. I can get my eggs from local farms, and my beef, pork and chicken as well. I've been on these farms, seen their operations and they are a far cry from the accepted practices that take place before our meats go to market.

I can no longer afford to eat meat on a daily basis since local farmers charge quite a bit more, but at least I know that what I'm eating wasn't tormented and tortured for my dining pleasure. Besides, a few meatless meals makes for a healthier human. I think Grandpa would be very proud of me. He helped raise a child that is willing to stand up for what she believes. Same as he did.

Slapped In The Face

2011-11-04T18:59:00.000-04:00

Here I sit, hopes dashed, the pain of unshed tears in my eyes. I will not cry, I refuse. The people I work for aren't worth my tears. No, I haven't lost my job, just my hope for something better and in a way, my faith in the people I work for. I didn't have much of it, but I did have some.

They are now offering a health insurance to their employees. Employees who gross less than $350 a week are being offered this health insurance to the tune of $145.71 per week. No part of it to be paid for by the company. They think it's a big deal, we're supposed to be grateful. Instead, I feel as if someone poured acid on my face.

What really floored me is that basic common sense should have told them that they don't have an employee that can afford this. Given that knowledge, what is this? What part of taking $600 a month away from their employees leaves them with nothing left to live on are they ignoring? But WAIT! There's MORE!

In addition to the cost of healthcare there is a dental plan for a few extra bucks a week. I was so shocked by the offer, I don't remember the amount requested for that. All I can see when I think about it is the $145.71 per week figure. There have been weeks when I have client cancellations for doctor appointments and clients in the hospital that I don't take home much more than a dollar or two over that figure. I don't work 30 hours a week, so I only make $8 an hour.

Depending on the number of hours one works, they pay $8 or $9 an hour for actual client work. Travel time is paid by the hour at $7.35. Due to the travel time they won't give anyone more than 36 hours of client time and seldom more than 90 minutes of travel. Total gross pay on that would be $335.03. Social security, Medicare, Fed tax, state tax, and state disability will take somewhere around $50.60 out of that depending on the number of dependents they claim. Once the insurance comes out, it will leave the employee with around $138 and change a week.

Average rent here? Around $550 a month not including utilities. Plus, most of us need a car to make that much money and that won't be possible if we sign up for the health insurance.

If they'd have offered to pay half of that, I actually would have taken more hours to bring myself up to the point where I would feel comfortable with that kind of deduction. After all, with Hubby's business being seasonal, I need to be bringing home enough to keep the roof over our head, the lights on and food in our stomachs. Along with keeping the car in gas. I can do that on what I'm making.

They wonder why the aides aren't falling all over themselves to give their all for the company. Somehow they don't grasp that in order to have the food stamps and the health insurance Medicaid provides, they can't make more money than they're being paid. Most of them have kids to look out for, without a living wage, they're doing the best they can.

Happy Meowloween

2011-10-31T18:18:00.000-04:00

When guys go Trick or treating, sometimes they get lucky.

And, sometimes they don't.

Random Observations On Life

2011-10-30T09:27:00.000-04:00

I could stop right there, since that's about as random as you can get, however...

I spend a lot of time looking at the current crop of GOP candidates and find myself asking how people got to be that stupid? Despite the fact that Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan will raise taxes on 84% of Americans there are those who still support him? Michele Bachmann wants to close the Environmental Protection Agency when historically this nation has allowed corporate greed to damage the environment which lead to serious health issues suffered by those who lived in and around the brownfields the EPA has been cleaning up? Does she not know about Love Canal? Then there's Romney, who was fine with ideas that he had until they were adapted by the current president and then suddenly they're all wrong? I won't even get into the heartlessness of Ron Paul except to say that according to his ideas, our damaged returning veterans wouldn't be able to get healthcare they require due to what our wars did to them unless they could afford to pay for it.

While I am on that subject, who have we become that we believe people should die if they can't afford to pay for their care? I will never watch another CNN Tea Party debate due to listening to people cheer over the hypothetical death of a hypothetical young man who can't afford to pay to live.

"The rent is too damn high". Somehow or other we don't seem to get that when the top wage earners see an increase in their wealth of 285% in the last 10 years while the bottom of that spectrum only saw an 18% increase in the same time frame, the rent will always be too damn high. It should have occurred to someone by now that wealth is a finite amount and when most of it is given to a few, the many must make do with the rest. In order to give the top wage earners more of that pie, the other end has to give up their share. The pie itself is not going to miraculously grow larger to accommodate the increase.

When you stop to think about that, where do these Libertarians get the idea that they will be able to live on what's left over after the wealthy have taken their overly large share? Maybe they agree with Senator Sessions that the food stamp program is the problem? It's out of control with nearly 74% of Americans receiving food stamps. Hello????? That's a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself.

When you allow the very rich to become richer by stealing wages from the middle class, you have an increase in the poverty level. Once that level increases more people fall below it and then qualify for programs that we aren't funding correctly and haven't been for a decade. Look. We have been effectively returning ourselves to the turn of the 20th century when Rockefeller, Astor, Vanderbilt, Whitney, etc. held all the wealth. Back then families survived because every member of the family worked, including children as young as 8 years old. Yes, we will soon be returning to digging ditches because computers and robots will be doing all the gravy jobs. Which leaves way more of our money for the wealthy to conspicuously consume since digging ditches is a low paying back breaking job.

What really makes me angry about this entire situation has very little to do with Corporations taking advantage of the middle class, and more to do with the middle class not accepting responsibility for their own demise. We were given the tool by which we had, please notice I said HAD a say in our government. It's called voting rights. A tool which more than 50% of Americans chose not to use regularly. The total number of eligible voters that actually went to the polls in 2010 was a whopping 41%. The only time more voters actually get off their asses and away from their computers where they sit and whine about how bad America has become is when there's a Presidential election. Then the percentage increases to 74%. The number 1 reason why they don't go to the polls is that they are "too busy".

It's all well and good to go out on the streets and "Occupy Wall St" because the banks are robbing us blind. However, if this movement doesn't translate to an occupy the voting booth increase, nothing they're doing will change a damn thing. And it better happen pretty quickly or a large percentage of Americans will be losing their right to vote when the GOP/Tea Party gets done with their shenanigans.

Too Pooped To Pop

2011-10-26T18:56:00.000-04:00

I now know why Mom was always tired. I can remember having very little patience when she would answer my "How are you?" question by saying "Tired." I say "Fine" when asked, but frankly...I'm not. There are days when working for 5 hours leaves me with a need to crawl into bed for a long nap.

The first time it happened I thought I was going to have to crawl up the steps and into the house on my hands and knees. Someone pulled the plug on my generator and the lights went out. Seriously. That was the day I learned to take my pulse before taking the beta blocker I'm now on. Apparently I was so upset over having to take one that I totally missed her telling me that if my heart rate slowed to 60 or less beats a minute, skip the pill. I also missed the part where she told me it would take 10 to 16 weeks before my heart adapted to the beta blocker. This is week 7. After all this, if my BP goes down and stays down, she'll be taking me off of it, which, according to what I read could cause me to have a heart attack. One of the many reasons why I didn't want to take it to start out with.

Given what I do for a living, it's a good thing that I don't experience dizziness from it. I'd be falling head first into toilets and bathtubs if I did. I did have to rearrange my schedule to move clients requiring more traveling to the earlier morning time. I've never really thought about 30 miles being a long trip, but I have to say that it's as bad as a thousand miles when you are having trouble keeping your eyes open and your brain isn't processing where you are. Try that at 55 mph. I did, it wasn't fun. Trust me.

If having a reduction in the number of weekly fatigue spells is any indication, I'm going to have an adapted heart at 10 weeks. The one spell of fatigue that I did have only required a 15 minute sit down instead of the hour and a half nap. That is a welcomed improvement. Before I know it I'll be able to dance the night away just like I was...NOT!

The Subject Is Cat Hair

2011-10-12T17:45:00.000-04:00

Our four legged, fur bearing, hairball puking, benevolent dictator is named Butterscotch for a very obvious reason or two. Number 1 being that at the time, so soon after the death of Bashful, I had little imagination and less desire to have a cat, let alone name one. Number 2 is that said unwanted (at the time) demonkitteh was blonde with butterscotch orange markings. Which eliminates the colors black, grey and dark brown in the daily collection of swept up cat hair. Well, at least it should. However, this doesn't seem to be the case.

Since I live in a mobile home, we had no storage for off season clothing. Hubby and Youngest were kind enough to build me a cabinet with shelves on which I could store neatly folded off season garments. So, every Spring/Fall I wash whatever is to be stored, the inside of the cabinet, shelf surfaces and neatly stack the clothing on the shelves.

When Bashful was alive, it was necessary to wash the clothing again when we removed it from the shelves because she knew how to open doors and enjoyed snoozing on the stacks of clothes. Unless she wanted something and I was home alone, she preferred the pleasure of her own company to that of everyone else. To that end she was a veritable genius at finding ways to isolate herself from the hubbub of our household. She never met a cabinet she didn't love nor a door she couldn't open.

Butterscotch, on the other hand, is a cat of a different stripe. While he may not appreciate all and sundry who waltz through the front door, he wants to be out in the center of the action. He's a very handsome cat, and quite vain. Not for him the out of the way hidey holes. He prefers to bask in the admiration of the strange 2 legged creatures that are found in the living areas of this home. Besides, he's not smart enough to figure out how to open doors.

Bashful died in 2008. We have since replaced the bedroom carpet with a laminate flooring material similar in color to the livingroom and hallway. It made it much easier to clean the dust bunnies and the cat hair since I could use the Swiffer dust mop system in there as well. Now, I am used to blonde and orange cat hair with the occasional longer human hair that seems to like to accumulate under the bed and along the walls or in the corners. What I am not used to is the black, brown and gray cat hair that began to appear a week ago. The hair is not short enough nor the right color to be either Hubby's or mine.

I really didn't think much of it until this afternoon. After work today I decided to remove my dark colored scrub pants from the storage closet. I figured it was getting cooler and time to get out the long pants for work. I pulled the stack off the shelf intending to hang them on pants hangers and discovered that both the navy blue and the black pair appear to have been slept on by a cat, and the hairs left behind by the sleeping cat are not blonde and orange.

I don't know if we'll be able to figure this one out, but I do know one thing. Next time Butterscotch sits on the floor in front of that cabinet and talks to it, I'm going to open the doors.

Indian Summer

2011-10-10T18:07:00.000-04:00

We've had 2 nights of killing frost. It's brought out the red so sadly lacking in the foliage until now. The temperature has warmed up to nearly 80 degrees for the second day in a row. One more day and it will be officially an Indian Summer.

For the past week, every evening at 6 or so a flock of geese have announced that they are leaving as they wing south overhead. The robins and hummingbirds have gone leaving behind their heartier songbird friends to keep us company through the cold harsh winter. I've been sitting here with windows open listening to one such feathered friend. First I hear the call of the woodpecker and then this bird that chirps over and over, just a short shrill sound. Almost sounds like a squeaky wheel. I've no idea what bird it is since I'm unable to see it in all the glorious fall color.

All the corn fields in the area have changed from green to gold and farmers are out cutting them down. Farmers are selling their ripening winter squashes and apples since the frost killed off just about everything else. The punkins are plentiful this year. Apples are sweet and juicy, just the way we like them. I'm tempted to bake a pie but it's not really something I'm supposed to be eating. I'll wait until November at Thanksgiving time. Sweets to be consumed for a special occasion.

This is the best time of the year for Autumn Soup and Mushroom Stew. I may not have managed enough money to buy what I needed for the Winter, but I do have enough to make large warming pots of both and freeze much of it for the coming months. For the rest of it, although homegrown tastes better, I can still buy what I want at the grocers. Organic when I can afford it and whatever else when I can't.

When the temperature cools back down a bit, I'm going to try my hand at baking a loaf of whole wheat bread. the old fashioned way, without a bread machine. All that kneading of the dough will be good for the stress relief and if it turns out well, I will continue to do a loaf or two every week. Might even manage to get Hubby to eat it if I tell him it's made with unbleached flour and that's why it's so dark. It worked to get him to eat whole grain pasta, I might get lucky if I don't let him see the packaging. Sometimes life just needs us to be a little creative to get over the humps. Although, it does seem like there are a lot more humps these days.

Time Will Be Spent Waiting For The Paint To Dry

2011-10-08T14:06:00.000-04:00

Given the state of our finances and the time of year it is, I'm going to have to be somewhat creative when it comes to gift giving. Which is perfectly all right since I am somewhat creative. A little paint, some dollar store stemware, some stemware not from the dollar store, some candles, glass plates, inexpensive hurricane glass chimneys for those popular oil lamps and I'm thinking the Season of Giving might just be a winner in my house.

Same ideas can be used on the 4" ceramic wall tiles available at Lowes. With the addition of felt on the backs, the tiles can be combined in sets of 4 or 6, packaged with some attractive ribbon and voila! Coasters to protect the wood table tops from damage caused by wet glasses.

Of course, all of this takes time, and since I thought of it early, I will have the time to do some unique and elegant items. Not just flowers, but fruits of the vine would work for much of what I'm planning. I should even be able to find the time to post a couple of times a week since there is always that stage of painting where one must have patience while the paint cures.

I haven't been painting much since I no longer do craft shows. Once in awhile I paint a piece for me, but for the most part, the table sits unused. I need to change that since one of my stress relieving tools is painting. That's the one area in which I cut myself some slack since paint can be washed off when mistakes are made. Too bad I can't do that with the rest of my life. Seems like the perfect stress relief. Wash it away.

Attitude Needed Adjusting

2011-10-05T18:04:00.000-04:00

For awhile I was feeling as if I had lost my sense of humor. Everything seemed to be piling in on me and I could only spew my anger onto these blank pages called Post Editors. I'm not given much to self pity. I don't have it harder than millions of others, yet I found myself wallowing in a mood so dark I was beginning to feel isolated in some way. The more I looked around me, the less I liked what I saw and the angrier I became.

It started with the quarterly sales tax preparation for the filing date in September, on my 62nd birthday. We owed half of what we normally owe for the third quarter. To say business has been bad is putting it mildly. I've lost count of the number of bad checks we've had to chase people down for. We received more bad checks in the third quarter of this year than we've received since buying this business in 1986. You can't begin to understand what it feels like to have these checks and try to work things out with people who have no shame about writing them. For the first time in our business life, we had people arrested.

The day I had to go to court with our first case, I sat outside the courthouse and cried. After the ruling in our favor, I left the courthouse and sat in my car and cried some more. Even knowing that we aren't to blame for the problems these people got themselves into, doesn't make me feel any better. One woman couldn't understand why the charges against her included misdemeanor larceny. She simply couldn't grasp that paying for a service with a check she knew was bad is theft of services. In addition to the septic pumping she had some pipes replaced. Total was $600. She wrote a check on a closed account.

With the financial setbacks we've endured, all my healthy food purchase plans went down the drain. I've purchased and preserved as much as I could afford, which hasn't been much at all. The stress took a toll on my blood pressure. The bottom number stayed down but the top one went off the chart again so, I am now on a beta blocker to protect my heart. Which, of course, made me feel like a failure somehow. Doctor says she's positive it will only be temporary since I have made "great strides" forward since I began the program. I resolved the issue of our financial situation by not purchasing the supplements I need. That allowed me to buy the locally grown produce that sits in my freezer. Wasn't the smartest thing I've done, but I did it and as the doctor says, I need to forget it and move on.

I really didn't start the forget and move on process until Scratch got a job. Something about his good news was a lifeline that I am using to pull myself out of the rut I dug for myself. I'm not out yet, but I can see the top of the pile. Nothing financially has changed, I just have knuckled down and started using the stress relieving tools that have been at my disposal all along. I lost sight of the forest because of the trees and needed to find my chainsaw to thin those trees out some.

Remembering 9/11

2011-09-10T19:43:00.000-04:00

Shortly after 9 am on the morning of September 11, 2001 my phone rang. For a decade now, the quavering voice of my Mother telling me to "turn on my TV, something terrible is happening" has been stuck in my head. When I did turn it on, I saw a scene that looked something like this.

I wasn't able to comprehend entirely what I was seeing and I asked her what happened, what was going on? She responded by saying she didn't know but she thought we were under attack by someone and then she began to cry. At that point the newscast switched back to Tom Brokaw and although I didn't understand a single word he was saying, I knew my world would change beyond anything I'd known up to that point. I was right.

We became a nation of angry, fearful people. We've made decision after decision since then based on the emotions that the knowledge we had become a target created. We've spent a decade since then waving our flags, shouting our patriotism to the world all the while sending our young men and women off to kill or be killed. Something about fighting so we can preserve our freedom. Freedom for what? To be selfish, greedy, hateful, small minded people?

We take little real interest in our neighborhoods unless someone isn't keeping their property up. No one thinks to ask if that person might need help, we just sit and criticize among ourselves about how they are destroying our property values. Then there's the other neighbor who should be shot for mowing their lawn early in the morning on a Saturday or Sunday. "Don't they know I want to sleep late? Who do they think they are to disturb MY rest?" Of course, the fact that may be the ONLY time they can mow their lawn never enters into the equation. It's always all about us, and what we want.

We teach our children to be bullies, to hate. We spend our time online trying to smear the reputations of people simply because they disagree with us over...well...anything. We accept no responsibility for our actions or our speech. It, after all, is a right guaranteed us by the Constitution so we can say anything we damn well please. No matter how malicious the content of our speech is, no matter whose reputation it damages, we have a guaranteed right to say it. Even when it leads to the death of another person. It's too bad, so sad, next victim!

We drive in a way that suggests we own the road. Speed as if there isn't a speed limit established by law. Yet, when someone else does it, why that is a whole different situation. That requires we chase them down and smash their vehicles or worse, we kill them. It's our right to defend ourselves, they tried to kill us by cutting us off.

We send money to disaster victims in other countries, but we won't volunteer to help people in our own communities. Our time is worth money, apparently those in need of assistance aren't worth much. Volunteer fire departments and emergency services all over America are closing because they can't get volunteers. The same thing is happening to volunteer police units who provide additional security for public gatherings like city parades. Then, of course, we swear about the increased taxes needed for municipal provision of these services. I wonder what will happen when a loved one has a heart attack and dies or a house burns to the ground while waiting for a response from a service that might be located 15 or 20 miles away.

We're a country with a chip on our shoulders daring someone, anyone to knock it off. The reality is the chip was knocked off 10 years ago exposing the fact that we are a bunch of blustering know nothings carefully educated by the GOP, Fox news and Rush Limbaugh. On the eve of the only attack by an enemy that we've ever suffered on our own soil, Eric Cantor is calling for a 40% reduction in payments to First Responders to disasters in 2012. I wonder what it will cost if you have to pay to have part of your house lifted off your body or that of a loved one. After all, without pay, there might not be anyone to help given how few volunteers there are in this America.

We've taken revenge upon the people who perpetrated this horrible disaster. It didn't give me my America back. All I can do while remembering that horrible day is wonder how the people who died then would feel about the America that exists today. An America where anger at a common enemy turned into hatred for each other simply because of differences of opinions. And I will spend tomorrow honoring the dead by remembering an event I wish had never happened and, given what has happened since, I wish we could forget.

No Ten Cent Lovin', No Chicano and No Henna Either. Mondegreen!

2011-09-04T12:13:00.000-04:00

According to Gavin Evans in a post he wrote about Mondegreens, the terminology came about thusly.

"The term "mondegreen" was coined by Sylvia Wright in a 1954 Atlantic article. As a child, young Sylvia had listened to a folk song that included the lines "They had slain the Earl of Moray/And Lady Mondegreen." As is customary with misheard lyrics, she didn't realize her mistake for years. The song was not about the tragic fate of Lady Mondegreen, but rather, the continuing plight of the good earl: "They had slain the Earl of Moray/And laid him on the green."

As with most misheard song lyrics, the mondegreen makes as much sense as the actual lyrics do. However, that doesn't really hold true in the song "Hard To Handle" written and recorded originally by Otis Redding. I can't ascertain whether or not the mondegreen in this case was born due to his singing or that of the Black Crowes cover from their first album. I suppose it could have occurred at any point in time since quite a few bands have actually covered the song.

I tend not to like covers. They disappoint me on some level. However, I must say that the Crowes did a bang up job on their cover of it.

Oh yes, the actual words from which the mondegreen originates can be found in the chorus of the song. The mondegreen itself is in the title of this post.

"Boys and things that come by the dozen
That ain't nothing but drugstore loving.
Hey little thing let me light your candle
Cause Mama I'm sure hard to handle now
Gets around."

It's All A Matter Of Perspective

2011-08-31T21:29:00.000-04:00

On Sunday, Irene didn't do very much by the way of damage to my area of Central New York. We were without power for a few hours, some roads, including the NYS thruway were flooded and closed. A tree fell in my yard, missing the house and the window I was standing in front of by a foot and my sunflowers looked as if someone had been dancing til dawn in their midst.

She arrived at 5 am here and when the sun came up I could see that she had brought the usual debris with her. I don't remember any wind of any strength happening at that hour. As a matter of fact, it just seemed to be a stiff breeze combing the trees and taking out all the snarls caused by dead branches. It was raining and I don't believe it stopped until just before bedtime that night. The ground was so saturated that the tree, and my sunflowers were blown over exposing their roots.

The tree was a white birch of some height, just not as tall as others, for which I am grateful. I was standing in the bedroom looking out the window when I became aware that it was falling. At me. The whole thing seemed to happen in slow motion and fear kept me rooted to the spot. I couldn't move, couldn't make a sound and wasn't sure what had happened when it was all over. All I knew was that the tree was down and both I and my home were undamaged. Then I fell apart. It was as if someone found my "On" switch, and pushed it.

Once my electricity came back on and my internet seemed to be working, I thought all was going to be fine. Then my internet went out leaving me with the TV as my only entertainment option other than reading a book. I'd done that while the power was out, so TV it was. That was when we found out that I didn't have connection to both satellites so we were limited in our choices. Hubby kept getting stuck on the channels that weren't available, so in disgust he handed me the remote. The chance of a lifetime and we didn't have a full selection of programs for me to play with.

ABC had a 20/20 Special Report on called the Sixth Sense. I wasn't going to watch it until Chris Cuomo said that "One out of five people you meet on the internet is not who they say they are". Ok, THAT got my attention. I knew that there are a lot of fakes online, just never thought about a specific number.

The first hour was about what happened to a young man who wasn't really looking for love in all the wrong places, he just happened to fall into it. He's the subject of the documentary movie "Catfish". You can read more about that movie here.

The second hour ended in the death of a young man in his 20's. The usual eternal triangle, with a twist. The female in question wasn't a young hot chick as she was advertising herself, she was the Mom of the girl whose picture she posted online. The DA's office in Buffalo, NY is trying to find a way to charge this person for her part in the crime. What she did is morally reprehensible, but sadly, it's legal. She didn't intend to harm anyone, she was just having fun.

