Foxy Mama's Blog

This is how it is and it’s not even Halloween yet…

2008-10-07T23:58:00.005-05:00

Yow, a lo-ong time has passed since I last posted. What was that I was saying about being better at posting more often?! Well anyway, here I am again… Wonder what I should talk about?

First, if the person who wrote asking me about Fred Pizzuto is out there somewhere, please write again and let me know how I can get in touch with you. I have no clue what your email address is but I would most certainly love to correspond with you about the wonderful, fantastic, wild n’ crazy percussionist, Fred Pizzuto. The Rock and I often wonder how ole Fred is doing. We hope he is well and still ‘percussing’ with the best of ‘em.

Second, if Lawrence Lormand is out there I want you to know, per your comments on an earlier entry on this blog’ that the ending of the “Pop” goes the mainspring story… mentioning the late John DeLorean is pretty much complete ( archived under April 2005) as is. After the relief van was delivered to the posh house on Rattlesnake Road the wild bunch (sugar-fueled kids) and I proceeded to the camp and it turned into “just another day in the life of this bus driving secretary. Mr. Lormand asked if I had any more John DeLorean stories to tell but no, alas, there are none. I did see John occasionally when picking up or dropping off the kiddos but other than a cordial hello we didn’t really have much in the way of conversation. He seemed like a nice family man and was very quiet and polite. He made some ‘kick-arse’ cars though. I always felt bad about what happened to him. I cannot help but believe he was set up and I’m glad that there is still interest in his dreamchild, the DMC-12.

There is a company, The DeLorean Motor Company, a newer company which purchased the name and logo and has taken up ‘the cause’ and is currently engaged in uniting the dreamers amongst us with the dream.

This year has flown by at an unprecented rate and I am hard put to slow it down. A very large chunk of the year was taken up by illness. I even ended up in the emergency room reenacting that famous scene from The Exorcist sans the rotating head. Gosh was I sick! I spent four days in the hospital and was attended to by a doctor who I call “Dr. Hollywood” because he is much too handsome for real life. I have been ‘scoped’ from both ends and am now taking a medication which has pretty much ended my misery. I had gotten to a point where hunger pangs were less painful than eating. I have made changes in my lifestyle and am starting to enjoy life again.

Older Sonny is still in the hospital and has spent the better part of two years in hospital. We visit him about twice a week and thank goodness it’s a lovely drive in all seasons because it takes an hour and 20 minutes one way. It takes quite a bit of time during our week. Although he has priviledges he doesn’t want to leave the unit and it has been a struggle just to get him to walk around. Lately we have encouraged him to take a short ride with us and we’ve finally been successful in getting him into the car, although he still won’t get out of the car if we stop somewhere. He’s still losing weight but is starting to eat a little more without such an effort as before. Progress is slow but we haven’t lost hope.

I have started reading aloud when we go up, after we talk for awhile and we’ve all been enjoying that. I’ve read a couple of new books by members of the 82^nd airborne paratroopers who were the subjects of the film Band Of Brothers on HBO. Fascinating books by some pretty special guys who, during the Second World War, had a good deal to do with preserving our country’s freedom. They were definitely heroes even though they didn’t think so. We owe those guys a real debt of gratitude.

Younger sonny has a shift on the local college radio station once again. We listened to him tonight and he was very entertaining. I think he was really enjoying himself. At one time the whole family was on the college radio station. When we had to leave town for a funeral the station had to fill more than 20 or so hours during the interim. Fifteen of those hours were mine alone since I had 4 separate shows of my own. I’m glad at least one of us has gone back since it’s so much fun. Younger sonny is a natural on the air.

Beautiful daughter, all the way over on the other side of the country, is most likely under the impression that the rest of the family has disappeared into a black hole since she has heard nary a word from any of us in an eon. What a family we are… Earlier this year sweet little granddaughter organized a fund-raising campaign of her own called African Nets for Nothing But Nets, a grassroots organization for saving lives by purchasing mosquito bed nets (through donations) to prevent malaria in families living in Africa. She has raised $1,375 so far, which is 20% of her goal of $5,000 for African Nets. She is aware of the dangers of malaria since her mom had it while working in the Peace Corps in Ghana some years ago.

