It's All A Matter Of Perspective

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

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!

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

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

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!

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

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!