The kind of things these women have done online would never have occurred to me. Even at my lowest point when Mom hadn't been gone for a year and I was losing my Dad, it never crossed my mind to amuse myself at the expense of others. One thing has been made understandable to me. I now know why so many people are always concerned with how many identities someone has online. If that 1 in 5 figure is even half way correct, that's a lot of fakers. I've come to the conclusion, and I may be wrong, that most of those fakers are doing nothing more than hiding their own identities because they don't want to wake up some morning and find that their bank accounts were emptied or that someone maxed out their credit cards.

The program was interesting. It also was designed to scare us into being fearful online. Had it not been for the reality of Irene, I would have been on the blog the very next day spreading my fear to the people that read me regularly. Somehow or other watching a tree falling towards me in a rainstorm, slightly changed my perspective on things. No matter how bad I think the internet can get, I can always turn away and shut it off. Then, when I have worked out my own feelings, my own emotions, I can turn it back on again. Falling trees have no shut off button. There's something so very final in that thought.

One Brilliant Flash

2011-08-24T14:46:00.000-04:00

My computer has an issue. Well, to be accurate, my monitor is the problem. It's losing the color red on me every so often. Funny thing, the emachine hunk of junk I've been using since Mom died has had just about every original accessory replaced. The original monitor croaked two days past the 90 day warranty period back in 2006. Had it not been for the Envision monitor from my first computer, my history as a blogger would have lasted all of 60 days. Might have been a good thing, come to think about that.

The next thing to leave me up the creek was the keyboard. That lasted a year. Actually died in the midst of a St Paddy's Day frenzy of appropriate comment graphic delivery to all 100 plus bloggers I was following. It was replaced, within an hour, with a Logitech board that I've been banging away on for 5 years now. Then the mouse died last year. Again, Logitech to the rescue. The Envision monitor was an IBM product, it's now been in use for the better part of 17 years. They just don't make things like they used to.

For some reason, the color red seems to be the important one. Everything becomes a sick color of green, or blue, or black without it. Even the color yellow looks...well...green. In my frustration, I did a Fonzie on it and that will restore the color...for awhile. It goes, I give it a tap on the side and it comes back. One of these times, I'm going to give it that tap and the whole display might leave me.

I'm considering a new computer. The problem is that things aren't financially great with Hubby's business, so I've been looking at the possibility of buying a laptop instead of a desktop. The ever popular Walmart has a Toshiba on sale right now for $278. Of course, I'd have to not pay the auto insurance in order to run right out and buy it. Since I need my car in order to make a living, that's not an option.

If I drop a hundred or so on a new monitor, who can say the tower won't go kaput? Decisions, decisions. About the only one I've been able to make is to wait until I actually have to do something before I decide what to do. Which, of course, means I may be absent from online activities for awhile. I don't know that for sure, but, the way life goes, you never know.

Please Cut the Crap!

2011-08-22T08:22:00.000-04:00

Please Cut the Crap!

One of the people I follow in Twitter is the author of "The PCTC* Blog" or, "Please Cut The Crap" by Milt Shook.

He's a refreshing change from the whiny, finger pointing, blame Obama style of Progressive Blogger that seems to be popular today. While all blogging is essentially opinion based, Mr Shook provides us with the facts on which he bases his analysis. He very quickly has become a must read for me.

If you do click the link and take the time to read him, I suggest you take a good long look at the third post on the page, titled "More Politics 101: Obama Is Smarter Than Us!". It's a completely different look at what many see as a President who doesn't know how to lead.

Gone To Fill The Bowl

2011-08-20T17:49:00.000-04:00

I don't have what one might call writer's block, I'm just in one of my moods where I'm not overly interested in communicating with people. Communication is a major part of the job I do. I spend my days informing the clients of every move I'm making while in their homes. It's like talking to yourself if they have dementia, since they won't remember what you said 5 minutes ago. We have to do that because there are times when their brains can't process what is happening unless you tell them. Even when helping them shower.

There's nothing much to challenge the intellect there. It's a matter of telling them I'm turning on the water, testing the temperature. Then it's soaping the medium by which I wash them if they need that kind of assistance. It's a running litany of chores, and I do so much of it, I'm beginning to do it when I try to type a blog post. I even caught myself informing the cat that I was going to sweep the floor when I went to get the broom.

Part of my mood is because my favorite client left today to spend 2 weeks in a nursing home respite program. The family member responsible for her care has bulging discs between every single cervical vertebrae. He can't keep caring for her right now. He needs to take care of himself so that they can get the discs back in place IF they aren't so far out now that it's permanent. She's there for a minimum of 2 weeks and there's the possibility that it will be a longer stay. If the county program she's in would have paid for more hours of care, this wouldn't be necessary, but they won't. I'm just going to hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

Until my emotions settle down, I'm not up to the political discourse, the trolls, or the smoke and mirror magic of the internet. I'm going to spend a few days reading good books, enjoying the weather we're having and maybe start a painting.

A Visit To The Adirondack Mountains

2011-08-16T19:35:00.000-04:00

My new friend Squatlo is feeling the loss of his Smoky Mountain Vacation. I fully understand his emotions. I live in the foothills of the Adirondacks which makes all of the scenery in this video within a 90 minute drive from my home. It might take a bit longer to get to Lake George where the big boat pictures appear to have been taken, but everything else is close and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Mondays Suck!

2011-08-15T18:10:00.000-04:00

I'm in the midst of my annual bout of Labyrinthitis with accompanying Vertigo without my normal method of treatment for the problem. It's a trip trying to work like this. Any movement can cause that sense of spinning followed by a need to vomit. Normally I use Claritin, which eliminates the nausea until the inner ear subsides. With high blood pressure, I have to be careful what I take so Claritin wasn't an option, or so I thought.

Labyrinthitis can last for a week or two and the vertigo can continue past the point where the inner ear has righted itself. Not that mine ever rights itself exactly, years of damage from childhood ear infections has seen to that. I was born before tubes could be placed to alleviate the pressure and reduce the damage, so my inner ears are damaged. It doesn't take much by way of respiratory infection to put me in this fix. One of the reasons why I hate allergy season.

The Systemic Formula the doctor prescribed is actually helping the infection, but it hasn't done enough for the Vertigo yet. Claritin, on the other hand takes longer to kill the earache, but controls the Vertigo. My Tuesday clients require me to participate in a lot of bending and stretching, both actions will have me on my knees worshipping the porcelain throne if I don't do something. I took a Claritin. I'll worry about my blood pressure later.

I don't see how it can hurt me, it doesn't have pseudoephedrine or ephedrine in it which are the substances in cold remedies that works on the heart and raises the blood pressure. The reason doctor doesn't want me taking it is that she doesn't feel comfortable with the quality of the ingredients used. Which she says is the problem with most over the counter medications. I agree with her judgement when I'm not hanging on to things in order to get from point A to point B in my house. Desperate times call for desperate measures. What she doesn't know won't hurt her and will have me navigating without hanging on to the floor by tomorrow morning.

I hope it works as quickly as it usually does since I'd like to clean up Demonkitteh's mess before bedtime. I arrived home from work feeling like crap only to see my living room looking like Yucca Flats after the blast with His Cuteness sitting in the middle of it. As I was surveying the wreckage, which includes crushed cheesy poufs from the living room waste paper basket, His Cuteness starts flying around the room as if possessed by demons. It wasn't until he'd climbed halfway up the drapes that I saw what the problem was. He was chasing a fly.

The drapes survived, the fly did not. The mess is swept up into a pile which will be disposed of when I can bend over, or when Hubby gets home, whichever comes first. I do have to remind Hubby that his snacks should be disposed of in the kitchen trash where we have a lid that locks down. Either that or next time I'll go shopping or something until he gets home to clean up the mess.

Obesity Is A Choice, Not A Disease

2011-08-14T09:40:00.000-04:00

Something that has become a common sight on streets in the city where I work is the motorized wheelchair. Driving those streets has become much more hazardous since the snow and ice disappeared in the Spring. People zipping along with their heads down watching for obstacles directly in front of them seem not to pay attention to street lights or traffic for that matter. They cross streets in the middle of the block instead of at the crosswalk. I've almost hit one more than once. If they zip out from between 2 parked vehicles as we pull away from a parking spot at the curb, they aren't visible until they clear the cars. Even backing out of shopping center parking spots is a problem since they cut right through the parking lot without any care in the world. Hello??? You aren't driving a Sherman Tank for heaven's sake.

Doctors are ordering these things for their patients in order to give them more independence. They are unable to own cars and have no way other than public transit to go grocery shopping. In an area that is two blocks away from a Tops Market, a JC Penney, a Dollar Tree and Staples, there are three Senior/Low income housing buildings. They account for over 30 of these motorized wheelchairs, and in all but 3 cases, the reasons they exist are health issues caused by obesity.

Each one of these chairs is paid for by Medicare/Medicaid. Each one of these chairs costs $3000. Add to that the cost of the medications which are necessary to control their various problems, the aide that comes every week to help them shower and keep their apartments clean and we're talking a sizeable chunk of change being spent on people who are not yet old enough for retirement. They are all on SSI or SSD which is paid for by our tax dollars.

Three times a week I work in one of these buildings where I have the pleasure of watching this money being spent so that these people can cost the system more money down the road. One of these "motorized wheelchair bound" women is less than 40 years old. According to mainstream medicine, it's not her fault that she weighs more than 300 pounds. It's a disease. One which is being contributed to by the mobility she has in her motorized wheelchair.

She can't afford to buy fruits and vegetables because she buys things like frozen pizza, Hot Pockets, potato chips, cookies, doughnuts, cake and candy. All paid for by food stamps. She just got her chair last month. She couldn't figure out why she was out of food stamps all ready this month. I can. When she had to walk to the store, she didn't go as often so when she ran out of cake and candy, she did without. Going to the store isn't the problem. It's the uphill walk coming home that is. Now she has transportation and can go whenever she wants something. She can't clean her own apartment, but she can go to the store every day now.

I don't understand, since 33% of our population is obese, why the system enables it to continue? The same system that pays for these motorized chairs will not pay for services of a nutritionist, nor gym memberships. The problem of obesity and the related health issues costs the system major amounts of money, yet none of that money is spent doing anything that will change the problem. Why not?

I don't know, maybe I'm just jealous. For a little more than half the cost of a motorized chair, I've taken myself from a BMI of 35 to a 29. While I am still overweight, I'm no longer obese. I'm no more or less self indulgent than any other person I know. If I can do it so can anyone else.

These people can't have these chairs unless a doctor orders it. Maybe we should change the system to make these people on SSI and SSD, be more accountable? I have a brother-in-law with 25% of a functioning heart that keeps himself alive by following doctor's orders. Including a daily walk. Don't tell me these people really need these chairs, I know better. Out of those 30 people in chairs, 27 of them would improve through proper nutrition and exercise. Tools that are readily available to all of them, but they are encouraged to continue with their choices by rewarding them with motorized chairs. Our tax dollars and the Scooter Store at work. Amazing!

STOP The GOP, Declare @Shoq A Bully.

2011-08-11T15:00:00.001-04:00

I have opinions, I have the ability to read and write and I have a blog. I've never thought of myself as being someone of great intellect, an expert on anything or all that important. If I have anything to offer the online community, it might be that I am a practitioner of a lost art. Make that two since I, in addition to the habit of thinking, usually have some basic, commonsense left. Neither of those attributes protects me from being wrong in any way, but I do, however, recognize when an attempt is made to color the general perception of a person. I am smart enough and have sense enough to know when there is an outright attempt to destroy a person's reputation.

Surprisingly, the victim in this incidence is a man. He uses the Twitter nickname Shoq. I started following him months ago because I found that I agree with much of what he says when it comes to Liberal politics and those who supposedly establish themselves as leaders of the cause online. His opinions on how to move the Progressive cause forward are in direct conflict to those who blog at popular liberal/progressive sites. What's happening to him online in Twitter is a direct result of his opinions.

He moved to Florida so he could be close to his elderly, ailing Mom. Given what I do for a living, that's commendable, believe me, unfortunately it has become the "lives with his mother" insult. He can be very sharp witted when dealing with those who venture to argue with him. He expects that you provide proof of your conclusions as he does. When nothing but talking points are used, he is equally harsh whether he's dealing with a man or a woman. Which, of course has become, "he bullies women". Lo and behold, the accusation became one of currying favor with women only to engage in cybersex. On Skype. Which means one gets to watch during. Mind you, accusations are NEVER followed up with proof. However, HE is the bully.

I always thought being a bully included threats to do harm to someone. Physical harm or exposure of information that is detrimental to one's reputation. Even when there is no such information, ie., cybersexual behavior which supposedly occured during online chats. The threat to expose non existent information is evidence of bullying. An attempt is being made to control the speech of another person against that person's wishes when someone uses that ploy. When it happened to me, I was upset. Even though I rationally knew no such chat copies existed, I also emotionally understood that there would be people who believed they did. Fortunately, for my sanity, that was not an episode that continued beyond the one attempt. I dealt with my own emotions and continued on with my blogging, but it changed how I viewed the people I communicated with. Even those I had spent much of my online time having conversations with. Unfortunately, for Shoq, this bullying has continued for close to 3 months. It has resulted in the, I hope, temporary absense of one of his friends online. She defended him and was attacked for her efforts.

While observing all of this my mind runs to the state of the nation's economy and who we are as a society. I have to ask myself if the Left can't see that their own behavior contributes to the problem, how do we stick together long enough to actually stop the damage that the GOP/Tea Party plans on doing to the very programs needed to help our nation's poor? Shoq, because he disagrees with the direction the Left is taking, needs to be discredited when nothing the Left has done so far is all that effective? Seems to me that if I needed evidence of what's wrong in this country, the behavior of the so called "Progressive" bloggers and their following provides enough of that.

In my opinion, someone needs to remind these people that we have a country in crisis. Part of the Right Wing's solution for that crisis is to make deep cuts in programs that help the elderly, the poverty stricken and the disabled. Shouldn't that be the focus of the dialogue? I have a suggestion here. How about stopping these attempts to control the dialogue by trying to discredit Shoq? Whoever you are, however many of you there are, the solutions to our country's problems require people with intelligence who can remain respectful of each other long enough to compromise and then find an audience for their ideas. All you're doing is dividing so you can conquer a thorn in your side. That isn't going to help your cause, unless you plan on joining the Republican Party AFTER you help them win?

Even Reality Checks Can Bounce

2011-08-06T19:05:00.000-04:00

I have a niece who is bipolar and since she's regularly off her meds, (She forgets to take them) she's pretty well unemployable. She's the mother of three children who wasn't, until recently, married to the children's father. She doesn't get Social Security Disability because she's never managed to keep a job long enough to build her quarters. She does get SSI, food stamps, HEAP, Medicaid and assistance with her rent through the Section 8 program. Since she is Section 8, she pays only 1/3 of her income to living expenses. Which are rent and utilities. Telephone and cable are not included.

Even when she regularly takes her meds, she's strange to say the least. At times she makes good decisions, behaves in a responsible manner and when you least expect it, she goes off the deep end and simply doesn't appear to have any grasp on reality. I gave up on her when she married the father of her children.

He's 10 years older than she is and they've been together since she was 13. Yeah, he went to jail for that and is now a registered sex offender. He's a Mommy's Boy with less sense of responsibility than she has. He's never had to have any sense because Mommy always bailed out her poor misunderstood baby. He too has a history of being incapable of keeping a job. Never had to, Mommy gave him all the spending money he wanted and when none of it went towards supporting his children, she didn't say a word. As a matter of fact, she hired a high priced lawyer to prove they weren't his children when the state went after him for support on my nieces behalf.

From the time he got out of prison until he finally married her, they'd stay together long enough for her to get pregnant and then he'd take off with another girlfriend. I grant that it isn't easy living with someone who is bipolar, but he could have gotten out, paid his child support and had visitation rights. The problem is, once he started having to pay child support, there wasn't enough money in his pocket for his own fun. So, he'd go back to my niece since she was the one with the money. She knows this, the family knows this and her own Mother pressured her to marry the jerk.

Once married, the amount of money she got didn't grow larger as they thought. The government said that he needed to get a job. Her income wouldn't stretch to cover his entertainment and his Mommy closed the purse because Sonny Boy did what she didn't want him to do. She still claims they're not his children despite the DNA results. No they didn't go on Maury to prove this. The courts ordered the test and when he was outed, Mommy said they lied. Even Mr High Priced Lawyer got disgusted.

So Lazy Boy got a job and as soon as he was making money, the government stepped in and took some of hers away. They still qualify for section 8 because his income stretches to cover 5 of them, and they still get Medicaid, Heap assistance and food stamps. She did the right thing and reported his income, however, they started buying things on credit before she found out she was going to lose a sizeable portion of her income. She doesn't have a credit card, she doesn't need one. We have Aarons and Rent-A-Center where you can rent to own. Oh HELL YEAH! On the bus routes where people can be let off the bus right at the door.

My problem with all of this is, my niece is just one of many who think that they are entitled to have things. Not just the things they can afford, but all the things they want. That would be fine if they'd take the time to save the money and buy it then, but they don't. They do nothing more than create debt, and usually find themselves in a position where they can't pay that debt.

These rent to own places don't care. They just keep "selling" items to these people that they know they can't pay for. By the time they default, they most likely have paid for the piece if they'd bought it some other way. They just take it back and sell it to someone else as a new item. Much more than the item is actually worth goes into the coffers of these places. It's not the fault of these places, it's the lack of ability to manage money that so many people seem to have. My niece is one of thousands in my area alone. No matter how many times she's had it explained to her, she still goes and rents what she wants paying way more than the item is worth.

I'm not talking about lazy Welfare recipients, I'm speaking about people with disabilities who are on either SSD or SSI because they're unemployable. I've seen them buy expensive convenience items from the freezers at stores instead of buying the groceries which would allow them to make that meal and have leftovers. They run out of money and food stamps and then they think they can just go to the food pantry to get enough to tide them over until they get their next benefit. They don't need condemnation, they need help.

I volunteered this morning at a local food pantry with a girlfriend. I'm appalled at the sense of entitlement that some of these people, like my niece, have. This morning, 15 minutes before opening time someone was pounding on the door. Not knocking, pounding hard enough to shake it. Pastor ignored the pounding until it was time, and when he opened the door I thought this guy was going to punch him. In the 15 minutes he had to wait for his free food, he'd worked himself into such a rage that only the threat to call the police and have him removed, without what he came for, shut him up. He was still fuming, but he kept his mouth shut until he got out the door with his box of food.

Nobody expects these people to grovel and beg for what they need. A simple thank you would more than suffice. However, more than half of the people serviced this morning wouldn't have needed to be there if they'd learn to be responsible when managing their money. They've let their greed overshadow their capabilities to their own detriment. There's a major difference between needs and wants, and far too many Americans are losing sight of that. Did you ever want to tell someone that their kids don't need an Xbox or whatever game system is popular? They need responsibile, reliable parenting. The kind that teaches them that it doesn't take thousands of dollars to be happy. The kind that doesn't spoil them into believing all they have to do is ask.

It's All About ME Or Gone To The Dogs

2011-08-04T17:27:00.000-04:00

Out here in real life we're all struggling to survive so we just don't have the time to argue. The general consensus of opinion, among those I speak to face to face on a daily basis is, that all politicians are dissappointing. My Liberal friends, who are not far left, are voting for re-election of our President because to do otherwise would be to vote into office something they truly don't wish to deal with. They don't think we need any more McConnells or Boehners. Definitely are positive we don't need more Cantors, Bachmanns or Ryans either.

What surprises me is the handful of my Republican friends who say they will vote for re-election of President Obama. Maybe it shouldn't, given who I know these people are and who the field of candidates contains. These are the people who don't waste their time reading online blogs. If they spend any amount of time online, they do so at Facebook where they share pictures with their family and catch up with the latest pickle that Cousin Harry has managed to find himself in.

Without any guidance at all they know that their own party has jumped the track and is headed for a destination they don't choose. They've never heard of Jane Hamsher or Joan Walsh. They don't know who Matt Taibbi is. They don't know who Grover Norquist or Dick Armey is in any real way. They have no desire to educate themselves by reading a bunch of "Crooks and Liars". They know much more about things that happen in Washington than any of these self aggrandizing political bloggers do. They know that folks who work in the places of power have gone too far.

My friends are the people in the middle. Middle management in large corporations who can't stretch their salaries to cover everything they need. Small businessmen in service businesses and construction whose equipment is sitting idle because people simply don't have the money needed to provide them with work. They don't blame the President, they blame society. They don't believe the problems we face here in America is a result of our president caving into the demands of Congress. As far as they're concerned, what happens there is a direct result of who we are as a society.

One of my friends asked me today if I remember the road rage incident in which a guy ran down a woman he believed cut him off and when he spoke to her got so mad that he grabbed her dog and threw it into traffic? Right now, that guy is Congress. The dog is our country, and Democrats and Republicans are so mad that they're behaving in an irrational way which will result in the death of the dog if they aren't stopped. He said they fully understand what they've done, but they're unwilling to accept responsibility for their actions, just like the guy who killed that woman's dog.

Society with it's Me attitude has created voters who are interested in whatever issue directly affects or coincides with their belief or need. They don't give a damn about anything except what they want and aren't willing to begin to consider whether or not it's the best for their neighbors. It's not even a matter of too much time spent listening to Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow, it's a failure to see how their own behavior created this problem. Our government is broken because our society is broken.

If our need for instant gratification isn't met we turn our backs and walk away. Nearly 50% of marriages end in divorce simply because no one is willing to do the hard work of making a sacrifice in order to compromise. The only reason anyone should ever get divorced is if one partner is an unrepentant alcoholic, drug user or abusive. There is no such thing as irreconcilable differences between two people who are willing to listen and work towards making things better.

The cost of healthcare is high because we feel we should have to have all these expensive diagnostic tests. And then we want a pill to fix everything that those tests discover is wrong with us. We don't want to take the responsibility for making the changes that would return us to a state of health. We won't sacrifice what we love to eat in order to lose weight. We won't stop eating fatty high calorie fast foods because it takes too long to fix something healthy to eat. We want it quick and convenient, and we even have the audacity to get angry when we have to wait a bit for something. None of this, of course, is ever our fault. It's always someone elses. Maybe the fault of all that TV advertizing?

We are selfish, inconsiderate and rude. We don't try compromise or reason to solve a problem. We erupt into tyrranical bullies to get our own way. And we elect people like us to government and wonder how things get so screwed up. We've gone so far into this kind of behavior that I'm afraid we'll never be able to set things right. Sadly, if we don't restore some semblance of civility, reason and cooperation to our democracy, absolutely nothing will change for the better. Things will continue on the path they are on now and eventually get worse.