On a sad note, our family doctor is dying. This is extra sad for us because he has become a good friend over the years. We were in his office earlier today and his nurse told me the cancer docs have said he probably has about 15 to 18 months left since the cancer has spread from his prostate to his bones and beyond. This cancerous assault is a travesty since he is a good man who has devoted his life to serving and saving others. He is my age and much too young to die. He is also a brittle diabetic which makes the treatment more difficult and he had polio as a child. He doesn’t complain though and continues to work. I can’t imagine going to a different doctor. We have come to rely on his jokes and relaxed manner. We always talk and catch up on family matters (his and ours) and he never hedges if he has something to say. He’s very straightforward. Doggone it...

It’s fall again and I feel blessed to live here in New England where Ma Nature knocks herself out every year to drape the landscape in the most beautiful array of colors that was ever on an artist’s pallette. Tomorrow we will go apple picking at an orchard which sits atop a hill that overlooks a huge expanse of mountains and valleys and rivers. Sunsets from there not only take your breath away but they leave you giddy. I think my favorite fragrance is that of an apple orchard on a sunny day. I’m already looking forward to that first juicy crunch…

Prelude to a post...

2008-04-18T16:44:00.002-05:00

I have recently come to realize that I’ve been pulling the layers of my life in around me like the cozy comfort of a soft warm blanket on a chill winter’s eve. Alas, as usually happens, it’s morning and time to thrust aside the covers and rouse to another busy day. And so I must throw the covers off, get moving and hie myself off to do battle with life once again. So be it…

Life goes on and my small respite is over. Thanksgiving came, went and then came Christmas, New Year’s and Easter. They were all satisfying. Here I sit on sunny day in April looking out the window and noticing succulent new leaves on the maple just outside. Hope! The world has survived and I with it and it’s time to look to the future. After such a respite though, it’s hard to get my ‘sea-legs’ again.

My resolution is, as always, to post more often. I admire folks who find time and inspiration to post every day or several times a week. Alas, I am not one of them. I had thought to be when I started out but fate has caught me out. Ah, well… I am here now and it’s a beautiful day and as the blood starts to flow to my extremities I feel the urge to rejoin the human race refreshed and invigorated.

Winter was beautiful! I have no complaints. Spring looks to be promising and summer? Well, summer is a whole ‘nuther topic, which I won’t delve into prematurely and taint with cynicism. Perhaps I won’t find summer so objectionable this year. We’ll see…

As of last week I am a year older and I’m amazed that I once found 63 to be a ‘ripe old age.’ Ha, ha… Except for the additional aches and pains and sometimes worrisome forgetfulness, I still find myself thinking of roller skating and such. I truly don’t feel much different from many years past except for feeling more comfortable within myself.

And the Rock said “indeed.” And I say “I’m hungry. What’s to eat?”

And so, for now, I’m outta here. Later…

A snowy holiday interlude...

2007-11-21T19:02:00.000-05:00

It snowed yesterday. It was the first snow of the season and it was beautiful! This snow was particularly enjoyable for a couple of different reasons. The Rock was home on vacation so he didn’t have to travel in it and he “didn’t have to shovel it himself.” That certainly added to his enjoyment. Watching the big fluffy flakes quietly falling was enormously entertaining and we had our noses glued to the windows like Ralphie and Randy and the gang when watching the Christmas displays in Higbee’s department store windows in “A Christmas Story.”

We moved to a new apartment recently and we now have a view. I joke and say that we moved to the penthouse since we moved from the first floor to the third floor of our same building, which is only three stories high, hardly the height of a building sporting an actual penthouse. Our new apartment is more spacious and brighter too since it is on the corner with windows on two sides. The back of our building faces a picturesque park-like area with lots of trees and a winding path through it. There are a couple of attractive benches placed strategically and even a small picnic table adorns the woodsy setting. It’s a pretty view and I am loving it.