Unfortunately opinions aren't solutions. Opinions aren't necessarily truth, they aren't fact. They're just one persons understanding of a situation. Sometimes that understanding is flawed. In this case, I hope mine is because as long as we aren't willing to look beyond our own opinions, we are the problem. My other hope is that we can change. We can do that together if we'd only stop blaming someone else for our problems.

Bitch Slapping The Whiners!

2011-08-01T14:41:00.001-04:00

The following is a summary of the bill that so many are griping about. The summary is from a Progressive website called the People's View. Despite what Sen. Bernie Sanders is spouting IT DOES NOT TOUCH SS, MEDICARE OR MEDICAID. Quite the opposite, in fact. Also, the "sequester" is NOT the Super Congress we've heard about since ALL RECOMMENDATIONS ARE TO BE VOTED ON BY CONGRESS.

"1) The uncertainty over U.S. economy is no longer threatened by default.

2) 10-year discretionary spending caps (defense and non-defense) generating nearly $1 trillion in deficit reduction

3) $350 Billion from the Base Defense Budget – the First Defense Cut Since the 1990s.

4) Protection in the discretionary budget to the Pell Grants investment that will award a maximum of $5,550, helping over 9 million students pay for college tuition.

5) Increase the debt limit by $2.1 trillion

6) No debt ceiling increase drama after the 2012 election.

7) Creates a bipartisan committee to identifying an additional $1.5 trillion (which is part of the $2.4 trillion package) in deficit reduction, including from entitlement and tax reform, where by Congress is to vote by December 23, 2011.

8) If the bipartisan committee fails, enforcement mechanism will trigger spending reduction in the amount of $1.2 Trillion in Deficit Reduction beginning in 2013 that will include a 50/50 cut between domestic and defense spending.

9) Enforcement mechanism protects Social Security, Medicare beneficiaries, and low-income programs from any cuts or these programs are off limit to any sequester.

About the sequester: If the the bipartisan committee fails:
Sequester Would Provide a Strong Incentive for Both Sides to Come to the Table: If the fiscal committee took no action, the deal would automatically add nearly $500 billion in defense cuts on top of cuts already made, and, at the same time, it would cut critical programs like infrastructure or education. That outcome would be unacceptable to many Republicans and Democrats alike – creating pressure for a bipartisan agreement without requiring the threat of a default with unthinkable consequences for our economy."

WTF is wrong with this bill? Oh yeah, NO INCREASE IN TAXES ON THE RICH! Kindly remember that the cuts will expire on the last day of 2012. IF we get off our asses, and quit listening to Ed Schultz (stay home in 2010 to teach him a lesson!) Firedoglake and Jane Hamscher, who is friends with Grover Norquist by the way, who told her people to stay home as well. IF we actually do something to put the Alan Grayson type Democrat back in Congress we will NEVER have to deal with tax cuts to the rich again.

Hello??? The Professional Progressive Bloggers put their websites ahead of what was good for the nation and then the Tea Party got elected. They whine, they screech, they point fingers and blame this all on the President, when they were the ones who saw to it the Democratic Party lost in 2010.

Full article can be read HERE!

The Stroke This Prevents Might Be My Own.

2011-07-31T14:25:00.000-04:00

This bullsh!t going on has my blood pressure on the rise. I am so needing something to lower it. At the rate it's going, I may have to post this kind of stuff all week. LOL

Pictures....Because Words Fail Me

2011-07-29T16:35:00.000-04:00

President Obama's approval rating is now down to 40% according to the daily Gallup Poll. On the plus side, the approval rating of Congress has dropped by 2% to 6%. Maybe, just maybe some of us aren't as stupid as I thought.

Nah....We're STUPID!

In America The STUPID, We Can't Tell Astroturf From Grass

2011-07-27T08:40:00.000-04:00

So, the governor of the state of Wisconsin and his Republitard cronies have shown their true colors and still the silent majority is silent. They passed a bill which requires that all voters have a drivers license and then they promptly close DMV offices in poor, rural areas in which the residents predominantly vote Democrat. Even though this particular law doesn't go into effect until January, polling places for their recall elections are asking for driver's licenses before they're allowing people to vote.

Further proof that America ain't beautiful, it's stupid, would be what's happening in Congress over the request to raise the debt ceiling. Throughout history, Congress has raised the debt ceiling with a clean bill 72 times. I've got a hot flash for you Ronnie Raygun Republitards who keep saying Reagan wouldn't do this. Hell YEAH he did. A total of 13 times. WTF planet are you people on that you don't believe a default will affect you? With 53% of the wealth of America owned by the top 10% of the population, just who the fuck do you think is going to pay the bills? Yeah! I said that word. Live with it.

In the news yesterday was the information that businesses hiring new employees won't hire the long term unemployed. They want people who have a job now or are recently unemployed. Why? Well, it's because they've bought into the Tea Party idea that the unemployed are lazy. See? America the STUPID believes that if you didn't find a job at a time when NO jobs were available, it was because you were lazy, and America The Stupid is bound and determined to punish your sloth by starving you and your babies into submission.

When it comes to the economy and finances, I'm not the brightest bulb in the lamp, but I know there is a difference between financial growth and economic growth. Congress, for quite some time, has been focusing on financial growth. That financial growth is what's wiping out the middle class because it's not true economic growth. The foundation for true economic growth is jobs. Jobs which went overseas so that big corporations could make billions of dollars in profit while using loopholes in the tax structure to keep most of it. It's why the ratio between the salaries of CEO's and those of the blue collar workers is so wide. Financial growth is why some people are becoming richer while our infrastructure is crumbling.

Financial growth is evident by the Wall Street bubbles, that crash and burn periodically. Economic growth would give steady long term results with minor adjustments to the market. Financial growth is big and fast and ends up costing people their retirement funds, where economic growth is small and slow, but something that one gets to keep. Financial growth profits only the few while economic growth will care for the many.

It happens because more people are working and adding to the coffers. Not through higher taxes, but through reasonable taxes. Taxes became a burden on the middle class when unemployment increased. For instance if a program needs a million dollars it can be raised by collecting $1 from a million people or $100 from 10,000 people. Financial growth creates the need to get that $100 from 10,000 people. Economic growth would give the program $1 from a million people. Since that would decrease the burden, painlessly I might add, then the welfare of the people and education programs wouldn't be such an issue.

Job growth would take away from Wall Street the need to grab onto these bubbles which crash and burn us costing millions of Americans half of their 401K's while creating millionaires out of the manufacturers of the bubbles. Had Congress, in it's wisdom (stupidity), actually passed the infrastructure stimulus it would have created jobs. Which would have given us some form of economic growth. Which if it had occured in a slow and measured pace would have resulted in...wait for it...MORE JOBS!

Unfortunately, we elected Dumbocrats and Republitards who believe that our problems are caused by big spending big governments. And they're bound and determined to do away with all that AT THE EXPENSE OF THE PEOPLE THEY REPRESENT.

We need a stable ECONOMY, we got a stable (for the moment) WALL STREET. We needed JOBS, we got HCR. We needed JOBS we voted for a Republitard Congress who has wasted half of it's first term doing nothing more than trying to force their will on the bodies and wombs of it's female citizens. We needed JOBS and we got Tea Party State governments trying to stop the citizens of their state from voting unless they want to vote TEA PARTY REPUBLITARDS. We needed JOBS and what we're going to end up with is the Imperialist Corporate Empire of America.

One of two things is going to happen. Either we're going to get really lucky and that silent group of people will actually get it and FINALLY step up to the microphone and be heard, or Lindsey Lohan will do something stupid and divert their attention from the problem we're experiencing. I'm inclined to trust in the latter rather than the former since I'm quite sure that's where the Tea Party, a solely owned subsidiary of Koch, wants the attention.

Just in case someone is actually paying attention to me, there is a discussion going on in Congress about looking for ways to make employers actually hire the long term unemployed. If you do call your representatives you might want to tell them to get their heads out of their asses, pass a clean bill on the debt ceiling as they've done for 72 times in history and get to work on something that might actually work. LIKE JOBS!

And Tomorrow Is Another Day

2011-07-21T21:34:00.000-04:00

With today's official temp locally peaking at 101 degrees (heat index for that is 110 if you're interested), working was not the most fun I've had in awhile. Even at 9 this morning, my first clients home was hot. She is one of those with anemia who is always cold so she doesn't feel it. I, on the other hand, was melting. I stayed hydrated and didn't do any more than the minimum of work necessary. As long as she was clean and comfortable, I was content. The last 20 minutes of my shift there, clients family came over from their side of the house to see to it that I was not making myself sick.

I can't say enough good about these people. In a world full of the selfish and self involved, this family renews my faith in the human race. This man and his wife aren't nearly healthy enough to be taking on the burden of caregiving for another person, yet they are there for their Aunt no matter what she needs. I have clients whose daughters and sons won't pay attention and yet these people are caring for an Aunt. They are keeping this little lady out of a nursing home since she is not capable of doing much at all for herself. What they are doing isn't easy, and it's made doubly hard by their own serious health issues.

This morning the house was so hot that it was necessary to put my client back to bed after shower and breakfast since that's the only air conditioned room on her side of the house. She won't drink enough water so she needs to be in a cooler environment than the living room was. She'd prefer the living room which was all ready in the upper 80's by 10:30 this morning. With her health issues, she couldn't be allowed that choice.

I had just finished cleaning the bathroom and was in the process of grabbing trash bags for the bathroom waste basket when my client's niece came over and grabbed them out of my hands and ordered me to sit down and rest. I didn't argue and was going to sit at the kitchen table, but that wasn't good enough. I was coerced into entering their side of the house where there is air conditioning. Oh, and my favorite Minpins, Pudgy and Diva.

I was sitting in the recliner when Pudgy tried to get up into my lap. He slipped and scratched my leg on the side of the calf. I have a high tolerance for pain. Too high sometimes as it prevents me from attending to any injuries in a timely manner. After Pudgy (also known as Fat Boy) slipped, his second attempt landed him where he wanted to be so I sat there petting him and not paying attention to the scratch.

I didn't notice it really until I got up to go and look at the flower on the Hibiscus plant that is out on their deck. I've seen pictures, but never the real thing. We aren't exactly tropical in climate here, except this week. When I got up I saw the blood and somehow it smeared onto my other leg. In order to clean it up I drew it to the attention of my clients family thinking that I'd just use the bathroom to wash the blood off.

After an application of peroxide to clean the wound, the nephew sprayed that new spray bandage on me, and I was fine. Pudgy, however, had made himself scarce. He was hiding under the lap blanket draped on the arm of the chair. Pressed up against the side of the chair, peeking out from under the corner of the blanket with a very woebegon expression on his face. It was a moment that made me feel guilty for having a scratch on my leg that needed attention. As soon as I spoke to him he brightened up and his little tail nub started wiggling his back end. The crisis was over, Pudgy's world had returned to normal.

I was sitting there thinking about stress and wishing that my world would return to normal just that easily. I was stressing myself out over the heat. This isn't something that I'm used to dealing with and I was griping, in my head, about how uncomfortable I was. I was having this negative conversation with myself, creating emotional stress over something that is physically stressful to start out with. I'm sitting there with a very happy dog and suddenly it occurs to me that this heat is temporary. Temporary discomfort isn't something to get all stressed out over. In a few days, it will be over with and my world will return to what passes for normal. I can wait.

Mostly Acoustic Sunday

2011-07-17T11:22:00.000-04:00

My favorite radio station is TK99, The number 1 station for classic rock. It's also the number 1 station for Syracuse Orange sports teams, but I can overlook that as long as it doesn't interfere with Mimi Griswold and The Blue Moon Cafe. She's on Sunday mornings from 9 to noon and she plays mostly acoustic versions of songs from some of my favorite artists.

On Sunday I get to listen to Bob Dylan, Warren Zevon, John Hiatt, Steely Dan, Keb Mo, Joni Mitchell and Warren Haynes from Govt. Mule who seems to have quite a love of acoustic guitar. I never was a big Govt. Mule fan (sorry Diesel) but I love listening to Warren do the acoustic versions of some of their songs.

I was sitting here having a brief chuckle while listening to various versions of "Idiot Wind" by Bob Dylan. My Mom couldn't stand his voice and she always used to gripe at me because I used to turn up the radio when he was on. Which I just did while searching for the version Mimi played just awhile ago.

Her version was acoustic, the following version isn't. There is an acoustic version at Youtube, but one of the reasons we so loved Dylan was because he would interpret his songs differently each time he sang them. He didn't have a good singing voice, what he had was the ability to add emotion to the words and it was that emotion that we grooved to. The acoustic version online is sung in a wistful style. The original version had a subtle bitter inflection which this version has.

Lets just add a little Keb Mo right here.

Married To A Go To Guy

2011-07-15T19:51:00.000-04:00

Somewhere around 2 am Thursday I got up to go get a glass of water so I could take another Excedrin Back and Body caplet. My mind registered a sleeping Hubby in the bed next to me so I didn't really expect to find anyone sleeping on our couch. Imagine my surprise to find a MAN snoring in my living room.

I grabbed a glass of water, and as I passed the desk I grabbed the Excedrin and beat feet to the bedroom. In the dark, I saw enough of the person to suspect I knew who it was, but as far as I knew, that person moved out of the immediate area. Apparently, his new home isn't far enough away to keep him off my couch.

After a week of pain, and no sleep on Tuesday night, I went to bed early on Wednesday. All day of ice, a liberal application of Capzacin and 2 of the Excedrin I purchased had the pain under control and I literally fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. I was vaguely aware of Hubby joining me, but oblivious to all else that happened in our home.

As per his usual habit, Hubby had fallen asleep while watching TV. He woke up to the belief that someone was out on our deck. Apparently a light knocking had disturbed him. He goes to open the door only to find Ron and his ex-girlfriend standing there. Apparently, Ron had hopped on his motorcycle to come down this way for a visit to friends. Said visit included the imbibing of more beer than was good for him.

The beer fueled a desire to see his ex-girlfriend to see if he could get back into her good graces. WRONG! Although she felt he was too drunk to make the 50 mile trip back home on his cycle, she wouldn't let him sleep on her couch. During the time they were together, whenever they had a problem that required the services of Hubby, they never hesitated to call us. How that translated in her mind to "take Ron to Tim's House" is beyond me. However, that is exactly what she did. Mind you, Ron's brother lives less than half a mile from here, but Ron spent the night here. I can't say enough about Ron and all of it would be negative.

He's one of life's losers. I've met a few losers that have a redeeming quality or two. Some are quite charming, funny or appealing in some manner. Ron, on the other hand is a loud, abrasive, arrogant, selfish, lazy good for nothing fool. He and his cousin Kenny go through life taking everything they can from other people and giving nothing but grief in return. Both of them seem to be of the opinion that they don't need to work, they can either "borrow" money or something they can sell from the people they know and go have a party.

At varying times in our life, one or both of them have attached themselves to Hubby until he finds a way to avoid them. Most of the time Hubby hasn't the time of day to give to either of them, however, when Ron's girlfriend turned to him for help, he took care of the problem she presented him with. Surprisingly enough, for the first time since I've known him, he did so grudgingly. Poor man didn't sleep very well. He had visions of Ron waking up and bothering Butterscotch or opening the door and letting or forcing Butterscotch out. He doesn't like cats. Fortunately, Butterscotch did not like Ron and stayed with us in the bedroom.

I got up shortly after 6 am on Thursday. Just in time to watch Hubby's truck pull out with the freeloader sitting in the passenger seat of the pick up. He dropped Ron off at his motorcycle and hopefully that will be the last time we see him. Despite the fact that I don't like Ron, Hubby did the right thing taking him in.

The ultimate responsibility for his condition was his. Ron may not have cared what kind of damage he could do in that condition to someone else or to himself, but Hubby did. He ignored his own discomfort to prevent the possibility of someone else suffering from Ron's stupidity. I think that trait is why most of the people we know turn to Hubby for help. I just wish that some of these people who think nothing of calling on Hubby for help would return the favor when he needs it. That isn't how life works I guess, but I wouldn't have Hubby any way but the way he is. Even if it does mean I have useless freeloaders sleeping on our couch.

It's Called Learning The Hard Way.

2011-07-13T20:50:00.000-04:00

I will be 62 this coming September. Not by any means old, just not as young as I once was. Please note the absence of the word foolish there as in young and foolish. I may not be as young as I once was, but I still have my moments of foolish.

One such moment has been a full week in the making. On my first day back at work following my vacation, I pulled a muscle on the left side of my body. I felt the tug, but the pain didn't start until later in the day. Since I was at home, I decided to use the heating pad because it felt so good. Which, of course, meant that I totally ignored the instructions to ice recent injuries and heat older ones. Along with the advice to rest when one injures a muscle. I just kept heating the area and taking ibuprofen. It was working, or so I thought.

After 1 full week of heating the injury while continuing to work, and masking my body's requests for me to rest by taking the ibuprofen, I have now managed to strain just about all the muscles on the left side of my body. I am one solid mass of pain from armpit to groin and from the oblique muscle to the middle of my back near the spine. I discovered this when the ibuprofen quit on me last night. Sleep became impossible. The pain would not leave me alone.

At 6:30 this morning, with the phrase "Ice, ice, baby" running through my head, I called in sick and spent the day icing the muscles for 20 minutes every 2 hours. Plural. That, and a liberal application of Capzasin Gel seems to have calmed the muscles down. I believe that by this weekend, I'll be able to sit long enough to do a post and actually read some other ones.

Kitten Vs. Two Scary Things!

2011-07-12T16:03:00.000-04:00

This has to be the funniest kitten video I've EVER seen in my life.

Shame on those apples. Just who do they think they are? BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

Can't You Read The Signs?

2011-07-11T18:59:00.000-04:00

I Ain't Sayin' A Word

2011-07-10T13:41:00.000-04:00

Number 1 On My Wish List...New Wheels

2011-07-07T19:36:00.000-04:00

Broomstick and I are entering the phase of auto life called...looking for a new one. I'm not telling her though. When we discussed getting a new car back in 2006, Beulah promptly died on us making it necessary to do the deal much faster than we'd hoped. Broomstick has issues which are going to be VERY expensive to repair. We can't see spending $3000 or possibly more on a car that is almost 11 years old with close to 200K miles on it. Especially one that is developing the rusty cancer.

There is an issue with the headlights. I need a new relay, the problem is, the location of the relay means removing air bags and then repacking them correctly. I remember what happens when they aren't repacked correctly and fully understood our mechanics refusal to do the job. Which means she'd have to go to a...gulp...Chevy dealer for the work. CHA CHING!

Since it never rains but it pours, the catalytic converter is going bad. Price for that job is $1200. Then the AC compressor started making noise and we found that it was drawing extra energy from the fan so my temp gauge was going up. We thought it was the gauge, but a replacement didn't change anything in that department. While it didn't get to the boil over stage, it could if I continue to run the AC and that would mean blown headgaskets. So, I am running the tires off her doing my home care clients without the comfort of cold air. SUCKS on those hot days when the humidity is over 86%.

When I say new, I mean new to me, not new to the road. I have placed my order with Hubby. I want something economical, with 4 doors, air conditioning, low mileage and any other color except for gray. So, first car he took me to look at was red. And it was a Chevy Cavalier, without air and only 2 doors. Price was good, but I want the air and the 4 doors more than I want the red. So we are still looking.

There seems to be a fairly wide selection of nicely priced small cars out there. Hopefully we'll find what we want before Broomstick up and coughs her last. We aren't discussing our hunt anywhere near her nor are we taking her hunting with us. We learned that from what happened with Beulah. Stopped to look at Broomstick sitting on the dealers lot and Beulah died the very next day. Back then I wasn't doing client care so it wasn't a catastrophe, just an annoyance. Now it would be costly although I would be able to borrow Hubby's pick up to get to where I need to go.

We all believe that cars don't up and quit on us to be vindictive, but just in case we're wrong, please don't tell Broomstick, I hate driving Hubby's pick up. Although, come to think of it, he's got AIR!

It's The Fourth of July.....Amen!

2011-07-04T21:00:00.000-04:00

Lyrics | Kid Rock lyrics - Amen lyrics

When I say I'm a fan of Kid Rock, people look at me as if something ugly just grew out of my head. One of the joys of my life is music, and while I prefer classic rock, I listen to just about everything. Sometimes, when I least expect it a song will resonate inside me somewhere and I will explore other songs by that same person.

Back in the day, when I was a wrestling fan, Vince McMahon was forced to change the promotion name from WWF to WWE. He did it on a Monday Night Raw broadcast with a retrospective of past wrestlers, his father and a Kid Rock song "Lonely Road of Faith". I remember thinking that Kid Rock had possibilities so I started to listen to some of his other songs.

Then my grandkids gave me his CD, "Rock and Roll Jesus" the year it came out. This song is one of my favorites from that CD. There is a raw truth in what he sings about. Sort of a litany of what's wrong with America and it's people and at the same time there is the hope in all that is right. He expresses the contradictory nature of what goes on sometimes in my head. He does one other thing when I listen to his songs, he gives me hope that we'll get it right eventually. I say that because there's a world of young people out there who are bigger fans of his music than I am.

Independence Day

2011-07-04T08:44:00.001-04:00

I have no clue what I did wrong, but it must have been something since the quotes that I chose to add to the post with these images didn't show up. I suppose it doesn't really matter, except for the Erma Bombeck quote that I'm going to add after I'm done with my paragraph. If it won't show up then I give up and will spend the rest of my day hoping that the trouble I had here this morning is not a portent of how the rest of my day will play out.

"You have to love a nation that celebrates it's independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism." Erma Bombeck

I See Dumb People

2011-07-03T09:44:00.000-04:00

Governor Cuomo has announced the complete closing of 6 or 7 prison facilities in New York State. It seems that the prison population has declined from 71,600 in 1999 to 56,000 in 2010. According to the Staten Island Advance this drop in the population has occurred due to changes in how NYS handles non-violent drug crimes. We don't lock em up and throw away the key any more. Now they have access to early release programs or alternate programs which I assume include treatment.

One of those prisons slated for closing was, until last month, the home of Plaxico Burress. He served close to a two year sentence for shooting himself in the foot in a NYC nightclub. Apparently one doesn't need brains to play football since the incident happened because he tucked a heavy Glock pistol into the waistband of his sweatpants and set out to party in da club. When the gun began to slide down, he tried to grab it and accidentally pulled the trigger. At the time, I remember asking myself what kind of doofus puts a loaded Glock in the waistband of sweatpants WITH THE SAFETY OFF? Methinks he's lucky he only shot his foot.

Now that Oneida Correctional Facility has lost it's resident celebrity, it too is slated for closing. Of course, they could have moved him to Mohawk Correctional, which is directly next door to Oneida Correctional. Or, they could have moved him to Midstate Correctional or Marcy Correctional which are both located next to each other about 3 miles past my house. Oneida and Mohawk are about 6 miles in the other direction from my house.