There was still snow clinging to the tall pine tree branches and covering the lawn today. It was a great start to the holiday season. The only thing missing from the picture was a jaunty red cardinal sitting on a branch to set off the display. I am definitely feeling some holiday spirit starting to bubble up.

The snow has brought something else along with it. Skiing! No, not for us personally, but most certainly for a bunch of other folks… The first snowfall of the season in New Hampshire usually heralds a slew of traffic accidents until everyone gets used to negotiating the slippery stuff again. The newspapers and the radio are full of stories about traffic accidents as people go slip-sliding their way into ditches.

This year is just a bit different from ‘the norm’ though. A good many of the traffic mishaps have involved completely overturned cars. It is reported that a much higher than usual number of vehicles have ended up on their roofs. A state policeman was quoted as saying that people have been going too fast for conditions. I figure they’re probably hurrying off to their favorite mountains for some good skiing before the snow melts or is ‘rained away.’ It would seem that they’re getting in a little extra practice on the way.

Tomorrow it’s “over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house we go...” My mother is once again hosting the annual turkey bacchanal and I suspect the ole brother-in-law has commenced marinating already. The Rock is in the kitchen starting to prepare the required dishes for us to gain entrance and by this time tomorrow we ought to be writhing on the floor close to bursting from all the gluttony that we intend to commit.

Happy Thanksgiving!

She's Coming Back

2007-11-10T01:17:00.000-05:00

Sometime after the last blog entry Google took over Blogspot. Switching the account caused a glitch and it was impossible to upload to the ftp server for a long time. No one could figure out what the problem was but it eventually went away by itself. Computer issues seldom resolve themselves but the cyber gods must have finally felt satiated. I am glad it is resolved since I am the one who made the switch. Let's face it guys, screwing up anything on your wife's computer is as big a crime as spilling black ink on the new bedspread.

Foxy Mama also experienced serious computer performance issues earlier this year. Switching from McAfee to Norton resolved a lot of issues the worst of which was an incompatability with her Eudora email program. If you use Eudora you should avoid using McAfee. The problem is discussed on the McAfee website but the only fix would have meant switching to Outlook. So far there have been no issues with Norton.

The system performance improved after the switch but it required a significant increase of RAM to get acceptable performance. Somewhere along the line a new wireless mouse and a new ergonomic keyboard were added. So all the tools are in place and everything is working. The next step it to get Foxy Mama’s fingers dancing across the keyboard to talk about all the things that have happened these months she has been gone.

Whether it's weather...

2007-01-02T19:47:00.000-05:00

We live in New Hampshire, which is considered a wonderful place to be if you like winter. The place is rife with skiers, skaters, sledders, tobogganers, snowboarders, ski mobilers, ice fisherman...and me. You would expect New Hampshire to be cold and snowy wouldn’t you? Yep, you would. But it’s not. Not this year. The closest we’ve come to actually having any snow (in our part of the state anyway) is a brief dusting last week, not in time for Christmas and not even needing shoveling or plowing.

“What kind of winter is that?” you might ask. “Not winter!” I would answer. Dang! I like winter. I need winter. I need snow, nice fluffy white snow. So where is it?! The mid-west has hogged all the snow! Not fair… They get all the tornadoes and heat waves you could desire (if anyone in their right mind would desire either of those). Why do they have to get all the snow too?

I thought it would be nice now that we live in the apartment, to have a snowstorm where I didn’t have to worry about the Rock getting a heart attack because he was shoveling tons of snow every couple of hours and we could stay inside together and be cozy and have all that time to do ‘together’ things and sip hot chocolate or tea or some such and look out the window together and enjoy being out of reach for awhile and say things like “Look at all that snow! Boy, isn’t it great that I/you don’t have to go out in that and shovel and get tired and wet and sore…”

Now that we’re perfectly situated for enjoyment of winter instead of dreading it, there isn’t one. No snow. Nothing. The temperatures are such that a light jacket is about all that is needed most of the time. Well, all right… The Rock has to dress more warmly at night when he takes the Old Guy out for his interminable walks. I grant you that standing around for long periods of time waiting for the Old Guy to remember what it is that he’s supposed to be out there for can make you cold but part of that is because who wants to be outside standing around waiting for a geriatric dog’s bowels to get functioning anyway?