There are 4 medium security facilities in my backyard, so to speak. We fought long and hard to get them, back in the day. Now, one of them is slated for closure within 60 days. With the announcement happening on the start of the long holiday weekend, not much has been said locally. By Tuesday night I'm going to hear how this will break our local economy. It will probably be in the rag we call a daily newspaper. There will be letters to the editor claiming that we will be bankrupt within X amount of weeks after the closing and people who don't know any better will believe it and add their shouts of dismay to the whole mess.

All these people who will be screaming for the head of Andrew Cuomo, will be the same ones who scream every time the state tries to tax the Oneida Indian Nation on all of it's money making holdings. There's all of those cigarettes being sold for which the state collects only it's share of sales tax. There are all those beds at the Turning Stone hotel for which the state collects no bed tax. Then there's the gasoline they sell at a mere 10 cents a gallon cheaper than any other place which pays 31 to 39 cents a gallon to the state of NY in gas, excise and sales tax. Of course, since the Oneidas are a "sovereign" nation, they pay no land taxes or school taxes.

There is a small group of citizens who live in the areas where the Oneidas have their holdings. They pay some pretty high taxes so that the Oneidas and their Turning Stone Casino and Resort patrons get to arrive safely on roads kept in good condition by NYS taxes. That small group of people are rather vocal about exactly how unfair this is. They've fought state government to change things and, of course, they lost. The Oneidas are the biggest employers in a two county area, we can't have them closing up shop and putting all those people out of work. Which is the threat that we hear every time someone mentions making them pay their fair share. Something in me just doesn't believe that threat. Probably since pretty close to one third of those employees are actually members of the Oneida Nation.

The ignorant screamers who will be demanding that these prisons remain open so that people can be employed don't bother about the reduced population in those prisons. They don't look at the fact that with a diminished population there are a lot of correction officers making big paychecks for doing a whole lot less than they used to. They also don't look at the fact that they demanded and won a property tax cap. Which means that NYS MUST reduce their expenditures in order to stay within the budget. Of course, the screamers seem to think that this can all be accomplished by reducing the number of $300 hair cuts that they believe our legislators have every month. Hey! Our legislators have every right to look as good for the cameras as any other legislator does. After all, to hear the screamers talk, that's all they're good for.

It Was The Shoes, Honest!

2011-07-01T12:50:00.000-04:00

Somewhere around 1990, Hubby's favorite uncle died and my brother-in-law deemed me unfit to be taken anywhere. It was my new shoes that caused the problem, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start in the beginning, shall we?

I'm a bit of a plain jane when it comes to clothing and such. Most of the time I gravitate towards comfort and durability when buying new clothing. Daily attire is most likely going to be jeans, T-shirts or sweatshirts depending on the season and sneakers or loafers on my feet. Since there are times when a gal wants to look her best, my closet also included dressier clothing of the kind one might wear to weddings, funerals, and the occassional night out on the town. We dressed for those things back in the day.

While I "cleaned up good" as it says in the song, I had a problem wearing heels for a number of reasons. One being that I have flat feet, and the other being that I seldom wore high heeled shoes. It wasn't that my closet wasn't full of them, it was that they hurt my feet so badly that I simply chose not to wear them. I spent a lot of time and money hunting for just the right dressy shoe. One that had a bit of a heel and didn't cramp my toes to the point of agony.

On one of my many trips to the shoe store I found, to my delight, a demi boot as it was called back then, that was just perfect. Unlike the boot in the image, it had a leather sole and wooden heel. Which I found, to my dismay could cause all kinds of other difficulties. Being totally unaware of those difficulties, I spent a good portion of my paycheck on these babies and took them home to store in my closet until just the right occassion. Which, of course, occurred when Hubby's favorite uncle died.

He lived in a small town about an hours drive south of where we lived. Rather than drive down in Hubby's pick up we decided to ride with Hubby's oldest brother and his wife. My husband is the kind of man who feels things rather deeply and wastes too much effort trying to hide that. Riding with someone else would give me the opportunity of having someone to talk with during the ride. Also, the oldest of the family has a knack of being able to make us all laugh no matter the circumstances, so it was a win all the way around.

I had chosen to wear a black pantsuit and my new, never worn boots went perfectly with my outfit. It was late March, and while there still were patches of ice here and there that I had to walk on, they'd been sanded well so I had no problem.

The funeral and the gathering afterward were held in the church. I was safe from experiencing any slippery mishaps, or so I thought. Shortly before I had to leave, I decided to use the church ladies room. Which had a ceramic tile floor that I stepped onto and promptly lost my footing. It all happened so fast that I was unaware that I was falling untl my derriere actually hit the floor. Hard. Which caused certain choice words to exit my mouth. Not the sort of words that one expects to hear from a lady in a church.

The ladies room was in the basement and since I neither heard nor saw anyone else, I imagined those words went unheard by anyone but the deity the church was dedicated to. Which in my mind was bad enough. I picked myself up, found that nothing was broken, went about my business and returned to the room being used for the gathering.

It appeared to me that all eyes were on me when I entered the room. I thought it an abberration of a guilty mind until I rejoined the family group who were having a laugh at something. It seems that brother-in-law was in the adjoining men's room when I had my mishap. The wall between us was not soundproof so he heard everything I said. As I walked up to him he shook his head and said " We just can't take you anywhere can we?"

I remember very little of what happened after that. It seems to me that Hubby made some sort of strangled noise and needed to help himself to some of the tissues in the boxes placed strategically throughout the room. I remember that it suddenly got very warm in there and I seemed to develop a stuttering problem. I do remember that no one asked me if I was hurt until I mentioned it. A question which did finally get asked in between peals of laughter by Hubby.

Twenty-one years later I have not ever been allowed to forget it. Ever since then any invitation forthcoming from that particular brother-in-law is always, without fail, accompanied by a request to make sure I behave myself. Which I have never failed to do since the funeral 21 years ago. Fortunately Hubby has forgotten the reason behind his brother's cautioning statement, or I'd be seriously tempted to do something else stupid. Like file for a divorce. I can limit the brother-in-law, the husband on the other hand...

Enough!

2011-06-29T18:57:00.000-04:00

Trouble Never Takes A Holiday

2011-06-28T20:14:00.000-04:00

"Women's rule of thumb, if it has tires or testicles it's gonna cause you trouble". I am in agreement on both counts since my deluxe broomstick and the possessor of testicles that I'm married to have conspired to interrupt my vacation plans today.

For most of the day, Broomstick sat patiently outside the muffler shop waiting for an unplanned for installation of an exhaust system. Which was to take place "sometime this morning" via other two legged critters who also possess testicles. Around noon Hubby called them to find out if Broomstick had an exhaust system sans holes and they hadn't even pulled her into the bay for repairs yet. We got the call around 3 pm that we could pick her up, they were finally done.

I had nothing planned for Wednesday since Broomstick is scheduled for a visit to the regular mechanic for a headlight relay replacement and inspection. I had been told that would take all day since it's a tricky job. The relay, not the inspection. Come to think of it, he has testicles too. Since I knew I'd be without transportation, Wednesday was to be my day stuck at home. I had intentionally arranged it that way so that the testicular mechanic could have my vehicle for as long as he needed. I was not planning on being stuck at home for today.

We have 3 vehicles. Hubby's business van, his personal small pick up truck and my car. Hubby needs the van today, which should have left the pick up truck for me to use. I had envisioned dropping the car off and then dropping Hubby off at his garage where the business vehicles are parked. This plan would leave both of us with transportation today. So, what does Hubby bring home with him last night? The van. In which he followed me to the muffler shop and then brought me home. To an empty driveway. Which, of course, totally destroyed today's plans.

When he came home this afternoon, he had the pick up. I opened the passenger door and decided that I will not ask to use it Wednesday. The floor on the passengers side was totally covered with tools, empty car part boxes, tissues and empty chocolate milk bottles. It closely resembled a rolling trash dump. Smelled like one too.

There is no way I'm going to use that vehicle without cleaning it out first, and there is no way I'm going to clean up his mess in HIS vehicle. It's bad enough that I have to clean out his mess in my vehicle. Which when he uses it is usually littered with his tools, empty car part boxes and whatever of his clothing he picked up from where he left it last. He dresses in layers in cooler weather so his vehicles are storage places for the jackets or heavy shirts he leaves the house wearing.

He used my car a week ago and when I cleaned it out I found: 2 sets of box end wrenches, assorted used spark plug wires, loose plastic stay straps, empty thermostat box, 1 jigsaw, 1 winter jacket, 1 denim shirt, 1 sweatshirt, 1 plastic container of assorted washers and a short length of pvc pipe. I haven't looked in the trunk yet. I'm almost afraid to. Last time I did I found I was driving around with an empty 20 pound propane container rolling around in there. There are times when ignorance really is bliss.

One bright spot is that after nearly 24 years we finally got him housebroken. The reason I say we, is that Butterscotch had a great deal to do with his decision to take better care of his possessions when in the home. Having a cat that thinks papers are for shredding plus anything not nailed down is a play pretty, has been instrumental in helping Hubby understand the error of his ways. I must say that these days Butterscotch is a lot less trouble than he used to be. After all, he doesn't have testicles or tires.

Just Thinking

2011-06-27T19:12:00.000-04:00

I have to say I'm a bit shocked that New York passed a same sex marriage bill. The shock exists due to the State Senate being controlled by Republicans. Apparently the protection from lawsuits against churches who choose not to perform the marriages made it palatable to the Republicans in our state government. So far local churches are booking the marriages all ready. Of course, the law doesn't go into affect until July 24 of this year so there is time.

On the news tonight, Archbishop Cunningham of the Syracuse Catholic Diocese is on record calling this a "terrible thing". The Catholic Church is not on board this particular train, apparently. Given church doctrine, I can understand that. Don't have to approve of it, but I understand. What I don't understand is how this same church that declares the marriage bill a terrible thing failed it's duty to the children of many parishes by covering up for those priests who were molesting those children.

While traveling around today I saw a sign outside a Methodist Church that is just around the corner from where I live. It said: "There are but two truths in life. #1. God does exist. #2. You are not HIM." I shall apply truth #2 to the question in my mind regarding the cover up of pedophiles in the church.

The other issue that I am applying truth #2 to is this. While there are cautions against the commission of homosexual acts in the Bible, there is no commandment against it as there is against adultery. Since I am applying truth #2 here, I can't say that God seems to have considered adultery the much more egregious sin, now can I? I can, however, say that given that adultery is covered by a commandment while homosexuality is not, there is ample room for thought there.

I am human and as such I am imperfect which means there is a part of me that enjoys forming opinions and that part of me tends to resist truth #2. That part of me would enjoy no end of satisfaction if it turns out that same sex marriages turn out not to have the same divorce statistics as heterosexual marriages do. A full 50% of marriages end in divorce these days. I'm thinking maybe we'd be farther ahead if people tended to their own marriages with the same fervor they showed while protesting against the same sex marriage act.

Led Zeppelin - The Ocean

2011-06-25T20:34:00.001-04:00

I Haz A Vacation

2011-06-24T21:45:00.000-04:00

I'm not exactly sure, but I believe I started work for my present place of employment in March or April of 1999. Except for the occassional day off here and there and 2 or 3 days off for the death of each of my parents, I have not had a vacation in all these years. Until now.

As of 4 PM today, June 24, I am on vacation.

I'm writing this offline since it's pouring out which has effectively interfered with my satellite connection to both the TV and the internet. I'm listening to the rain, the very distant rumbles of thunder and am considering what I plan on doing during my vacation.

When I went by the town park today, they were setting the bleachers up for the graduation ceremony, just in case. I will be there IF it doesn't rain and they hold the ceremony in the park. Won't need a ticket for that. Her party isn't for another 3 weeks so after the ceremony I plan on heading for Super Shoes to see if I can find a pair of new ones for work. My Reeboks have lost the cushion under the balls of my feet and it's starting to hurt. My right foot has developed a stone bruise which will be removed on Thursday, and I need to have the right kind of cushioning there to stop it from redeveloping right away.

I have a short list of things I need to do around the house which will include trying on clothing to see what fits now, or may fit soon. The larger items in good condition will be going to one of the many charity drop boxes that are being installed all over the area. I've laid in some fresh fruits for snacking along with a few good books to read in the afternoons. I have a massage booked at a local spa and a date for lunch with the girls.

With the exception of the things I've mentioned here, my plans aren't set in stone. I'm off until July 5th so I have plenty of time to enjoy myself. I'm just going to do a few different things so you might not find me online much this week. I plan on using my vacation time as a break from the usual things I do. I think I'll just shut off the rest of the world and spend time with myself and my cat. Don't break anything while I'm gone. Not having anything to come back to would just ruin my vacation.

Sometimes You Just Have To

2011-06-23T19:19:00.000-04:00

I've been trying to work on a new playlist for the blog. Unfortunately the weather is interfering. Wind, thunder, lightening, heavy cloud cover and conditions are ripe for internet connection interruptions. Frequent interruptions. Which is perfectly fine by me since there are far too many lightening strikes happening to be having the computer on at all.

My only complaint regarding the weather is that it will be doing this thunderboomer stuff until sometime on Sunday. My granddaughter graduates from high school this year. Graduation ceremonies are Saturday morning. Normally held in the town park. This year it might be held in the school auditorium which isn't large enough to hold everyone who wants to come. Each graduate is issued only a few tickets to the indoor ceremony. Which will leave me out.

She has 6 tickets for 8 people. Youngest, his wife, the graduate's brother, maternal grandfather, paternal grandmother and paternal grandfather. Which would leave out paternal grandmother's husband and me. I don't have a problem with this, however, Hubby's ex wants his ticket for her husband and she's pitching a bitch over the decision to give it to Hubby.

To keep the peace, Hubby said to give his ticket to the ex for her husband. We will be hoping for a long enough break in the weather that would allow for an outdoor ceremony and we have told our granddaughter that we are very proud of her accomplishments and we will be there if it's outdoors. Hubby feels that he doesn't want to leave me out any more than his ex wants to leave out her husband. He just isn't spiteful enough to take his disappointment out on our granddaughter during her special event.

I've never tried to be anything more than a wife to the father of her kids. I've always felt that they have a mother, they didn't need two. Probably because I had a step-mother who tried to interfere with my life when I already had a mother. I know what that felt like and refused to do it to anyone else. These are people we're talking about, not prizes awarded for the games we play.

Unlike their mother, I won't do for one what I wouldn't be willing to do for all. I have watched the times she gave expensive leather jackets to the kids and then gave the oldest one a cheap flannel shirt because he disappointed her or she was angry at him. Two of her children have been the recipient of expensive tech toys and then again the oldest would get some inexpensive item. She would do this regularly, until recently. Then she wonders why the oldest is so jealous of the other two.

I've kept my mouth shut and ignored everything she's done because there's nothing to be gained by creating drama. I've always been pleasant to her, because I've known right from the beginning that Hubby's brothers and sisters like me better than they ever did her. I know that's a petty satisfaction, but it has helped me overlook all of the nonsense she's tried over the 24 years we've been together.

Sometimes I do wish I could fight back. My Dad could be one mean sonuvabitch, and none of his children missed inheriting that particular gene. She's going to push my buttons one too many times and she isn't going to like the results. Until then, I'm just ignoring her and trying to heal the wounds she causes. Her turn will come.

Relaxing The Mind.

2011-06-20T14:04:00.000-04:00

I joined Twitter to have the pleasure of engaging with different people on a level that blogging doesn't allow. In the beginning there was the sharing of news, laughter, music, and realtime conversations with people from all over the world about everything under the sun. Then, somehow it started to change.

Long time users started publishing blogs with rules for the rest of us to follow. Businesses started advertising their wares. Some bloggers began to use it as a self promotion tool and slowly Twitter became something else. It became all about broadcasting, popularity and the engaging aspect of it started to die. People who were there for the fun went to Facebook and set up their FB accounts to post to Twitter when they posted to their walls in FB. Then apps began to develop which were designed to automate ones Twitter account. Write your tweets, pick your times and tell the application you chose to post them at prescheduled intervals. Look Ma, no hands. If you can't be there to speak with people, you can't see the ugly.

I have many different interests, including politics, so I follow many different people. I'm not interested in popularity so my account is small compared to some others. This usually protects me from being a target of scammers and spammers, and since I'm not in Twitter for hours on end it usually allows me to ignore the trolls. If someone bothers me, I just block them and since I'm not a big enough account, they don't come back as someone else to attack again.

My problem is, I follow some very lovely liberal ladies who are being targeted by some very nasty trolls. These trolls are using pornography to attack these women.

The accounts are being set up via mobile phone applications. The background page is usually graphic pictures of anal sex acts. All tweets consist of a list of these ladies names with an added sentence promising them sexual activity of a type that I'm thinking they don't wish to engage in. When blocked, the troll just creates another page and comes back at them. Twitter can't really help because these are being created from mobile phone applications so there is no ISP to block. In a way, this is a rape of their dignity and peace of mind.

The stress is beginning to show in all of the women who are under this form of attack. Those of us who enjoy the tweets and conversations these women provide are frustrated as well. There's not anything much more maddening than wishing one could solve the problem and totally being unable to. It's making all of us too quick to see insults where none are intended.

It isn't just the women who are having problems. There was an email attack on one of the more politically active males on Twitter. He expressed an opinion about the people who are involved in supporting Bradley Manning and Wikileaks. The emails suggest that the sender hasn't graduated from the school yard yet. All were threats to expose his secret life as a lover of cybersex. All done on camera, mind you. The evidence seems to have gotten lost in the intertubes since none of it materialized. Threats are easy, proof on the other hand, not so much.

Since the attacks began, some of my more fun and engaging Tweet friends have been taking vacations from Twitter. I am as well. I will post to my account using the lovely twitter tweet button I have on my browser. Which will remind people that I'm still alive. I found, the last time I took a quick vacation from Twitter, my inbox got filled up with messages asking if I was all right.

I spent 10 minutes there last night and lost my sense of humor 2 minutes into the experience. I restored it with the help of the video I embedded at the beginning of this post. Bird songs, relaxing music and some awesome landscape pictures helped to right my equilibrium.

It's sad that people have to do that to each other, but they do it. I used to fight against that kind of behavior, but have learned to take steps to ignore it. When it's so prevalent that I can't ignore it, I just silently steal away to another part of the web where the air is clean, the waters calm and I can breathe.

Just One Click

2011-06-18T13:55:00.000-04:00

Before we left Blogstream, John the Squabbler and I shared email addresses. He's a fellow NY stater, wasn't sure what he was going to do and didn't want to lose touch. I was among the first people to comment on his blog. There are times when I wish I had his writing ability although he says (I think he's lying) that I write better than he does.

One can believe they have knowledge of someone else through their interpretation of the writings of that person. That knowledge I believe I have leads me to think that his email has been hacked. I received 3 emails from him a week ago which came to me as "No subject" and didn't contain anything except a link to someplace. Something didn't feel right to me about them. My belief in who John is leads me to feel that if this were something he wanted me to see, he'd have said so. John likes words. Lots of words.

His only access to us, at the moment, is from a library computer and possibly a cell phone. Even given that he would have to be working quickly, I still believe he would have said something in explanation. Since that's how I feel, I didn't click the links. I did send him an email asking if his email could have been hacked, however, the only response was more emails with more links and still no explanation. The last that I received occurred at 3:30 this morning.

I am no longer even opening them on the off chance that they contain malware. He has a Facebook account and another online friend of mine with a Yahoo email had her email hacked via her Facebook account the same day I started receiving the ones from John. Facebook is a hotbed of problems like that. I can have enough trouble with Twitter along those lines if I were not careful about clicking on links. Come to think of it, most of the malware picked up in Twitter are posted through peoples Facebook account.

For the social media addicts, being able to post once and have it occur in all of their accounts at the same time seems to appeal to them. With the number of people who still use the internet without proper security on their computers the number of computers that can be infected is infinite. Once infected, that computer sends out the malware infected emails to all those listed in the computer address book and so it goes. On and on and on. Very hard to contain when that happens, since most don't know they've been hacked until their friends start complaining about the unwanted items they were sent.

That reminds me, in case opening the first of those emails infected my computer with something, don't open anything I send you if there isn't something said by me in the subject line. I keep checking my "Sent" folder and nothing is in there that I didn't send. I'm not sure that's a good way to tell, but it seems to me to be. After all, if I send out something it's in there, so why wouldn't a hacker's be too?

I Should Have Married A Farmer

2011-06-15T19:19:00.000-04:00

Nobody knew that Larry's farm was for sale, not even Larry. He's a second generation dairy farmer and owns a Dairy of Distinction. That is an award the NYS Dairy Association gives to immaculately clean farms with happy cows and high volumes of milk production. I should say Larry owned the farm, it now has a new owner.

A few months back, there were a group of men going around the hills in my area and stopping at farms asking if the owners would be willing to sell. CASH on the barrelhead, prices that few would refuse. Larry's in his middle 50's and has farmed all his life. His family consists of wife and one child, a child unwilling to take on the family farm. When he heard the figure he was being offered. He said yes. So did 3 or 4 others. The only one that didn't sell was Maynard, and that was only because his wife wouldn't let him. She says the only way she's ever leaving that place is in a pine box so Maynard still has his dairy farm. Apparently, a large group of men wearing black and carrying an obscene amount of cash on them didn't impress her much. They just couldn't make her an offer she wouldn't refuse.

We first heard about it when Larry called to arrange delivery of 2 portable restrooms. Seemed the new owners need to use them until they make the renovations needed to live in the house. A Dairy of Distinction has a well kept house as well as barn, so I'm sure you're asking why they needed to renovate? In addition to that, I'm not sure renovate is the best word here, since what needed doing was removal of all plumbing and electric wiring, and the building of outhouses. Yep, this large group of men wearing black and carrying an obscene amount of money on them were Amish. Larry was offered a quarter of a million for his farm and slightly less for the smaller farm he also owns.

Stopped at one of the farms on my way home from work today. Scored 2 quarts of the best tasting sweetest strawberries I've ever tasted in my life. Along with a loaf of home baked whole wheat bread. This farm, not Larry's, has a walk in cellar where the sales take place. There's a table set up and on the other side of the table was a young lady doing wash in an old fashioned wringer washer, no electricity, just a gas engine to run it. This farm family sells cookies, pies, bread and fudge. Plus some produce, in season. I was told the berries were picked fresh this morning and I'm sure they were since the fingers of this young lady were stained red from the juice. About the time it finally wears off, it will be time to pick strawberries again. In the stores they're running $2.99 and they don't taste as good, nor do you get as many. I paid $3.75 and think they're well worth it.

One of the other farms will have wood furniture and artwork for sale, along with the fresh produce, and yet another farm will have other items for sale that the Amish are noted for, along with their fresh, in season produce. They are known for the quality of their work and if these strawberries are any indication, that quality extends to their produce. Grown with good old fashioned cow manure from heritage seeds.

My bucket list has long carried my wish to travel to Lancaster, Pennsylvania to vacation in Amish country. We've had few vacations due to Hubby's seasonal business. We can't just take time off, we lose income. Somehow going in the Winter months just didn't appeal to me. I thought that my trip would wait until after he retires, IF he retires and now, Lancaster Amish country has come to me. I'm actually excited about this addition to our small community. It's going to make my healthy eating lifestyle much easier since I'll be able to find the produce I will need without traveling all over the county. Life just gets so amazing every once in awhile, doesn't it?

Balancing Act

2011-06-14T20:00:00.000-04:00

For the past few days I've been trying, unsuccessfully I might add, to avoid the topic of politics. It seems to be all anyone is talking about. In real life, online, all the same. Even my clients have gotten into the act. That I understand since their Social Security and Medicare are at stake. I know Congress keeps saying it won't affect them, unfortunately politicians don't always understand the consequences of their decisions. Plus, all of them lie.

I admit, we need to take an interest because we vote. However, we also do other things. We sleep, we dream, we read, we have hobbies. We listen to music, watch TV, go to movies. Some of us are involved in charitable organizations or youth activities like Little League. We take walks, take dance classes. We go to the YMCA to walk on the treadmill or to swim. Some people plan vacations and enjoy themselves. Are we having conversations about these things? Why not?

I've looked around and all I'm seeing are people taking sides. The finger pointing, the name calling. The anger, the bullying, the hate. There are no informed, quiet discussions during which people are keeping an open mind with the view to learning more about the issue. Each side is doing nothing more than shouting loudly in the hopes of hiding the flaws in their own reasoning, and to gather followers willing to repeat every word they say as if they're pearls of wisdom.

I admit the occasional conversation about politics can add a little spice to an otherwise humdrum life, but this constant bombardment is in itself boring. I keep hearing Peggy Lee in my head singing "Is That All There is". Who knew that the internet, the highly touted Information Superhighway could become little more than a rut? Something tells me that what it's becoming isn't what the originators envisioned. How sad is that?

I've begun to believe that what we hear on the Nightly News is being directed by what's being discussed on the internet. It's become a driving force in our daily lives in a way that isn't always positive. How we act, what we say online is what is being reported because we give some events relevance by our conversations. Even people without internet connections can join the conversation because they get their information via the news. What goes viral on the net is more likely to be commented on at 6:30 pm. The news is no longer giving us the news, it's replaying what we want to hear, and we seem to want to hear the dirt. All of it. Every prurient detail. Then we want to talk about it until something else catches our fancy.

It has occurred to me that while everyone online and in coffee shops and bars are arguing about whatever the hot topic of the day is, I'm out there doing things that help people live independent lives. I'm engaged in positive pursuits, ones that really do make a difference. I think it's what I do for a living that is helping me learn to shut off much of the anger I see online when I shut off the computer. It still gets to me on some level, but not in a way that makes me want to fight back. I can even listen, in real life, to the opinions of those around me and smile without saying a word. After all, I have a blog for that.

I'm Gonna Need A Bigger Pot.

2011-06-12T21:51:00.000-04:00

Just call me Noreen Gooseboiler. I took a shot at a witch name generator and that's what it came up with. I'm still laughing at the possibilities there. I mean, really! I can think of a whole bunch of geese I'd like to boil right about now. Starting with Congressman Anthony Weiner. I wonder if I could get the entire GOP along with him in the pot? If not, I can always just add Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin. Just think of the cost savings to Rep. Weiner. Two women he can proudly display his man bits to AND no cell phone charges. Of course, he'll have to work fast, I am pretty sure that boiling water won't improve the looks of those man bits any.

Random Witch Name Generator

Click the link, get your name and go ahead and share it with me. I know this is usually a Halloween pastime, but frankly, with all that's happening on the political front it might just as well be Trick or Treat time. I'm just going to laugh and party my way through until the next election cycle. Maybe I'll just sit back quietly and wait and see whose goose is going to get cooked next.

Making Better Choices

2011-06-10T21:19:00.000-04:00

Since the focus of my lifestyle change isn't primarily weight loss, the doctor only weighs me every other visit. Although I am aware that I've lost at least 30 pounds, the numbers haven't been translating in my head, to the need for new clothes yet. Like most overweight people I have thin clothes and fat clothes so my closet is the source for whatever size I'm fitting into at the moment. However, I work wearing scrubs. Actually I wear the tops with my older slacks or this time of year, with my capri pants.

I hadn't thought about how my scrubs had begun to look on me. I had two tops that had been purchased in the fall right before the need to do something to help myself be healthier. I wore them until I found someone who could use them and didn't mind second hand clothes. They were size 22. Actually purchased not because they were the size I wore, but because I liked the print on them. They were admittedly, not so big on me that they looked sloppy.

Scrubs wear like iron. They don't stain the way our regular clothes can, and pretty much hold their colors even after repeated washing. Most of my scrubs were purchased in 2007 and still look fine, except they are getting so big on me that I look sloppy. I hadn't really thought much about that until the Director of Nursing made an off hand comment during an inservice a couple of weeks ago. She was addressing some client complaints against some of the aides who wear their clothes too tight.

Since the company doesn't give a clothing allowance, they can't demand that we wear scrubs. I do because they're cheaper than other styles of tops and more comfortable to work in since they give me movement room where I need it. We're pushing, pulling, lifting and reaching constantly so clothing that doesn't bind anywhere is something I want. Especially during hot weather. Nothing we wear is ever really comfortable when it's hot, but loose is the next best thing. Unfortunately at the end of her comment about clothing that is too tight she also said something about clothing that is too loose. I'm not sure she was aiming it at me. At the time, I wasn't thinking about how loose my clothes had gotten, so it never occurred to me that it was.

A couple of days later, while at a client who is the only one that says anything about my weight loss, she did something that surprised me. She reached out, grabbed a handful of shirt and pulled it out away from my body. I looked down and saw all this material that I hadn't seen before. It made my jaw drop. She probably had 6 or 8 extra inches of material pulled away from me, but it looked like twice that amount. Needless to say, I went and bought some new tops.

From nearly being big enough to need a size 22, my new tops are size 16. Tomorrow I'm going to pick up a couple of new pairs of capris to go with the new tops. I managed to choose colors that worked with the capris and slacks I all ready own, except, now that I think about it, by Fall those slacks will be too big. I still can't wrap my mind around having lost at least two sizes without counting calories or depriving myself of the things I want to eat.

I don't have a size goal, or a final weight goal. My goal is to be healthier, maintain a healthy blood pressure and experience less joint pain. Just making the nutritional changes recommended by my doctor has allowed me to rid myself of around 5 pounds a month, without any sense of deprivation at all. That's a mythbuster in a way. I've heard it said for years that weight is harder to take off when you're older, and frankly, from personal experience I have to say, no it's not.

The Zombie Apocalypse Better Hurry Or They Won't Have Anything To Eat.

2011-06-08T18:20:00.000-04:00

I've come to the conclusion that Americans, or at least those living in the United States, are either insane or stupid. My preference would be that we are insane, but my common sense tells me that stupid is more likely. Having said that, I now wish to find a cabin on a mountain top that would be inaccessible to anyone but me and a very few others that I think might possibly still have some brains. OK, so I'll let Hubby and Butterscotch come with me. I love them, they can be whatever they want to be and I won't say a word.

I need to get away from all media for the rest of my life or at least an hour or so. I am at a point where I want to take this idea of American Exceptionalism and shove it where the sun don't shine. We're so busy believing we're exceptional that the rest of the world is outstripping us in almost every category except bullshit and we're freaking blind to it.

I ask this in all honesty. Tell me please, if you can, why we're stuck on gossiping about Anthony Weiner's wiener pics and not discussing the $800,000 income that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas "forgot" that he made and never claimed on his taxes? What about his refusal, so far, to recuse himself on healthcare challenges when his wife is a lobbyist for people who might want to overturn the healthcare reform?

Oh no, we have to display our righteous indignation over Congressman Weiner's "Weinergate". Shouts of "He's a LIAR" or "He's a PERV" ring loudly and are drowning out those of us who want to discuss the issues facing America today. His behavior was shameful, stalking all those women. Oh! Wait! He said he "EXCHANGED" pictures of himself with several women. So, what kind of pictures did they send to him? Frankly, if these women didn't like it, they could have asked him to stop. They could have reported him years ago, or they could have blocked him.

I am not, in any way, shape, form or manner excusing him. What I'm saying is that we, the "exceptional" American people allow the sex lives of the rich and famous to overshadow the narrative about what should be more important. Like the state of our economy. How about the cost of our healthcare? How about a Supreme Court Judge that also, if you remember, was accused of sexual harassment by Anita Hill when he was being examined as a potential Supreme Court Judge? One who now appears to be a tax cheat and a con man with few ethical standards. So far, Weiner is just...well...a wiener.

So, Anthony Weiner has now joined the ranks of powerful Washington players who seem to have difficulty keeping his pants zipped up. And that appears to be what's most important to the people of America. That and getting a date with Kim Kardashian. Excuse me, I need to go find my cat. He doesn't say anything but he makes a hell of a lot more sense than people do.

Sarah Palin And Friends, Changing American History, One Page At A Time

2011-06-06T14:21:00.000-04:00

Little Green Footballs - Palin Fans Trying to Edit Wikipedia Paul Revere Page

It never occurred to me that any American educated in American schools would not know the purpose of Paul Revere's ride. I was taught about the signals in the Old North Church which were created via lights. "One if by land, two if by sea" to indicate the direction from which the British would be coming. The purpose of that ride was to warn the colonists that the British were on the way. By it's very nature, given that not all colonists were supporters of independence, the ride would not have been accompanied by the sounds of musket fire or ringing bells. Both would be the perfect way to draw unwanted attention to yourself and quite possibly doom the mission to failure.

It has never occurred to me that any different version of this event would be taught in any school in the United
States of America. Despite the fact that the State of Texas is rewriting portions of history to suit their view of it, I can't believe even they'd go this far. Ahhh, but Sarah Palin would, and did. When in Boston, she was asked about Paul Revere and in her version he warned the BRITISH that the colonists had guns. Of course, he warned the Britsh that they wouldn't get the weapons being amassed by the colonists, so she didn't quite make a traitor out of him. She even embellished her answer to include some musket fire and ringing bells. Her defense, of course, is that she is right and if she was wrong, it was a trick question anyway. Oh! Wait! To be accurate here, it was a "gotcha" question. Her word, by the way.

Sarah Palin making a laughingstock out of herself is nothing new. Sarah Palin being believed by certain people, no matter what she says, is again...nothing new. What is new is the attempt on the part of one or more of her supporters to alter the Paul Revere Wikipedia page to conform with her version of the events. I don't know about anyone else since I can only speak for myself, but I find that attempt very disturbing. To attempt to alter our nations history to make it coincide with the blatherings of an idiot is beyond reprehensible. I doubt you have the decency to be ashamed of your actions. Why would I doubt you? The fact that you support Sarah Palin would be a good place to start.

Despite it being known that Wikipedia is not always 100% accurate and it's owner says it shouldn't be used as a final say in any matter, it does require a source for it's information. Given the importance of Paul Revere and his ride, any changes to the accepted version must include impeccable sources. Plural, not singular. The editors of that particular Wikipedia page determined that the words of one person, in this case Sarah Palin, was not a sufficient enough source to change American History. The entries were removed.

What disturbs me even further is that somewhere in America there are families with young children in school.
These children are most likely being taught by their teacher's the truth about Paul Revere and his ride. Unfortunately, if their parents are "Palinista's" they are, most likely, being told by their parents that the school
teacher and the history books have it wrong.

Some Pretty Packages Sure Do Stink!

2011-06-04T22:02:00.000-04:00

I haven't had much to say this week. My muse evaporated while looking through my blog stats at the Search Keywords used to find my blog. In a world populated by trolls, sock puppets, bullies and racists, what I found should not have surprised me, but it did.

"If God wanted us to be equal, he'd have made us all the same color."

Every time I sit down to write, no matter what I'm writing my mind suddenly turns to gift packaging. I start thinking about dog turds wrapped in tissue paper, placed in a box and then wrapped in pretty paper with a big bow. Still a dog turd no matter how attractive the package is, isn't it?

On the other hand, if I take two identically expensive diamond rings, wrap one in a pretty package, and place the other in a brown paper bag, am I destroying the equality of the two gifts? I don't think so. It isn't the outside of the package that creates the value, it's what's inside that counts.

In real life, the people I meet, the people I know, the people I love are like those diamond rings. Some of them come in the attractive packages, others in the brown paper bags. It's only when I'm online that I encounter the dog turds wrapped in pretty paper.

No matter what color we are on the outside, we're all the same on the inside. We all consist of bones, muscle, soft tissue organs, a heart that pumps blood. We all have a central nervous system and a brain that awesomely operates all the body functions that we don't have to think about, like breathing. It seems to me that the package it all comes in does very little to change how every thing else works. If that's not equality, what is?

And That's All I Haz To Say About That!

2011-06-02T19:39:00.000-04:00

Mornings In The Woods

2011-05-30T11:12:00.000-04:00

This is very much the sound that wakes me in the morning. I am treated to the chorus of Chickadees, Goldfinch, House Wrens, Cardinals, Blue Jays, Nuthatches, Robins and Crows. There are, of course, a few other birds out there that I have not yet identified by their song.

It begins somewhere around 6 am, and will abruptly stop around 11. I'm assuming it's the avian version of the Morning News followed by Good Morning America. Of course, I could be wrong and it's the Today Show I listen to. Hard to tell since I don't speak the language.

Today the sun is out, the sky is blue, the birds have spread their news. The Daily Rain will come later and I am on my way out the door to visit the various cemeteries where the Veterans in my family have been laid to rest.

Happy Memorial Day.

Call Of The Wild

2011-05-29T10:39:00.000-04:00

It's late in the day on a Friday afternoon. The sky is dark with dense black clouds. The air is heavy, almost wet. The woods are cloaked in gloomy shades of gray, the usual birds aren't serenading me with their songs. No chickadee-dee-dee, no warbling of robins. Not even the caw of a crow. There's an unnatural stillness, something oppressive. Something I can't quite put my finger on. I am struck by a sense that something is about to happen.

I know we're expecting severe thunderstorms again. From the looks of the sky, they could start any time now, so I hurry up the steps to the deck. I want to be indoors when they happen. This year the rain has been accompanied by golf ball sized hail. I've seen the damage on cars that size hail creates, I'd prefer not to feel that on my skin.

I'm just putting the key in the lock when the stillness is broken by this:

I know it's right behind me. I whirl around just in time to see a flash of red as he wings his way to the maple tree in my yard. He lights on a branch where I can see him and calls out again.
It's the first time I've gotten a look at him. I can usually hear him tapping, sometimes he does so on my home. I've never managed to see him as clearly as I saw him on Friday afternoon. He's usually just a flash of red against the green of the trees.

He moved back against the tree trunk and I walked through my door just as the first drops of rain fell. No thunder or lightening, just rain and the eerie sound of a Pileated Woodpecker announcing his presence to the other silent residents of the woods. Take heed, I am here, and here I will stay.

Well...Gee...

2011-05-28T16:22:00.000-04:00

I don't know why lately Blogger seems to be having a lot of problems. I guess sometimes if it ain't broke, don't fix it is a good rule of thumb to follow. Seems like there's been problem after problem since they tried a maintenance upgrade and added some bad code. The current problem is that we have all lost our followers. Every widget on every page I've looked at is blank. I went to my Dashboard and clicked on the page that will allow me to see my 36 followers and that too is...BLANK.

I know I'm still following all of you since your current posts show up on my Dashboard reader. Your avatars, however, are a different thing. I suspect this time it's a Google problem rather than a Blogger problem because the Friend Connect reader is theirs. I wonder if this problem has anything to do with Lalepop's latest post?

This, of course, is not the post I planned on putting up here. That post is saved in drafts to be worked on since it just isn't coming out the way I want it to. I will probably find the time to work on it in the next couple of days since we have no holiday plans other than to hang out around the house and enjoy ourselves. It's hazy, hot and humid so I'm staying wherever there's an AC unit working. Like right here, in front of my computer, AFTER the housework... of course.

Chrome Is King

2011-05-27T17:26:00.000-04:00

I have to say that after 2 days of playing around with it, it's a much different browser than Internet Explorer is. For instance, if I have an image I want to put into this blog, once I click the "save picture as", it creates a download file that is at the bottom of my screen. When I clicked on the image in the post editor, it opens a screen that will upload the image directly into the blog without taking the image to my picture folder. I think that if I wished to upload to a hosting service like Photobucket, I'd have to move the file to my Picture folder and then upload to the hosting service.

It has proved to be a much faster browser for me. I don't have the page load problems I was having with IE8. I've had as many as 5 pages open at a time without any problem downloading another one. On IE8, if I had a page open, opening another one took forever. If I was in Twitter and wanted to see the article someone provided a link for, it would take a long time to open the link. With Chrome, it opens right away without any problems. Last night I had 3 data rich pages open and had no problem with any of them.

The Chrome Home page shows me the sites I visit most as web slices, so all I need to do to come to Blogger, my email, Twitter, ICanHazCheeseburgers or any other place I visit regularly is to click on the slice and I'm there. My two local news channels that I read regularly are add ons in the browser bar.

I have not yet found a feature that allows me to erase my browsing history from Chrome and I think that's because of the web slice page. It has to know your history in order to show you where you last were during that browsing session. You can manually delete it but it doesn't seem to be an automatic feature.

I love, love, love being able to see videos without pauses. Any video I've tried for 2 days has played for me all the way through without stopping. I'm going to try the streaming newscast from the local channel closest to me. I've never been able to watch one, I might be able to now. All in all, I'm quite satisfied with Chrome, and after a few more days of trying it out, I just might make it my default browser and forget that IE ever existed. We'll see.

My Favorite Color Might Be...Chrome.

2011-05-25T18:23:00.000-04:00

Again I had the logging in problem. After waiting awhile I decided to do what the powers that be at Blogger suggested, which was to try signing in on another browser. Which required that I download another browser. I chose to try Google Chrome. I figured that Blogger is a Google product, Chrome is a Google Product and after 2 days of troubles, I needed every edge.

Before I made up my mind that possibly IE8 is part of the problem, I just went and tried logging in on it. No luck, and I am logged in on Chrome. Apparently something was added to Blogger, and communication between Blogger and Internet Explorer 8 has been affected. Then again, lately I've been having problems with that browser in other ways. Too many "can't display web pages" and according to Microsoft diagnostics my Firewall is blocking some functions of that browser. Hello? It's the only browser I've ever used and it's a Microsoft product so what in the blue blazes are they talking about?

I take that back, I tried Firefox back in 2007 or so and my IE browser kept trying to kick it out. I had major problems between the two of them so I got rid of it.

I haven't tried videos on this browser yet. On IE, I have trouble playing some of them and I don't think I should because my download speed is fast enough, so I'm beginning to wonder if it's that browser. I'll find out in a bit. I need to explore what this baby comes with. It seems pretty decent, but I do have one complaint. It didn't come with Trace Adkins.

Nothing Important, Just What's On My Mind

2011-05-24T20:33:00.000-04:00

On Friday, Monday and again today, work would keep me out of the house until 4:30 pm. Business hours at the Wildlife Rescue locally end at 4. They're available on a 24 hour basis for rescues, but information is another thing. Today is my long travel day and as I was driving I kept seeing dead skunks in the roadway. Each time I had to swerve to avoid another one, I kept thinking that Mama Skunk didn't make it.

I pulled into the driveway of my 2pm case with 10 minutes to spare and used my cell phone to call the Wildlife office. It was then that I found out Mama Skunk was found dead in her cage last Friday morning. Given her condition when recovered from my deck, it wasn't an unexpected death. Had she not been found dead, she most likely would have died during surgery. Of course, the babies didn't make it either. When they found her she'd been dead too long to try a C section to save them.

I was itching to do this post when I first came home and found that I was locked out of my blog. Apparently another bug was stopping around 10,000 of us from logging in. It also was affecting comments as well so those like Sarge should be Ok now.

It was kind of a funny thing as yesterday I discovered that Blogger did give me back my missing post plus the comments it took. And then today, the fun started up again.

I don't know if I've become jaded, or possibly I have different priorities, but the log in problem didn't concern me once I figured out it was a Blogger issue and not mine. I can remember the time when I would have nearly had an anxiety attack over a failure to get to blogging when I had something I wanted to say. Then again, it could be that I have nothing really important to say and I can say nothing anytime.

Exploring "What If?"

2011-05-23T19:35:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I goofed off while not sitting in front of my computer. I accomplished what I planned on doing in the morning and then spent part of the afternoon with Hubby watching TV. We had been watching a couple of programs on CNBC when he switched to The Weather Channel just in time to see the first scenes from Reading, Kansas and Joplin, Missouri.

The devastation is beyond anything I can grasp. These events are just something that don't happen here, so I have nothing with which to measure it against. We get tornadoes, but they're only of the weakest strength. Nothing, absolutely nothing to compare with what happened yesterday. While I am not given to Doomsday theories, I have to ask myself why there have been so many of these catastrophic events this year?

While watching the first two programs on CNBC, I was reminded that there is a world of people out there that I neither understand nor care to meet. People who are motivated by greed and will use every means at their disposal to make themselves wealthier. It seems that the sheer volume of their numbers is on the rise.

The two programs we watched were "American Greed" which exposes con artists and their schemes. Yesterday they featured a Ponzi scheme operated during the 1990's by a religious group called Greater Ministries International. Church members nationwide invested their life savings and in some cases mortgaged their homes to invest in diamond mines in Africa. People who were interviewed for that program, men and women of retirement age who asked themselves if this didn't sound too good to be true, and then they mortgaged their lives to invest.

The second program was "Divorce Wars" which featured the divorces of the rich. Apparently when it comes to amicable division of the marital property, the wealthy don't seem to have any concept of the word amicable. Of the 6 people that were involved in these divorce wars, the only one I had any sympathy for was the woman who received a mere $750,000 from her husband who was a multi-millionaire. The reason that I do have sympathy for her is that he committed fraud to keep her from getting anything that he didn't want to part with. It took her 15 years to find the evidence to prove it, but she ended up with a $10 million settlement.

Of course, since I don't grasp why anyone would be that greedy, I was thinking about both programs when we changed the channel and saw the damage wrought by a tornado. I'm sure there has to be an explanation for why we're experiencing so many natural disasters. I'm very sure that no matter how hard I try, I won't be able to find that explanation any more than I can find an explanation for why so many are so greedy. I do know one thing. When one is very saddened by the state of our society, when one sees the greed and lack of compassion prevalent today, it would be very easy for that person to believe that these natural events are harbingers of approaching Armaggedon.

Do I believe that? No, not really. I admit to a brief passing thought along that line when we changed the channel yesterday. Then I had a good laugh at myself.