The Rock complains that he can’t even get up a good head of steam walking, and thus getting some decent exercise, because the Old Guy has gotten so terribly lame that he can hardly get out of his own way anymore. It’s usually a battle of wills and stubborn endurance as to the length and fruition (or futility) of the constitutional anyway. As with all of us getting old, the Old Guy’s ‘workin’s’ aren’t much anymore.

What often happens is that after being out so long I consider sending out the troops to see if they’ve succumbed to the elements or have been abducted by aliens, but then back in they come, the dog dragging and the Rock’s face flushed with consternation, just in time to hear the ominous sound of tootsie rolls of death plopping onto the wall-to-wall carpeting as the Old Guy continues on his journey through the length of the apartment laying down a fragrant track. The Rock has developed a very colorful form of verbal expression these days. He does everything in his power to coax our geriatric chum to express himself outside instead of inside but to no avail. This behavior has come about since he’s become so stiff and enfeebled. He’s not a spiteful fellow and until this past year he’s never ever had an accident of any kind under any circumstance. We’re trying to remember his exemplary past but the memory dims in comparison to frequency of the transgression.

Another thing which has become a problem is the Old Guy’s shaky bladder control. Oh he does alright in the house as far as that’s concerned but he has trouble holding it through the hallway until he gets outside on the grass. He forgets, I guess, which side of the door is supposed to be his cue. What happens now is the Rock gets him leashed up and runs out through the hallway as fast as he can and gets the Old Guy into permissible territory quickly and woe unto anyone who decides to come in that door at that moment. The Rock has to be careful that he doesn’t run anyone down in his haste. I suppose we should consider ourselves lucky that the Old Guy isn’t incontinent so far.

Well, for heaven sake, how did I get on this topic?! I started out to chat about a couple of winter ironies. The first being that New England is now warmer than other parts of the United States (places that are traditionally warm like the south and west…). It’s warm, there’s no snow, although there is rain, and now that we could enjoy a winter, there isn’t any. I think the Rock was actually looking forward to standing at the window and thumbing his nose since the snow was no longer a problem for him.

The other irony? We have not had to put the heat on. Not once! It’s so warm in here sometimes we have to open a window a little bit. Doesn’t it figure? We used to have to pre-buy a whole tank of precious oil to get us through the winter and that was expensive and called for us to monitor our usage and sometimes ‘tough’ it out a little bit. Heat is included in our rent now and we have not had to use any BTUs thus far. That means we’re paying for nothing. Sigh, might as well be summer…

New year, new home, old dog…

2006-12-31T23:48:00.000-05:00

It has been some year…oh yeah, quite a year! We moved…and it seemed like it took forever. We’re settled now and love the apartment but not some of the noise, although we agree that it’s still better than drunken college students prowling the streets in the early hours of the morning and cars going by with heavy basses booming. Now we just have a couple of adolescents with new hormones circulating in their bodies and no brains to temper the mess. These boys slam the doors incessantly and run all over the place, presumably in search of the errant gray matter necessary to govern their lives in a civilized manner. Of course many of the adults around here slam the doors too. Sigh…

The apartment is touted as luxury apartments and I have to say that it seems pretty luxurious in that it is modern, spacious enough and nicer than the old fashioned house we had. It’s easy and fun to take care of and it makes us feel as if we’re on perpetual vacation. It’s not unlike a nice large hotel suite. We got rid of a lot of old bedraggled stuff and bought some new furniture and our art work looks splendid on the walls. People who come seem to notice the art, that we’ve had hung for years, for the first time.