Attacked By A Bottle Of Pancake Syrup?

2011-05-21T18:14:00.000-04:00

Normally, when I choose to go to Walmart, I go to the supercenter in the smaller of the two cities I'm closest to. In that Walmart I do not normally meet the kind of shopper that you see on the People of Walmart website. I don't even meet the caliber of shopper that Scratch seems to attract. No weirdos, no idiots, no losers, just neighbors, family and friends. Ok, so maybe there's a few weirdos there, but in a nice way.

I had to go there today, after my 2 hours of work, and frankly, I wish I hadn't. Everything was going smoothly until I arrived at the cereal aisle. I had just removed a box of pancake mix and syrup from the shelf, and was turned back to my shopping cart so I didn't exactly see what happened. I just heard it, and felt it. And ended up with it all over me.

Some guy walked behind me with his arms full of things and his elbow knocked a bottle of syrup off the shelf, onto the floor where it exploded and spattered all over me. It missed him completely. I heard the loud pop, and felt things start to drip from my hair down my neck. It was oozing through my fingers. It was on the back of my white capri slacks and running down my leg into my shoes. The guy just says "Oh! I'm sorry honey, I got it on you" and walked away leaving me standing there dripping. At least he picked the bottle up and put it back on the shelf.

A woman on an electric cart that had just come through the very same spot behind me didn't knock anything down nor did she run over my heels in an attempt to avoid knocking anything down, so there was ample clearance between me and the product. She went to get a store employee to help me out. The store employee escorted me to the ladies room and went inside with me to see if there was a way that we could get it off the back of my pants. We encountered another good samaritan who suggested a tide bleach pen.

The store employee was going to go and get one when the samaritan offered me hers. I offered to pay for it and she wouldn't hear of it. Now that's the kind of Walmart People I usually meet. Which made up for the one that did all the damage and then walked away without going to get a store employee to clean up the sticky mess on the floor at least. I guess he thought that Walmart would have made him pay for the breakage. They usually don't because they'd rather have someone report it than to leave the mess where someone could get hurt.

Thanks to the lady with the bleach pen I managed to finish my shopping without people thinking I'd had some sort of accident that they didn't want to know about. The syrup he knocked down was a dark amber in color which made brown spots on the back of my capris. Except for the sticky spot in my hair, I looked presentable so people didn't try to leave a wide path between us.

That Tide pen worked great, it lightened the brown up to the invisible point and once washed, I'll be able to wear those pants again. A shower and a hair washing took care of the rest. Other than the embarrassment of walking through a store with brown stains on the back of ones white pants and the really creepy sensation caused by syrup oozing down my neck and legs, everything is all right in my world.

While I realize there was nothing much the guy who caused the problem could do about it, he should have at least found a store employee and owned up to what happened. However, he acted in typical male fashion. Make a mess and leave the women to take care of it.

Pockets Full Of Air

2011-05-20T19:55:00.000-04:00

Every time I get an email from Robbie, Nancy or Chuck, they want money. Not only do they want money, they seem to feel that the need is urgent. I suppose I should be respectful and address them as Mr. Mook, Mrs Pelosi and Mr. Schumer, but they call me Sherry, as if we were buddies, so...

At least Barack, and Joe only seem to want me to do something to support their agendas. They never ask for the contents of my pocketbook, but I'm no more impressed with them since they always speak to me about need. Theirs, not mine. Not one of them who send me emails ever does so to find out how I'm doing or if there's anything I need. It's always all about them.

Last year when MSNBC placed Mr Olbermann on suspension I signed a petition, online, to ask them to bring him back. The petition was made available by a group called Bold Progressives. When I signed that petition using my gmail address, I opted out of receiving additional emails. I didn't hear from them again.

A few months later, I addressed a tweet to President Obama in Twitter. I don't even remember what it was, just something that occured to me, probably having to do with the failure to raise taxes on the wealthy. Now, in Twitter, my name is Butterose, and my profile lists my real name as Sharon W. These emails aren't addressed to Sharon, they are addressed to Sherry. Which indicates to me that either Big Brother really is watching us, or Bold Progressives gave out my email.

They started shortly after my assinine tweet to the President and I get one every time there's an agenda to be pushed. The first one came from Vice President Joe Biden. Most often they come from Robbie Mook or Sherrod Brown. Every single one of them addresses me as Sherry, and not a one of them asks me what they can do for me. So, I thought I'd take this opportunity to tell them what it is they can do for me, for a change.

Dear Politicians,

I am writing to inform you that while I enjoy finding out what's going on in the political world, I'm afraid I will just have to ignore your requests for money. Since the price of gas is so high, and the cost of the food we buy at the grocers has also increased due to the high price of gas, keeping body and soul together has taken all of the pittance I earn and leaves me with nothing to place in your coffers.

Yes, Mr. President, I agree that immigration is a problem. Robbie, Nancy, Chuck, Joe, I really, really wish I could help you turn that "ruby red" district here in NYS into a sapphire blue district, but unfortunately keeping a roof over my head, food in my stomach and gas in my car so I can earn enough to take care of the first two pressing issues has used up all of my available funds.

Feel free to keep sending me emails. Who knows? When you all get your heads out of your asses and get firm about addressing Social Security, Medicare, Wall Street, and the Republicans who support killing the first two programs to make the Fat Cats on Wall Street fatter, I might be able to hang onto just enough to send you something once in awhile. That is, IF you can manage to hang onto Social Security long enough for me to start collecting it in 4 more years.

In other words, if you need money, try emptying your own pockets, you've taken all there was in mine.

Sincerely,

Sherry

A Stinky Excuse For Being Late

2011-05-18T18:34:00.000-04:00

Shortly after my husband left for work the other morning, I heard a noise on our deck. I opened the inner door to see a skunk making itself at home about 3 feet from the door. It's very unusual to see a skunk curled up on my doorstep even though I live in the country. Mostly they just wander through my yard on their way to who knows where, but they don't usually stop for a visit.

The sound of the door opening made it lift it's head and look, but it didn't move or react in any hostile way. Not being one to go blundering out of the house to shoo it away, I called Wildlife Rescue to find out what to do. They asked what felt like a million questions regarding things I know nothing about, but since there'd been no contact twixt me and Stinky, they didn't seem too worried about it. I was beginning to get upset because I thought they weren't going to help me. I needed to go out that way to get to my car to go to work, and there was no way I was going to walk within a foot of a sleeping skunk.

I was told that I wouldn't be getting to work on time since no one could come until after 9. I had to call the office and tell them I needed to switch my clients to a later time since I had a sleeping skunk on my deck. The eau de skunk scent was pretty strong which is an indication that it had sprayed something. I am aware that it will be 2 or 3 more days before it can spray again but there is rabies in my county and I'm not a fan of having shots for 7 days or so. I was definitely staying indoors, the office wasn't thrilled with me. I did not care.

I checked on it a couple of times, hoping that it had moved on and it was still lying there unmoved and unmoving. At one point I wondered if it had died out there. Didn't have nerve enough to try poking it with something. I'm sure you've heard the adage about leaving sleeping dogs lie? Well, the same can be said of skunks. Definitely not going to poke a skunk with anything to see if it's still alive. Alive or dead, I wanted it gone.

Two hardy souls from Rescue showed up with skunk catching equipment shortly after 9:30. They came around to the safe side of my home and through a window told me to close my inside door. I didn't know that an angry skunk could throw itself at a window hard enough to break it. Which would have meant I would have an angry skunk in my house. Not exactly my idea of a welcome house pet. I closed my door and lost the oportunity to see the rescue operation. There was some noise, something that sounded like growling and then a knock on the door.

Stinky was in a cage being transported to a truck when I opened it. They didn't think the poor thing had rabies, what they found was a broken leg. She was sleeping because she was in shock. May have been hit by a car someplace and just dragged herself up here because there's an invisible sign out there somewhere that says "Stop Here, Nice Lady Will Seek Help" or something. She turned out to be a female who is pregnant. She should pop anytime now, skunks have their babies in May or early June.

I don't know if she's still alive. I did ask what would happen to her and was told that she wouldn't be released back into the wilds because her leg was too badly mangled from what they could see during the capture. They also didn't know if she'd survive because she didn't try to fight back which indicates she was in a bad way. I didn't ask anything else because I had looked through the glass door at her, and in all honesty, I don't want to know that she didn't make it.

The rain has washed away the blood, but the faint odor of skunk lingers in the air. That too will fade as will the memory of what I saw when I looked into her eyes. She had beautiful eyes.

Racism Is A Two Way Street, And Some Of My Best Friends Are Color Blind

2011-05-16T18:37:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, while being lazy and spending far too much time online, I found the Harvard Project Implicit website. I found the link to it in a blog post attacking White Liberals for their superior attitudes towards blacks. I was tempted to leave a comment suggesting that racism is a two way street and if they didn't believe that, they needed to look at what they were saying. I chose not to leave a comment at all simply because I don't know the author of that post and I don't know what that person has had to deal with. I am, after all, white.

I certainly can't say "I'm not a racist" because I was born and raised in a family that is. I believe wholeheartedly that it's wrong, but overcoming my upbringing isn't always that easy. There was more than one family problem caused by my being seen hugging a black man while standing on the street in broad daylight. The first time I was 18 and didn't handle it well. The second time I was in my 40's, married, and assisting my stepfather run errands. Coming out of the dry cleaners with his clothes, I encountered my friend John Dove. We shared a bit of conversation after which he hugged me and kissed me on the cheek. My step father locked me out of the car. He let me open the back seat to put the clothes in and hit the automatic lock button as soon as I closed the door. I had to catch a bus to get home, fortunately we lived in the city way back then.

My Mom tried not to be racist, although she too had the upbringing. I think I'm a little more successful at it because at least I don't go around saying some of my best friends are black. When Mom found out that I got left behind because of a kiss on the cheek from John, she was livid. Frankly, John was a far better person than my step-father was. Of course, my step-father wouldn't have seen it that way since he was white and that made him superior to blacks. Even one who was a scientist, who created the CD ROM technology and held two other patents for something having to do with photonics, I think.

I was 8 years old befoer I ever met a black person in real life. My Dad worked part time for a building contractor. He spent nights until dark and weekends working for no pay on this job. His pay was kept by the contractor as a down payment on the house Dad wanted. Work on finishing our house took place in the winter and as we were getting into spring, the finishing touches were being done on the inside. We spent our Saturdays there while Mom and Dad did things like sand and stain doors, paint walls, etc.

One Saturday just a couple of weeks before we moved in, a man showed up to lay the tile floors in kitchen and bath. His name was Mac, and he was, not only black, but he was the tallest man I'd ever met. Even taller than Grandpa in my 8 year old eyes. He was a minister of a small church and he too worked for the contractor, only he did so during the week since the church couldn't support him and his large family. He was the only adult who didn't treat me as if I should be seen and not heard. He treated me as if I was special in some way. Dad would tell me to leave him alone and he would tell Dad I was fine, and not bothering him at all. I know how to lay tile floors because of what Mac taught me, and I have used that skill now and again.

Knowing how I feel about racism, I honestly thought I'd do much better on the tests than I did. My results on the 2 demo tests I took are that I Moderately prefer Other People over Muslims, and I also Moderately prefer Whites over Blacks. At first I wanted to argue with the scores, but then I got to thinking about what the test scores of Muslims and Blacks would be. I'm pretty sure, given their scope of experience that they wouldn't score any better than I did. What it all means anyways is that there is still more work to be done.

My problems is that work can't be done by myself. It requires honest dialogue and people who are willing to listen to things about themselves that they might not like to hear. I've come a long way from the child whose Dad and Grandad would sit at the table and laugh about siccing the dog on some poor unsuspecting young black child who happened to wander too close to the house. I've learned to stand up and say don't do that when a derogatory term is used to describe someone who is not white. I've also learned enough to fearlessly write a blog post saying that racism exists, and no we white people don't understand, so will you please stop lumping us all together and talk to us as individuals. Who knows? You might find a person of quality underneath my white skin. I may not understand, but I can learn.

Harvard Implicit Project

Jail'Me Kirlew And Other Problems With Extreme Couponing

2011-05-15T09:10:00.000-04:00

On Wednesday night I watched the program "Extreme Couponing" for the first time. Despite the fact that like everyone else, I'm always looking to save money, I won't be watching it again. It would be great to purchase $500 to $600 worth of groceries for 80% to 90% off, but I have no use for 25 boxes of cake mix or frozen pizza. I certainly have no desire to stockpile 300 bottles of soda or sports drinks.

What I saw was 2 to 3 or more grocery carts full of items that contribute to heart disease and diabetes. Foods which are loaded with salt, sugar and transfats. There were no lean meats. No fresh fruits or vegetables, no whole grain products. Just prepackaged, highly processed foods and sugary drinks.

Has it not escaped anyone watching this program that these women were going out and buying items to add to stockpiles of items that all ready were valued at $10,000+? How far past it's expiration date is some of that stuff? Will someone explain to me why a couple with no children need a stack of canned soup cases that is 5 feet high?

For thse women, coupon finding and clipping is a full time job. All of the women said they spend an average of 35 hours a week on this task. One of them has 5 computers on which she can download more of the e-coupons than she'd be allowed normally. Saving money by extreme couponing has allowed one woman to buy a spanking new SUV. Of course it sits out in the driveway because her garage is used to store all her purchases. Organized neatly on industrial metal shelving units. She has a grocery store in her garage, but she had to go buy $600 worth of groceries for less than $30 because....why? Every one of these women said this type of shopping is addicting.

Apparently it's so addicting that some women are willing to cheat both the manufacturer of the products they're buying and the stores they're buying from to achieve their goals. From what I've read, one woman, shown last month was committing coupon fraud by buying the product, but she was buying the smaller sizes. The bar code reader in the stores apparently reads the family code for products and accepts the coupon even if it isn't for the item listed on the coupon. For instance the shopper had coupons for $1 off the 4 packs of Yoplait yogurt. She used the coupons on Yoplait yogurt in the 6 ounce container.

Supporters who follow her Facebook page commented that she should be left alone since no one was hurt by her actions. That's not exactly true. When the manufacturer audits the coupons from the store, they will see that sales figures on the 4 packs of Yoplait don't match the number of coupons used. It will then refuse to pay the store for the items. In essence, by using fraudulent shopping habits, she committed shop lifting since the store won't be paid. Shop lifting is a crime. So is coupon fraud, which is what she's doing, and she's doing it regularly. Even after finding out that what she's doing is a crime.

NOTE: If you wish to listen to this video, please scroll to the very bottom of my page where you will find my music widget and turn it off. Trying to listen to both may be difficult.

Manufacturers offering coupons are now changing the bar code formula for their coupons to prevent this type of fraud from happening. I would say the fact that they're doing so is an indication of how widespread this practice may be. It costs to change these codes so it seems to me that manufacturers have knowledge of how much they're losing as a result of these fraudulent practices and are taking steps to protect themselves and the grocers who redeem them.

How Does Crappy Cat Cook Raindrops?

2011-05-14T09:11:00.000-04:00

According to Blogger Status and Blogger Buzz, nearly all missing posts have been restored and they are working on restoring missing comments over the weekend. Although my missing post is still missing, it's not entirely lost. I have it saved on my computer, a habit I acquired from losing so many posts at my former blog home. Since the operative word in my first sentence is "nearly" I'm going to give it another day before reposting.

Since my temporarily missing post was written about a fairly hot topic, the program Extreme Couponing, I had quite a few search engine directed visitors to my page. They probably didn't understand why they were directed here since there is no post regarding that program visible. I know they were here because I have this curiosity thing which makes me click on stuff when I feel it's safe to do so.

All of our blogs come equipped with this Stats tab, I clicked on it and discovered that I could find out things like what countries people who visit are from and what search terms they're using. I can get a rundown of the browsers they're using and at the bottom of the sub tab "Traffic Sources" I can find what search terms are bringing people to my blog. Of course, I have no way of knowing that they read what I wrote. Just that they clicked in. Some of the search terms I'm finding make me scratch my head and wonder...WTF?????

crappy cat

factory farming facts 2011

facts about raindrops

how is raindrops made

how to cook raindrops

things that remind me of daughter

why did they make looney tunes

paragraph on how to make things beautiful

quick facts about factory farming

"nutrition label"

what is keith olbermann up to these days

cebarre

cebarre pictures

funny oneliners 2011

bellalolabrigida

blues image pueblo

fun chairwell

sense of humor for kids and bullying

coupon diva kitty

extreme coupon diva

luckyfrogs.blogspot.com

facts about factory the process cherries

j'aime kirlew

jail'me

jamie the coupon diva fraud

my roof damage site:blogspot.com

picture of j'aime kirlew

Some pretty obvious questions occur to me when reading that list. Like:

Why would anyone be searching for a crappy cat? Wouldn't one that isn't crappy be more preferable?

What kind of mind would create a search term like "sense of humor for kids and bullying"?

I have no post here about Keith Olbermann, so what's up with that?

What is a "fun chairwell"?

While I admit to being silly sometimes, why would someone searching "why did they make looney tunes" end up here?

Lastly, why would anyone want to cook raindrops? Don't you know they taste better raw?

I Want The Bells And Whistles, Or At Least The Fish.

2011-05-11T17:55:00.000-04:00

There used to be a restaurant in my area that was my favorite place to go out to eat. The food wasn't that great, the place was painted in shades of brown that looked rather dingy most of the time and sometimes I wondered about the attention paid to cleaning the place. However, back in the day when dining out was fun, we'd wander on up to that place for fish fries or for a middle of the week burger and fries.

There were evenings when there was no room in the parking lot and we'd have to park down the road. Sometimes the line of people waiting to get in would be out in the parking lot. It was the one place locally where it was best to make reservations. Even then sometimes there'd be a wait for your reserved table, you had to get into the building in order to tell the hostess that you were there. Wasn't always easy when folks were waiting, they didn't like the idea of letting you in the door ahead of them.

After reading that, you're probably sitting there scratching your head and wondering what the hell was the attraction? Why go somewhere that appears to have nothing to recommend it? Well, you see, there were the fish tanks. I think there were 8 of them set into the walls in the dining areas. Some of them were set in a manner that they created a nook where 2 or 3 small tables were set up. For us, this was amazing. I'm not sure any of us, in this small city, understood that leasing of fish for restaurants was a big business. At least I didn't and no one ever mentioned it to me.

What surprised me about my fascination with those fish tanks was that I have never been interested in owning a home aquarium. I don't ever remember bothering to look at the tanks or the fish my friends spent hundreds if not thousands of dollars on. Up until the tanks in the restaurant, my experience with fish was of the edible kind. Mostly haddock, whiting, pollock, trout, perch, bass and the occasional bullhead. I even know that in Massachusets they don't have bullhead. They have horned pout. Same fish, different name. Confusing? Yeah!

When the place was really busy, you'd have a long wait for your food. A wait that no one ever complained about because we'd wander around and stare at the fish. I was competely enthralled by those tanks. They were filled with lush vegetation and some of the most beautiful and the ugliest fish I'd ever seen. No matter how many times we went there, I honestly don't believe I got to see all the fish that lived there.

One night we were going to have a burger and fries. When we got there the place was closed. It seems that the manager, in an attempt to build the Friday and Saturday night bar crowd up, introduced a game called beer pong. He discovered, hopefully to his dismay, that 21 year old booze filled kids and fish tanks don't mix. Since these weren't his tanks nor his fish, the cost to replace what got damaged was prohibitive. It wiped them out and they were out of business.

A few months later someone else reopened the restaurant with the same not so great food, dingy interior, inattention to cleanliness and no fish tanks. I don't think he was open 6 months. Which makes me wonder about all of us that ignored the possibility of ptomaine poisoning just to watch those fish. To the best of my knowledge, no one got sick. Except maybe the fish who were stuck watching us eat...fish.

I Love This Place It's Beginning To Feel Like Home.

2011-05-09T18:02:00.000-04:00

Once past the shock of loss and the need to relocate, I began to really examine the possibilities here. I think it helped, in a way, that the other place didn't disappear on April 30. The lack of closure left me with a need to find some way to push past it and move forward.

In my old profile I had a slideshow of Bashful pictures. It was just a matter of one click into my Profile and I could view the pictures when I wanted to. The slideshow is hosted in Photobucket, but there I have to log in and click the drop down for access to the slideshow page and then scroll down until I found it. Then I'd have to click to another page so that I could view it. Takes as long to get to it that way as it does to see it.

Yesterday a blogger here that I follow in Twitter provided a link to her About Me page. As I was reading her blog I realized she had a number of pages besides the one we read her blog on. Which brought me back to my own blog and a visit to the tutorials for information on how to create additional pages. It's really easy. So, I did an About Me page last night and got to thinking what else would I want on another page.

There was one of my last blog posts "And Slowly The Stream Dried Up" that I like, but didn't feel I wanted to post it here on this blog. This is not the stream and it's time to move forward, but I also wanted to acknowledge my blogging roots. So I created another page and put that post on it. I decided to change the title to "Endings And Beginnings" because that's what that page is.

Then I wondered if the page feature could be used for Bashful's slideshow and it CAN! I'm thinking about creating a slideshow of family pictures. I need to add the current pics of my grandkids to Photobucket first so that will be awhile. In the meantime I will be playing around with posting and all the other blog features we have here. I'm going to be making changes to the widgets I have on my blog. I'm keeping the background and will be getting rid of some things and generally rearranging others. Apparently there's a little more geek in me than I thought. Oh well, what else is a blog for except to bitch about stuff and have fun?

Bad Kitty, Bad Hubby

2011-05-08T17:22:00.000-04:00

Yep, my Bad Kitty made me a Mother's Day mess. Hubby didn't pick up the newspaper when he was done with it. He left it lying on the couch where Darling Butterscotch could have a field day with it. Shreds of newspaper all over the couch, the floor and a few pieces in the kitchen. He had himself a high old time making a mess.

I got up, looked at it and staggered out to grab myself a cup of coffee. I returned to the living room and simply sat here looking at it until I felt the need to laugh. It took awhile. A long while.

After having myself a laugh, I turned on the computer to lose myself in the blog world. After leaving a few comments and posting my guest post at TheTAZZone, I decided to clean up the mess. What made me maddest wasn't that Butterscotch did it, but that Hubby walked through it, grabbed coffee, and sat on the couch until he left to go to Oldest's to fix my car. Did he grab a broom and sweep any of it up? No! Did he come back into the bedroom to warn me of the mess? Oh, no! Did he bother to pick up the paper so the cat couldn't create any further damage? Oh, HELL no! Was he in trouble? OH HELL YES! Operative word there being WAS.

Butterscotch spent most of today being cute and cuddly. He seemed to feel the need for more affection than he normally does. Probably in response to my mood this morning, but I didn't yell at him. It doesn't do any good after the fact. It doesn't do any good during the fact either, he's a cat. Cats believe that it's only wrong when you catch them and only for the duration of the scolding.