The apartment is comfortable and convenient and I no longer have to do battle with the stairs which became the bane of my existence for the past few years. I feel much more independent since I can do many things here by myself which were difficult for me before. The Rock and I have a new lease on life, you should pardon the pun… The hardest thing for us right now is living with an extremely geriatric dog and we feel a big bad decision closing in on us which we would like to postpone or, better yet, not have to deal with.

We are on the cusp of a brand new year and my chief resolution is to blog again…and regularly. Happy new year everyone! May this upcoming year hold good health, prosperity and joy for you and yours!!

Moving blues...

2006-04-18T13:03:00.000-05:00

We're in the midst of a l-o-n-g drawn-out move. For The Rock it's a back-breaking, gut wrenching ordeal. He says he'd like to blog about the whole thing when it's finally over and done with. If you're thinking about moving take this advice...DON'T! Stay put and be content. And if that doesn't deter you then think of this. Moving a 2-story house complete with full basement and attic, porch and garage, totally packed with the detritus of years of family accumulations, along with the apartment's worth of a "collecting" son who is temporarily waylaid on life's siderail, and trying to distill it down into a small apartment with a closing deadline glaring at you... Now that's something to think about. That's what is happening with us right now.

I didn't want to blog until I've written a long overdue letter to my dear beautiful daughter residing on the opposite side of this big country with the world's cutest kids but here I am throwing out a few crumbs to anyone who still checks in from time to time. She's first but this will be a place holder. She's growing used to this I'm afraid but actually it's a family curse which afflicts us all. Later folks...

A small tale...

2006-01-12T11:55:00.000-05:00

Our town, like so many other towns and cities across America, has leash laws and pooper-scooper laws. A lot of people in our town have dogs and the owners can be seen walking their canine friends at all hours of the day or night and in all kinds of weather. If nothing else the dogs in this town are forcing their owners into a more healthful existence by providing the exercise and fresh air they both need to thrive. One of the familiar accessories that can be seen on these dog-walking folks is a plastic bag, either held in the hand, looped over a belt or protruding from a pocket.

I happened to look out my window a little bit ago, something I do frequently since the computer is in a corner next to the window and I often take little breaks by leaning back and looking out the window. There’s always something interesting to see, if only the squirrels frollicking about, which always makes me feel slightly giddy and sometimes provides me with some good belly laughs at their blithe antics.

What I saw this time when I looked out the window was a cross between laughter and disgust. What caught my eye first was the college girl from the house across the street and the way she was walking…as if traversing the snow in barefeet or perhaps bedroom slippers…and then there was the dog. The girl and the dog looked unfamiliar so I concluded they were probably visitors (not that I gave it all that much thought to begin with) because the house across the street generates lots of visitors and not always early ones either, unless they stayed the night and left in the morning…the term “morning” being subjective.

Anyway, the dog was a most interesting looking beast, somewhat like a grayhound but large, perhaps like a great dane in size and color, although the fur was light and not mottled like the markings Dane’s fur tends to have. It wasn’t a bad looking dog and it trotted happily along on its long, slender legs totally oblivious to the mincing steps of the suspected owner. Down the driveway they came until the girl turned onto the sidewalk in front of the house, directly across from ours, then they crossed by in front of the house while the dog foraged about for…well, something.

Ah, the dog was foraging about for the right potty spot, which it found finally, directly in front of the elderly lady’s house next door to the “college house.” The girl didn’t appear to have the ubiquitous bag with her. In fact, she was poorly dressed for the venture to begin with. At this point I found myself curious about the outcome of this miserable girl and her cur. The dog squatted right on the front lawn of the old lady’s lawn while the girl tugged on the leash desperately but to no avail. Too late, the product was already rolling along on the assembly line. The girl’s ministrations, though fraught with stress, failed to move the dog to a more suitable spot, such as the front lawn of the students’ house where she came from to begin with, and the deed was accomplished. This was just too good.