Husbands, on the other hand...Oh! Wait! They only think it's wrong when you catch them and only for the duration of the scolding. Which is why I didn't scold him either. Partly why anyway. He did fix my car, he is treating me to my favorite pizza and he brought me flowers. Besides after the soft soap that Butterscotch spread on me today, I wasn't mad anymore. I'm easy, but not cheap.

You Really Had To Have Been There

2011-05-07T17:37:00.000-04:00

On Wednesday when I happened to be in the building where one of my former clients lives, I ran into him in the lobby while waiting for an elevator. I was there to provide service for another aide's client. Gump found the necessity to stay home on the day of service more than he cared to cooperate with. Since he was costing the company money to pay me to show up when he didn't choose to be there, he was removed from my roster of clients.

He's moving and needing to get rid of some things. He had some books he knew I was interested in. Biographies of Chuck Berry and Bob Dylan. A couple of books about the Beatles and the British Music Invasion of the 1960's. There is also a book called "Good Rockin' Tonight, Sun Records and the Birth of Rock and Roll". He tried to give them to me when I was his aide, but as his aide I had to refuse to accept them. I had offered to pay him for them, and he refused the money. We had reached an impasse so the books remained with him. Until Wednesday. I'm no longer his aide, haven't been for more than 90 days the office requires us to have no contact with their clients. It was now legal for me to accept the books IF he offered again. Which he did as soon as he saw me, and I gladly accepted.

I put the books in the trunk of the car and by the time I got home had forgotten about them. Until today. Until I got stranded in the bank parking lot for over an hour waiting for Hubby to come rescue both me and my vehicle.

I had to do my regular Saturday client this morning. Stopped on my way there to get gas and as I pulled away from the pump, the brake light came on. I tested the brakes and they were working fine. So, I continued on to the client. Worked there for two hours, stopped at the office to drop my paperwork through the mail slot and went on to the bank. I had brakes the entire time. There was no indication of any real problem, so by the time I got there, I assumed it was a faulty idiot light. That is, until I came out of the bank.

The pavement was perfectly dry when I pulled into that parking spot. Upon exiting the building, I spied a small puddle near the driver's side rear wheel. Upon closer examination, the puddle appeared to be shiny and wet looking. Had to come from my car. Which explained the brake light coming on. I called Hubby, and told him I had a leaky brake line. I was going to try to nurse it home since I had brakes, when I pulled in. He asked me how big the puddle was and when I told him it was 2 to 3 inches in diameter, he told me I didn't have any brakes now. I took his word for it. Groaned when he said it would be over an hour before he could get there, but made the wiser choice to wait.

So, there I was with nothing, I thought, to do except watch the cars pull in and out of the parking lot as they went on their merry way to accomplish whatever they set out to do this lovely Saturday. That particular plan of action would have had me frothing at the mouth within 10 minutes. Then I remembered the books. Never in my life have I been so grateful for having had a spell of the forgetful. If I hadn't forgotten them, they wouldn't have been there to occupy me in my time of need. Waiting time was closer to an hour and a half.

I walked over to the convenience store for a cold bottle of Diet Pepsi and went back to my car. Set the driver's seat back far enough to be comfortable and settled down to wait with a good book and a cold drink.

In retrospect I might have increased the risk of an accident by driving around when I suspected a brake problem. Sometimes to assess a situation and make a determination of which course to follow it's necessary to take all circumstances surrounding the problem into account. I knew Hubby was busy until near noon. I didn't have any reason to believe that there was an immediate problem, since I had no trouble stopping. I knew enough to check for evidence when I did stop and then to call Hubby with available information so he could make a determination of what to do. I also, taking into account the fact that I might have an imminent brake failure, traveled on roads that I knew wouldn't have much traffic on them. All roads that were posted at slower speeds with fewer stops so there was less stress on the brakes.

Hubby will fix the car tomorrow and I can finish my running around on Monday after work. I didn't panic, I just did what I could do and left the rest to someone who knows more about these things. Actually, if today could be considered a testing of my patience, I think I passed!

Keeping Secrets

2011-05-04T17:04:00.000-04:00

For overall health it is a good idea to eat a few meatless meals every week. Unfortunately, saying the words "meatless meals" in my house is grounds for divorce. To say that Hubby balks at it, is putting it mildly. However, he's eating meatless meals without knowing they're meatless. One can hide many sins of omission in a soup or casserole. Heh, heh!

Take tonights supper for instance. Cajun bean soup with cheese bread. Today's high temperature was 41 degrees. It's damp and cold so a soup with a home baked batter bread sounded good to me. There is a brand of dried beans I purchase for this. It's got 15 different types of beans in it and the package of cajun spices. I wash the beans and soak them just while I'm chopping onions, celery and garlic.

I saute the trinity in a little olive oil and once that's done add three quarts of water plus the beans. It takes around 2 1/2 hours to cook down. About a half hour before serving I add a large can of crushed tomatoes and the contents of the cajun spice packet.

I make the cheese batter bread with half whole wheat flour in the mix. Instead of cheddar cheese I use a mixture of cheddar and spicy taco cheese, that way I can tell Hubby the color of the bread comes from the spices in the cheese. If I tell him I've put whole wheat flour in it, he'll not eat it. This is a meal he actually enjoys eating, and there's not a bit of meat in it anywhere, plus there's whole wheat flour in the bread. Shhhhh! Don't tell him that or he'll deny that he likes it. Sometimes healthy eating means keeping secrets.

Is That All There Is To It?

2011-05-03T17:22:00.000-04:00

Not being a webmaster I have no idea what closing a website entails. Apparently it isn't what I think it would entail since the closed website is still there. I had envisioned some sort of page that would say something like "Website Not Found" or something along that line. I didn't expect it to be there in all it's former glory with links still working. He said April 30, 2011. It is now May 3, 2011 and it's still there. It's like waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I snooped around over there and did discover that someone who has a very strange blog or 3 had asked that John keep it open until May 31, so he could take care of transferring it over here to Blogger. That may be what he's doing, although I feel he gave us enough advanced notice and a handy tool to accomplish that with. It seems to me that if one hasn't gotten their act together by now it won't happen before May 31.

The only thing I know for sure is that there is no longer a sign up page. If you click on the "Join Today" link on the front page, it takes you back up to the announcement that he's closing. On April 30, 2011. Maybe that's what closing means? No new blogs? I highly doubt it.

The very fact that it's still there is annoying me. It's like watching a loved one being kept alive by machines. I almost get angry when I open the page and find it's still there. I want to yell...enough all ready! Stop teasing us with this nonsense. We could blog there, and run the risk of being shut down in mid post. It's useless the way it is and yet it pulls me back to read and remember. I keep hoping the closing announcement was one big joke and I'll wake tomorrow to a big laugh. Which is probably why I'm so annoyed. I know it's not a joke and it will go away...sometime.

AWWW YEAH FLOWERS!

2011-05-01T18:58:00.000-04:00

Once in awhile I encounter an image online that simply makes me happy just looking at it. This picture is one of those moments.

Somehow or other, I don't know whether it's an age thing or just a human thing, but we seem to lose the ability to express that much joy. I am grateful for the reminder that it exists and am bound and determined that I will experience it again.

If your computers begin to vibrate or otherwise shake as if they've been exposed to an earthquake, don't worry, it's just me jumping up and down with joy and maybe rocking my world a bit.

Eat First, Then Breathe

2011-04-30T13:57:00.000-04:00

It's been a long time since I've gotten excited about food. Most of what we buy at the grocers is enhanced with either color or flavorings of some kind. The more I look at how our food comes from farmer to table the less inclined I am to eat at all. Naturally, eating is an integral part of living. Much like breathing, we need to eat in order to survive. The problem is, every time we turn around, something we eat regularly is discovered to be detrimental to our health.

Back in the 90's there was a "fitness guru" with a program she called "Stop The Insanity". Susan Powter claimed that she had lost a great deal of weight simply by changing what she ate that made her fat, to a regimen of whole grains and fresh vegetables and fruits. Whether one believes she actually was ever fat depends upon which members of her family you decided was truthful. I never could make up my mind whether I believed her brother's claim that she was never fat, or her Dad's claim that she was. My interest in what she had to say waned due to the controversy surrounding her claims and now I'm kicking myself because of it. Essentially I should have overlooked the weight loss claims and focused on the issue of healthy eating. Had I done so, I'd be much farther ahead health wise than I am now. It may be that the current trend towards Whole Foods and Organic eating finds it's roots in her program. Much of what I am learning is what she was saying 20 years ago.

I figured that there wouldn't be a single thing anyone could find wrong with eating more whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables. Add to that the lowering of fat and I should live to be 100...right? Here I am well into the new habit I've acquired of eating a bowl of either steel cut or old fashioned cooked oats every morning when I find out that might not be as healthy as I thought. The problem seems to be that I'm eating American grown oats. According to this article I read the other day, oats are pure white. What I'm eating is sort of an ivory color. That color in my oats comes from mold. Mold that is intentionally caused simply to create color. I'm supposed to be eating Swedish oats from some company that doesn't create mold for color in their oats. Mind you, those oats cost upwards of $8 a pound plus shipping and handling, and are only available through mail order, online. I'm gonna get right on that. Suuuuure I am.

I look at it this way, so far, after having eaten moldy oats now for close to 5 months, I haven't accused anyone of casting a curse on me. I'm not seeing the devil in my coffee cup, nor am I hearing voices from the bag the oats come in. I'm not feeling that the mole, with the hair growing out of it, that has appeared on my elderly neighbor's face is any indication that she's a witch. I'm not feeling that anyone is out to get me, nor are my brain waves being altered by anything I need to wear a tinfoil hat to protect against. Bonus! The neighbors dog isn't telling me to kill anyone.

I don't have a runny nose. I'm not sneezing, coughing nor do I have a rash anywhere. I'm not tired all the time, I'm getting pretty energetic actually. I do have the normal joint aches that accompany arthritis, but I had those before I started consuming cooked oatmeal for breakfast. Not hardly anything that is being caused by mold. Plus I'm only spending $4 a pound for my oats.

Apparently, I wasn't the only one not paying attention to Susan's admonitions to "stop the insanity" To make up for my lapse, I am paying attention to another one of her catch phrases. "Eat, Breathe, Move". I've eaten, I'm breathing and now I'm moving out to check out a farm where I might be able to purchase grass fed beef, pork, eggs and poultry. I said that if such a place existed in our county, I'd find it. Who knew it might be a mere 15 minute drive away? Now, that's exciting!

The Unaccomplished Life

2011-04-28T20:42:00.000-04:00

We had a storm on Tuesday here in my area. I have an entire post written about the storm, the flooding, the tornado and how closely I came to getting caught in the thick of it. Then I remembered the real tragedies in the area where tornados are a common thing and wondered why I thought our storm was so special?

This picture is interesting to me due to the buildings pictured in it. The building on the right side of the picture is my doctors office and the gray building on the left is the Health Food Store where I buy my supplements and other things. I was going to go there on Tuesday, but changed my mind or otherwise I'd have been there when that bolt of lightening hit. That's a car it almost struck.

The white building in the background is a cheese factory. You can faintly see the lightening bolt that actually hit it. Blew some tiles off the roof but no one was hurt.

Someone said to me awhile back "Why do you have a blog?" As I sat here reading that earlier post and what I had written about the storm, I found myself asking that very same question. I decided that had it not been for Mom's death, I wouldn't even know what a blog was, so how do I answer that question?

I had only used the internet once at a friend's house, and suddenly I've got an internet connection and the first thing I do with it is sign up at a blogging site? I don't whitewater raft. I don't travel all over the world. I don't pay the least bit of attention to pop culture unless it's shoved in my face and yet, I have a blog. Strikes me as being pretty arrogant. The notion that a middle age female of no particular accomplishment seems to think she has enough to say that she needs a blog to say it makes me shake my head in wonder. What am I doing here?

I look back over my life and frankly, it's pretty boring. Mind you, I am not at all discontented with it, I just can't see why I thought it would provide fodder for the blog mill. Yet, for 5 years it has. I am apparently somewhat more amazingly opinionated than I thought I was. That last sentence, by the way, is a bold faced lie. I've always known I was amazingly opinionated, I just never knew that I would be a worthwhile blogger. I just did it. I just signed up on a blogsite and started writing. Then I found out I was supposed to have a goal. Well, I'm not always known for doing things the right way.

Once in awhile I throw caution to the wind and walk up the down staircase. Sometimes I like to exit the entrance. Gives me a different perspective on life. One that I believe will provide me with a blog topic here and there. And if nothing much occurs to me, well, there is always the weather.

Guilty Pleasures

2011-04-27T17:07:00.000-04:00

I used to be a wrestling fan. Yes, I knew it was scripted. To me, it was entertainment and something I was raised with. Back in the 50's I used to watch the Saturday noon half hour of wrestling with my Grannie. It was a normal part of my every other weekend stay at Grannie's and Grandpa's. We'd get up around 7, have breakfast, do dishes, make beds, get dressed, do some housework and always leave to go grocery shopping by 9:30. We'd be back by 11 or so with whatever she purchased. That would give us time to put things away, have lunch, set the dishes to soak in the sink and retire to the living room for the 12:30 matinee bouts that were televised back then. In the same way that Mom made sure I understood that Heckle and Jeckle hitting each other with wooden mallets wasn't real, Grannie made me understand that those men in the squared circle were acting.

Since this was such a normal part of my growing up years, I thought everyone knew that the wrestlers we saw on TV were actors playing roles that were physically demanding. I found out, as I grew up, that this wasn't the case. There were people who didn't see it as entertainment, they seemed to see it as a waste of time, or in some cases entertainment fit only for trailer park trash.

The current owner of the WWE, Vince McMahon, took that type of entertainment from it's origins as school gymnasium events to the bigger arena venues by admitting that it was "sports entertainment". He also managed to find wrestlers who looked much hotter in tights than his Dad had. I imagine that was a good thing since as he acquired decent looking men, the storylines started to decline. The good guys (babyfaces) became bad guys (heels) and the stories became mean spirited and in some cases downright ugly. The wrestlers became so arrogant that I could find nothing redeeming in the entirety of it so, I quit watching.

Of course, I hadn't stopped watching until after the character known as Chris Jericho joined the roster. To me, he was just another arrogant blond with a steroid body. A carbon copy of all the other long haired blonds who were wrestling at the time. As a matter of fact, I had named him "Chris Jerkico" I was bored with the concept and uninterested in watching him develop. Imagine my surprise when he was one of this seasons "Dancing With The Stars" cast. I almost decided not to watch it because of that. I'm so very glad I did.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that Chris Jericho had something more going for him than his wrestling fame. He put every effort into learning the dances assigned to him. He listened to criticism without becoming defensive. He admitted when he hadn't done well without making excuses. He looked pretty darned good without his shirt on too.

He was voted off the show last night and I was rather dismayed. Either wrestling fans don't watch DWTS or more guys wanted to watch Kendra shake her booty. Seeing Chris Irvine not playing Chris Jericho when things didn't go well went a long way towards taking away the very bad taste in my mouth that wrestling became. Not enough for me to start watching it again. It's not my kind of entertainment anymore.

One Last Trip Down The Stream

2011-04-25T15:09:00.000-04:00

Some, or maybe all of you will have read part of this post at our beloved former home, Blogstream. We're just a few days away from it's disappearance into whatever place in the ethernet that dead blogsites inhabit. I haven't reposted many of my posts from there simply because they were mostly related to things that happened at the time which makes many of them irrelevant today. The music posts I wished to save were all posted here in 2009 when I decided I wanted to leave the stream. The reasons for that move have been buried in the past and no longer matter, however, given the current state of things, I'm very glad I moved those posts. Many of you have had your nose to the grindstone saving your work these past few weeks while I have simply been playing around.

This was a poem I wrote in honor of many of the friends I had made in my early days as a blogger there. I should say the first 6 verses were from the early days. I brought it out and added to it early in 2009. One more verse was added today. By rights, this should be saved and posted here on Saturday April 30, but tomorrow would have been the beginning of my 6th year as a Blogstream blogger so I'm sure you'll understand why I'm posting it now.

Life is full of Second Chances,

And Uninspired Thoughts.
Along The Spiral Path of life,
I wonder, what has it brought?

Whispered Promises, My Mindlessness
Or am I Just Being Me?
Trying Not To Come Undone,
Should we ask Mr. P?

Inside The Flame, a River Rat
In the Pirates Cafe
The Good The Bad The Ugly,
I really couldn't say.

I'm in The Dog House, I believe,
Along with Library Cat.
Whit's Whittling My Nutty Life away,
I don't know where I'm at.

Echo's From The Tomb, I say
My Momma Never Told Me,
I'm Burning the Wick at Both Ends
Oh my, it's Ain't Life Peachy.

Ordinary Stuff from Ordinary People,
Deja Vu All Over Again.
Pets Discuss Their Problems
When will it ever end?

From inside the Inner Sanctum
I gazed at the View From The Bluffs
I've also seen MacKenzies Inner Fire
And I can't get enough.

Lifes Lesson's Endings and Beginnings
The Bits and Pieces of my sleep
Living And Dying in 5/4 Time
It's enough to make one weep.

Touchy Subjects or Strange Phrase Indeed?
Life Is Not One Big Joke.
I think I'll retire to Mr Ornery's Corner
And have myself a Coke.

Bella's Got A Brand New Blog
With Music Music Music.
I'm caught in My Soap Opera Life,
Help! I'm in need of radicaldiscipleship.

There is Ice on the Windshield
And I'm Blogging Along In My Automobile
Is this a quest for One Perfect Moment?
Or is it time for a brand new deal?

No, this is just a Stream of Consciousness
Flowing out like My Life On The River
Trying to catch hold of Moonsilvers Dream
Before I go Streaming Yellow Zonkers.

I'm taking Railroad Street to catch the train.
And I won't be back again.
Beloved Blogstream will soon be gone
And all your memories will linger on.

There are 42 blogging friends represented in that poem. Scratch and Bella both had blogs whose titles are represented twice. I borrowed the graphic for this post from Scratch's last Blogstream post. Somehow a stream in the Autumn of it's life seemed to be the perfect choice.

I'm going to be posting the poem in Blogstream tomorrow as a farewell to my first 5 years as a hobby blogger, and then I will be blogging on over here. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm going to keep blogging until I get it right.

Life's Simple Pleasures

2011-04-23T14:18:00.000-04:00

Among the things the doctor has determined about me is that I have abnormal adrenal function. That abnormality is the source of my nighttime anxiety attacks. Caused by excessive production of the stress hormone cortisol. The adrenals are supposed to work in a way that cortisol is produced in the early part of the day, it should peak in the early afternoon and then wane throughout the rest of the day to a lower value. I seem to have two cortisol production speeds, high and higher. Which leaves all that hormone floating around in my body when I need to relax and sleep. This seems to be a common occurance in Type A people and may be why we have type A tendencies to start out with. It also contributes to high bloodpressure. I have a supplement designed to nourish the adrenals and to support their function. I also have a number of supportive measures to help with the issue.

I have stretching exercises that have to be performed in the morning before I begin my day, and then again in the evening before I go to bed. Stretching my muscles uses up some of the cortisol. Meditation also helps, but there are days that I can't find the quiet, alone time to accomplish a meditative session.

I have a high stress job, taking care of people in their homes can be stressful in ways that don't immediately occur to me. Some of that stress is alleviated by the movement involved, but there are days that things go wrong. I see families that ignore their loved one when they shouldn't. They're in denial as to the true conditions of the client so everything the client asks them to do is a burden and they respond to that. I try not to be judgemental, but some days it's more than I can accomplish. I grit my teeth while trying to stay out of the situation, and I end up having an anxiety attack.

When all else fails, and sometimes it does, I have found that filling my thoughts with things that are pleasant to me help me to not focus on the attack, so it's duration is much shorter and quite a bit easier to handle. Sometimes it's a matter of reminding myself that even on the darkest days, good things happen. No matter how bad the day, we always have little pleasures. It's just a matter of stopping to remind myself that they exist and the day wasn't all bad.

The following is a list of some of my pleasures.

Snuggling under the down comforter on a cold night.

Making the turn onto the home street after a hard days work.

The scent of spaghetti sauce simmering on the stove.

The shy smile of the toddler in the shopping cart in front of you in the check out line.

The sight of a crocus pushing up through the snow.

The first bud of daffodil in my garden.

Saying Thank You to someone holding a door open for you.

Returning the favor and being thanked.

Being greeted at the door by your pet acting as if you've been gone for a month.

The hug and wet kiss from a small child.

Hearing the voice of someone you haven't talked to in a while.

The sound of laughter among friends.

The scent of a steak sizzling on the grill.

Cleaning out a pocket and finding money when you're broke.

A smile from someone you love.

The playfulness of a puppy or kitten.

The purr of a cat on your lap

The warmth of a baby sleeping in your arms.

Getting to stay inside on a cool rainy day.

The sound of music.

A good book.

Memories.

Knowing that you're loved.

Having the ability to recognize and appreciate that life does have it's little pleasures.

Some Facts About Factory Farming

2011-04-20T18:09:00.000-04:00

One of the biggest concerns on the part of my doctor is the foods we eat from factory farms. We talk about those farms putting the family farmer out of business, but do we really know what factory farming is?

It actually began back in 1920 when Vitamins A and D were discovered. Add these two vitamins to animal feed and they don't require sunlight or exercise for growth. This allowed large number of animals to be housed indoors in smaller spaces without sunlight or movement year round. Since the animals were so closely confined, it also insured quick spreading of diseases which was dealt with in the 1940's by the development of antibiotics.

Todays animals raised on factory farms are pumped full of antibiotics, hormones and other chemicals to increase productivity. They are confined to small cages with metal bars with artificial lighting, or no lighting at all. They are no longer animals, they are food producing machines. Chickens get their beaks seared and their toes cut so they are unable to fight. Other animal's tails and ears are docked, their teeth are cut with pliers and, of course, they're castrated. Without benefit of pain killers.

The chicken industry alone generates 6 billion whole chickens annually from 60 producers. Animals are genetically altered and bred selectively to produce bigger thighs and breasts. This creates birds so heavy that their bones can't handle the weight. They are bred to grow at such a fast rate that they reach the market weight of 3.5 pounds in just over 7 weeks. Laying hens don't have it any better.

Between 5 and 8 birds are placed in a 14 square inch cage. This, of course, causes aggressive behavior. To combat that their beaks are seared off. Chicks are separated at birth and most newborn males are suffocated in trash bags. The layer hens are subjected to constant light to encourage more egg production. At the end of their laying cycle they are either slaughtered or forced to molt by water and food deprivation, which shocks them into another layer cycle. Many birds become depleted of minerals because of this excessive egg production and either die from fatigue or can no longer produce eggs and are sent to the slaughterhouse.

Pigs, veal calves, dairy cows, you name it, the factory method will apply. Pigs kept in cages that are not large enough for them to turn around in. Veal is actually produced from the dairy industry more than from the beef industry. Bulls born to dairy herds are sent to veal crates where they're pumped full of growth hormones and the ubiquitous antibiotics. If they become upset enough to fail to eat, they're pumped with appetite enhancers like steroids to force them to eat. In the US almost 50% of the antibiotics produced is administered to animals destined for our dinner table. That scares me due to all of the super bugs we're learning about now. They mutated from over use of antibiotics.

All this animal suffering is doing is producing a food supply that isn't safe. Cage cleaning is done by automation since the animals can't be moved. How effective is that automated cleaning? Not overly effective since 51% of tested meats were found to harbor staphlococcus aureus bacteria. In the words of my doctor..."We still have to consider the food source; highly processed animal or plant source with GMO’s (genetically-modified organisms), hormones, antibiotics, fecal-laden, caged environment, saturated with herbicides, pesticides, etc." Yeah, it's not just our meat supply. It's everything we buy in the grocery stores across the US.

It's enough to make me ask myself if the increase in child behavioral problems like ADD, Autism or Aspergers Syndrome has anything at all to do with vaccines and everything to do with antibiotics in our food. How much of all of the chemicals in our food adds to our own health concerns? Is there any evidence that all these chemicals are contributing to obesity? I don't know, but it wouldn't surprise me a bit if it did.

Some Mondays Aren't So Bad

2011-04-18T19:34:00.000-04:00

A doctor's appointment I had last week got postponed until today. Of course, I figured it wouldn't go well since most of my Mondays don't. Imagine my surprise when the day went great including the doctor's pleasure at my progress. When something as dangerous as high blood pressure is being addressed without mainstream medications, it is necessary for her to keep track of what's happening. My appointments have been every 4 weeks and because of my remaining stable, I have been moved to 6 weeks.

We talked about the nutrition information site I emailed to her. I told her about finding a source of fresh eggs locally and I'm not sure that they're organic but they are free range. That I can attest to since I saw the chickens out and about. I was driving along at 55 mph and the rooster started running towards the road. I'm thinking OMG I'll hit it, but there is a fence there. PHEW! I can get grass fed beef there too. She's not enthusiastic about the beef, but admits it's better than buying from the chain grocery stores.

In her estimation, I am taking responsibility for my health and doing the right thing for myself. Including the cut in my work hours that I asked for. Two of my clients have been discharged by the county for noncompliance issues. I asked not to have more cases assigned to me right now since I needed to take some time for me. I have a To Do list that isn't getting anywhere with so many work and travel hours. I didn't realize how many hours I was actually tied up with work related tasks.

Company policy is that if we agree to work 30 hours a week we get $1 an hour more than they pay me right now. I was working twenty nine and a half and traveling four and a half. Which makes my working hours 34 per week. The catch is, the 30 hours has to be client care, not client care and travel time. I examined the agreement they propose to their employees and found that in any week I drop below 30 hours due to a client cancellation or an illness on my part, I HAVE to make those hours up or lose the $1 per hour "Incentive bonus". It's not a raise, it's a bonus, something they can take away at will.

This is an area where we have icy highways for quite a few months of the year. So, for that extra buck an hour I HAVE to drive on them to get to the clients even in dangerous conditions. Stressful? Oh, you betcha! Plus, they can give me clients that I have to drive up to 20 miles to and from. I DON'T THINK SO!

I'm taking my loss of 3.5 hours and working my 26 plus 4 hours travel which will give me enough money to pay the bills and have a few bucks for whatever. Part of reducing ones blood pressure is learning how to reduce stress and change how you deal with the stress you can't reduce. I've done pretty well with dealing with it, but I admit, it still kicks me in the butt.

I end up on Friday nights feeling like someone pulled the plug on my energy supply. My muscles all get sore and I begin to feel as if I'm coming down with something. A good nights sleep and I'm fine the next morning. It's like the doctor says, my body is saying ENOUGH. I should listen to it and I am deciding she's right. I'm over 60 with arthritis in my spine, hips and knees. That's a stress that I can't change, but I can reduce it by shortening my hours a little and spending more time with the stretching exercises I'm doing. All in all it wasn't a bad Monday, even if I did find out I'm getting old.

Peel Me A Roof??????

2011-04-17T16:02:00.000-04:00

Shortly before noon yesterday the WIND started blowing. There were gusts that reminded me of the Big Bad Wolf huffing and puffing and trying to blow my house down. The trees all seemed to withstand the onslaught and we kept our power through it all. Didn't seem like much by the way of damage happened around here. That is, until Hubby came home a little bit ago.

He had a job to do this morning, got home around 1:30 pm. He breezed into the house, grabbed a quick cup of coffee and told me he had to go to Lowes, but he didn't tell me why. He likes shopping at Lowes, and I just assumed he needed fittings for a job or something. It wasn't until he came back home from Lowes with the sheet metal screws that he told me what was wrong.

I don't understand it because along with the wind, it poured all night long. Nothing leaked into our home, but apparently the wind tried to steal our roof. An entire section of it had lifted from it's anchors and had peeled back. He's out there as I type this, putting it back in shape and anchoring it down again.

It seems to me that we should have heard somehting that indicated damage, but there wasn't anything out of the ordinary. Just the normal creaking and groaning and the sound of the wood stove chimney weaving in the wind. Based on what we've seen, I should have had a flood in my house from the rain.

Of course, now that he'll have it anchored down again, it will leak when we get the next rain. We won't be able to roof coat it again until the weather warms up. Oh well, maybe I'll get that nice rubber roof I've been wishing for. We'll see.

Music Of My Life Playlist

2011-04-15T21:15:00.000-04:00

I enjoy many different genres of music, but there are certain songs or groups that resonate with me in ways that have allowed me to enjoy them for much of my lifetime. Some of them were connected with a happy event. Some of them were connected to a time in my life when I was possibly vulnerable and some are just songs that suggested the sheer joy of life to me.

All of these songs, and many, many others are part of the journey I have taken in the past 40 plus years. These are the ones that have stood the test of time. The music that will make me turn up the radio or simply stop what I'm doing and listen, and remember. Not all memories are happy ones. There were deaths, break ups, friends won and lost. New loves, old loves and time marching on.

There were probably a hundred more songs that I could include on that list. Groups like The Stones, Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Doobie Brothers, Three Dog Night, Simon and Garfunkle to name a few, but I decided to stop at 50. It's not a top 50 list by any means, it's a put a smile on my face and a song in my heart list.

That is what music does, I think. It comforts when you're sorrowing, lifts you when you're down. It shares with you joy or laughter and always makes you listen. Always.

The Result Of Thinking Too Much

2011-04-14T16:10:00.000-04:00

Something that I left out of my post "Unrelated Thoughts" was the subject of bullying. It seemed to me that topic deserved more than a paragraph or two. I'm seeing a lot more bullying in Twitter than I used to. There was an attempt by someone to do it to me. Fortunately I'm not an influential Twitter user. The attempt fell short of it's mark simply because I wasn't worth wasting time over. I blocked the person trying it and they didn't create a new identity to continue the attack. Had I any influence, the story might have had a different ending.

I have seen bully attacks on some of the women I read regularly. Two of them were so threatening that the women became fearful for their safety. That was when we found out that the policy towards bullying created by the owners of Twitter would be no protection against it. The Twitter bullying policy is: A...Don't do it. B...If someone is doing it to you, block that person. C...If the bullying episode is that bad, involve your local authorities. However, Twitter doesn't guarantee that it will give requested information regarding the identity of the bully to said authorities.

There is, I suppose, an option D. That would be to close your own account and leave Twitter. That definitely would solve the problem, but is that fair? Isn't that rewarding the bully and punishing the victim? Sort of a mixed message there isn't it? Does that mixed message exist because of online anonymity? I've wondered if the anonymous aspect of the internet gives people the idea that anything goes?

Why is it considered to be all in fun and those who are on the receiving end should get over themselves and get a sense of humor? What about adults bullying kids? There have been criminal proceedings brought against two such women. The incident at Myspace caused the suicide of a 13 year old. The Facebook incident is appalling in that it targeted the family of a dying child.

The internet is the information highway and as such it is also the misinformation highway. One person can post a lie about someone and in a flash that lie can begin to roll down the mountain and like a snowball can become larger and larger until it totally obliterates it's intended target. What is there about the internet that creates these kind of monsters? The idea that because they're anonymous they won't get caught? Maybe it's caused by a society that sends a very mixed message regarding bullying.

We have become a society where the word compromise is equated with caving in or being the weaker opponent. There is no argument that cannot be solved through open discussion and compromise, but that means that some concessions must be made. Depending upon what side of the issue we stand on, somehow we think those concessions have to happen from the other side. All of them. How do we achieve that desired end? From what I read, it appears we're supposed to bully the other side into caving.

In a world where young people kill themselves because they're being bullied, some adults expect the President of the United States to use the White House as a bully pulpit to force the other side of the issue into capitulation. Now that right there is a fine example for our young people to look up to, isn't it? It's OK for adults, especially politicians to bully other politicians. Or for Conservatives to bully Liberals and vice versa. I'm thinking that if we really want to stop bullying and the pain it causes our young people, maybe we ought to look at our own behavior?

Unrelated Thoughts

2011-04-13T17:00:00.000-04:00

I love my Blogging Friends. Sarge is finally of the opinion that "Blogspot smokes Tumblr" and Scratch is breaking up with himself. Bella got her kitty back and her computer fixed. The way things are going, I may have to send her a box of Calgon to take her away. Either that or a gentleman with oodles of money willing to support her in the style she deserves. Since I'm flat out of gentlemen with oodles of money, she'll have to make do with the Calgon. Sorry Miss B.

Since I'm no longer sick and no further mice have entered our home, Hubby's sense of humor has returned. I caught him apologizing to Butterscotch over our attitude towards him when he tried to serve Mommy breakfast in bed. Since he was in the same bed with me, I can't figure out why the breakfast in bed was intended for me. It's probably one of those situations where good Butterscotch is his and naughty Butterscotch is mine. I sometimes wish I could be as funny as he is. Shhhhh, don't tell him I said that.

Maybe it's me and my brain isn't functioning as well as it used to, but I can't figure out why the drivers behind me don't seem to understand that they can't go faster than I do when I'm in front of them. I'm no slowpoke driver, but I tend not to go more than a couple of miles over the speed limit. Simple commonsense should tell them that if the sign says 30 miles per hour and I'm in front of them doing 35, they can't do 50 without running over me.

I was on the boulevard technically speeding although I was keeping with the traffic. This guy behind me was so close I could see him shaking his fist at me. It's a four lane, I'm level with the guy in the right hand lane, I need to be in the left lane to make my turn. The guy in the right lane turns off into a parking lot and the driver behind me makes his move. He zooms to the right, and zooms again to the left so soon I had to slam on my brakes to keep from hitting him. He was so involved in his rage, he didn't see the cop pull out of the line behind him. Yup, his ass got nailed. My only regret is that after the scare he gave me, I had to make a left turn before I got to drive by his sorry ass. I almost think I'd have flipped him the bird.

I was so sick on Monday and so tired that I didn't watch Dancing With The Stars. I caught the Results show and was sorry to see that Sugar Ray Leonard had danced his last dance. The show last night opened with the song "Walk This Way" by Aerosmith which I found interesting. It was done with a solo violinist, although in this case it would be more apt to call him a fiddler. It was interesting but so disturbing on so many levels.

Yay! It's Hump Day, and I survived so far. How has your week been going?

Somebody Let The Monday In...They Need To Be Shot

2011-04-11T09:35:00.000-04:00

I called in sick today because I have had no sleep and I feel rotten to the core. First off, I read an Alternet article before I shut the computer down last night. In it was the information that a current poll indicates that 51% of Americans believe that President Obama is not an American citizen. That figure is up from 44%. The whole WTF aspect of that blew any chance of falling to sleep quickly, right out of the park. I finally dropped off to sleep somewhere around 1 AM, only to be awakened by Butterscotch.

Why did Butterscotch wake me, you ask? It's like this. A mouse he was chasing decided the bedroom was just the place to hide.

When Butterscotch was a little kitty, under the bed wasn't safe. He could scoot right under there after anything that moved. Now that he's a close to 13 pound adult, under the bed is a great place for small things to hide, he can't scoot under the frame the way he used to. So, he contented himself by running around the bed stopping long enough to stretch a leg and paw under there, but he himself just doesn't fit.

During the race to grab it, Mr or Mrs Mouse, whichever, decided to find a hidey hole by climbing up the underside of the bed linens to hide under the covers. Which is where I found it when I decided that it had been quiet long enough and that mouse had escaped into the bathroom and possibly down the plumbing as it goes through the floor. There isn't much of a gap behind the washing machine, but mice seem to be able to flatten themselves enough that I could hope this occured. I was wrong.

I pulled back the covers intending on climbing back in, only to find mouse wedged up against the wall between our pillows. Like the craven coward I am, I yelped in shock and mouse disappeared down the gap between mattress and headboard. No way am I getting into that bed.

Hubby went into the bedroom to see if he could find it and he wasn't able to, and again, after a suitable length of time, we thought the mouse had escaped. I changed the sheets and we retired to sleep for another 45 minutes. At which point we were again awakened by Butterscotch as he tromped across the top of us to get to the other side of the bed so he could catch the mouse as it tried to escape.

By this time it was 5 AM and nearly time for us to start our day. Hubby grabbed a few extra minutes of sleep on the couch while I sat in my easy chair dozing in an upright position. Mouse made another break for it at 6 AM. This time he made it to the hallway where he was promptly driven up the wall to sit on the top of the bathroom door frame. I was just about to bash it with a shoe when Hubby knocked him off there into a covered container, took him out into the woods and let him go. If it knows what's good for it, entering my home again will not be on it's agenda.

Shortly after Hubby trapped the mouse, I discovered that I had another problem not related to lack of sleep. There is a stomach bug making it's rounds here and it seems to have taken up residence in my stomach. No sleep, numerous trips to the bathroom and I still have to clean the bedroom to remove any traces of what the mouse might have left behind.

Towards the end of the day, when it is safe to do so, I will be making a trip to Walmart for either mouse traps or D-Con depending on just how miserable I'm still feeling. Probably mousetraps, I'd rather not accidentally poison the cat. One thing I know, I will not spend my money on those cute little no kill traps. As far as I'm concerned, the only good mouse is a dead one and I'm too mean and miserable today to consider being humane.

The Very Best Of The Sixties Was Found In The Music

2011-04-10T16:08:00.000-04:00

Rolling Stone Magazine asked it's readers to pick the Top Ten Greatest Songs of the 60's. Usually the results of lists like this frustrate me because I can think of so many more deserving songs. I have to admit it, but this time, the list is right. The only change I would make is to swap the Jimi Hendrix position on the list with The Who's position.

Top 10 Greatest Hits of the 60's

You will find 10 songs on 10 pages with 10 awesome live performance videos. It just doesn't get any better than this.

My New Tool

2011-04-09T15:44:00.000-04:00

In an effort to make the wisest choice when it came to what foods I should be eating, I decided I needed to know more about the nutrients in each food I consume. I really don't have time to read all the labels when shopping. If the store is busy I could be preventing someone else whose in a hurry from getting to a product they might need. I thought to myself that it would be an excellent thing if I could find out about the nutritional value of a food from home before I went shopping. Amazingly, I can.

Self Nutrition Data, Know What You Eat

We had braised country style ribs for dinner last night. Usually I serve them with a baked potato. I decided to have parsnips in place of potato. Hubby prefers the potato, but for me, the parsnips were a better choice. I get tired of potatoes. Last night, after I had served dinner, I decided to see what nutritional information I could find online. Quite by accident I discovered that nutrition site.

There's more on that site than just the nutrition label. It gives glycemic index for diabetics. It lists serving size, calories and says what is good about a particular food and what is bad. Parsnips are a little high in sodium. It lists the amount of sodium in the serving so I know not to add salt when I cook them. Gives a break down of all the nutrients to be found in the food. It even will estimate ones caloric needs when given the information it asks for.

All I have to do is type the food I'm looking for into the search box. It then gives you a page which includes choices. Things like whether the item is fresh, frozen or canned. Cooked with salt, raw. etc. You just choose the item that is closest to what you're looking for and it gives you all the label information plus other types of information about the item.

For me, this site will be useful when I need to go grocery shopping. I can decide from the comfort of my home if I'm making the wise choices. Also on that site is something that I never thought about. I have arthritis, and some foods have the ability to contribute to inflammation if a condition exists. Some are anti-inflammatory in nature. Knowing which foods are which could go a long way towards helping control the pain and the joint destruction.

With all the cleaning I've done today, my joints aren't happy. I think I'll go run the foods I plan on having for supper past the nutrition sites data finder. Hopefully they'll be anti-inflammatory so I'll be able to sleep in comfort tonight.

Same Old Same Old

2011-04-07T15:14:00.000-04:00

Just checked my Twitter and discovered my Progressive Friends bitching about Pres. Obama's decision to allow off shore drilling for oil, keep GITMO open for a few more months and our involvement in Libya in an attempt to establish a no fly zone. Imagine their surprise, since they think they're in tune with what America wants, when they read the latest Politicususa blog. It appears that 67 to 69 percent of Americans agree with those three decisions. As a matter of fact, according to a poll in the Wall St. Journal, where Mr. Easley gets his numbers for that post, the only decision of Pres Obama's last 5 decisions they don't agree with is staying in Afghanistan.

As the blog pointed out, these favorable figures a year away from an election don't add up to "one term president" as the Progressives and the GOP seem to believe. You can read the post here if you'd like:

Politicususa

Now that I'm all caught up with the news about how badly Pres. Obama is handling things, I'd like to turn my attention to more important things.

1. Bella's kitty came HOME!!!! Three cheers for King Fuzz. Hip, hip, hooray! (Say it two more times please).

2. Organic turkey breast lunch meat at $1 an ounce tastes like...wait for it...turkey breast lunch meat. About the same flavor as Sara Lee, which I'm told isn't as good. Apparently I have fried taste buds or something. Even the cat wasn't interested and he LOVES turkey. Whoo Hoo! Look at all the money I'll save by NOT buying it again.

3. If I plan on getting my Spring Cleaning done before Easter, I'm going to have to start it this weekend. I am so not looking forward to removing everything from the kitchen cupboards and washing everything down. I absolutely hate washing windows. However, I really, really love having a spanking clean home at Easter time. Ok, the truth is, I'd love to have it that way all the time, I just don't really, really love doing it.

4. We are expecting temperatures to finally reach the 70's by this weekend. I am washing my Spring coat as we speak. I should say I am washing the Spring coat that has hung in my closet for the last 3 years because it wouldn't fit on my body. IT FITS! YAY ME! I am accepting all offers for a pat on the back since I'm going to have to save my strength for the Spring Cleaning. *sigh*

5. Since the doctor doesn't want her patients pigging out on ham due to the preservatives and salt involved, we are having turkey breast without the Thanksgiving trimmings this Easter. I am on the hunt for some interesting veggie side dishes to make up for the lack of stuffing and such. I am having cranberry sauce because Hubby won't do without it, and mashed taters and gravy of course. Everything else is going to be different...somehow. Haven't figured it out yet, but I'm working on it.

A Dollar An Ounce?

2011-04-06T18:39:00.000-04:00

The newsletter from the doctors office arrived with the list of all the farms that I will be buying fresh produce from this coming season. While all farms grow produce using organic methods, not all are certified organic which is fine by me. While I am willing to admit that organic is probably better for us, I'm not always going to be able to purchase certified organic products. Case in point would be the organic turkey breast lunch meat I bought today. It's a dollar an ounce. I have been told that I will be able to taste the difference. We'll see.

I will be able to buy free range eggs, honey, strawberries, blueberries, apples, fresh veggies in season and garlic at farm stands within an 8 mile radius of my home. I now know which farmers markets to attend and which to skip. The ones to skip are farther away, how lucky can I get? With gas prices over $4.00 a gallon as of today here, closer is better. Otherwise, I would have had to buy my produce at the grocery stores that I usually frequent, plus I wouldn't be getting local grown or fresh.

I filled my tank on Monday at a Nice and Easy near one of my client's homes. Paid $3.86 a gallon. Left one of my clients in the city today and passed 3 separate stations all selling at $4.02 a gallon. If, or maybe I should say when gas prices hit $5 a gallon I will be asking for a raise to offset my expenses. I travel 145 miles a week to service my clients. I drive an older car which gets around 28 mpg's. That still translates to around $26 a week just to work. Add to that the need for tires and I might just as well stay home. Except that I need to eat.

My other option would be to dump those clients that cost me a gallon of gas to travel both ways. I have two of them, and they don't have another aide willing to travel to these two clients. Which doesn't mean I'll get a raise. I might get an extra buck or two for doing those two cases specifically. We'll see what develops. All I know is that my costs are going up and my income is staying the same. Something has to give pretty quick, and I suspect it isn't going to be the company I work for.

Sometimes It's The Little Things That Remind Me

2011-04-05T17:29:00.000-04:00

On Sunday when at daughter's for the grandbaby's birthday party, I was putting ice cream back in the freezer when the top of my head got smacked. Much like Bashful, daughter's kitty, Romeo likes to lie about on top of the fridge.

Since Sunday I have been fighting with a case of the blues. She's been gone since Dec. 22, 2008 but there are times when I miss her to the point where I just want to put my head down somewhere and blat. Of course, I don't do that, I just spend a moment away from others until I have a grip on my emotions.

Butterscotch is a much larger cat. He has strength that she didn't have, but lacks her agility. It takes agility to get to the top of the fridge in my house. Of course, we no longer have that particular fridge either. That one was a 1970's avocado green model, the one we have now is white. Bought it after Hubby got the inside of the cupboard above the fridge finished and the doors back on. It's a perfectly useless cupboard since I can't reach it, and Bashful no longer needs it to hide in. It does look nicer though.

She used to lie up there and when I'd open the door to the freezer, she'd smack me on top of my head with her paw. Sometimes she'd play with my hair for a bit and other times it was to get my attention so I'd scritch her ears. Kitties love scritches you know?

It was a sensation I haven't felt in quite a long time. She didn't have the ability to get up there the last year of her life. Age and I suspect the diabetes had combined to keep her confined to lower elevations. The dresser in front of the bedroom window and the back of the couch was about all she could manage.

I was a bit startled by Romeo's swat. Hadn't any idea he was up there and certainly didn't expect he would do that. Thought I was imagining things until I looked and saw his paw hanging down towards my face. I gave him a scritch until a noise from the other room startled him and he fled the scene leaving me with an ache in my heart where the ghost of Bashful lives.

I took a minute to collect myself and then returned to the festivities in time to watch the unwrapping of the gifts. I stood in a corner with a smile on my face and a desire to arrive at the end of the party so I could go home where the rest of my memories are. She was a good little kitty and I miss her.