As an aside, have you ever noticed how completely awkward and downright self-conscious a dog looks while squatting and “unloading?” It’s pitiable. Anyway, I wondered what the girl was going to do. Would she just walk away and hope that no one noticed, as so many folks do, laws not withstanding? Or would she do the “right thing” and clean up after her buddy? Perhaps feeling the stare of unseen eyes or perhaps just having been brought up responsibly, the girl looked about for something to remove the offending substance with. Ah, luck was with her! There it was…a cup, laying there in the snow from some lazy coffe drinker who no doubt was unaware at the time he or she tossed it how important that abandoned coffee cup would become.

Our heroine daintily picked up the cup from in front of the college house, walked back over to the elderly lady’s lawn next door and scooped up the “product,” all the while the dog danced winsomely around, oblivious to the drama. What happened next was the fascinating part of this narrative. The girl, after scooping, walked a couple of steps back in front of the college house and tossed the steaming contents of the cup onto the lawn there, walked a few more steps and when she got to the driveway to make her way back, presumably to the door she had exited earlier, turned and tossed the cup itself unceremoniously back onto the front lawn of the house and once again minced her way up the driveway with her pooch and disappeared.

I’ve never seen that dog before but I know I’ll never forget it. The girl was just another of the rabble that come and go from that house and maybe I’ve seen her and maybe I haven’t and maybe I will again and maybe I won’t. But that dog and that girl were certainly inspiring, perhaps not in the way one would like to be inspiring but inspiring just the same.

I just had to share…

Happy new year!...

2006-01-09T13:16:00.000-05:00

It is now January 9 of the year 2006 and I am disgruntled. On December 31^st of last year I ordered stamps online from the United States Post Office. Knowing of the impending rate increase, to take place on January 8^th (yesterday), I decided to order early…$.02, $.04 and $.05 stamps because I still have so many of the $.37 stamps on hand. I make my own cards so I like to use interesting stamps on the envelopes when possible and I have accrued quite a healthy stock of postage stamps.

It is now January 9 of the year 2006. Have I mentioned that already? Well… I have not received those stamps yet! On principle, it killed me to pay an extra dollar for delivery charges to have those stamps sent to my house but the weather has been “iffy” and my arthritis has been grumbling quite a bit so I figured I’d “bite the bullet” this time around and not go out. Besides, gasoline is certainly not cheap and by the time you add up the gasoline cost plus wear and tear on the car, I’d probably rack up $1.00 in cost to get the stamps anyway.

It is now January 9, 2006. I ordered enough of those small increment stamps to run up a tab of $7.70, which represents quite a few stamps when you consider that they’re only a few cents each. The order was to be delivered “Priority Mail.” I guess I’m not much of a priority to the U. S. Post Office since nine days have elapsed already and I have not seen “hide nor hare” of the stamps I ordered.

Since it is January 9, 2006 and nine days ago I ordered lots and lots of stamps and I have not seen these stamps yet, I am feeling quite “irked” at the U.S. Post Office right now. Let me say that I buy and use quite a few stamps over the course of a year since I send out a lot of cards and mail. The post office makes more than a few shekels on me each year because I am a creative person and I like to share my creativity with others and make their lives just a tad more fun and interesting.

On January 9, 2006…today, I am being prevented from sharing the creative fruits of my labors. Oh, okay, I have some $.01 stamps still on hand since I often have to tack on extra stamps to cover the cost of hand stamping some “lumpy” or particularly fragile envelopes but these one cent’ers will not last long at this rate. The envelopes are not as attractive with zillions of extra unmatching stamps either. Humbug!

So…on the 9^th day of January, 2006, 9 days after I ordered a few hundred stamps to be delivered by Priority Mail, I am still WAITING!!! This is Priority (!) Mail? I doubt it. The U.S. Post Office is a monopoly and I think they’re being pretty darn cocky about it. Gone is the “credo” of the early U.S. Post Office about neither sleet nor snow nor rain nor hale not preventing delivery of mail. Gone is the ethic about preparedness and responsibility. Aw shucks, I’m downright sore about this!

Nine days into January of the new year of 2006 I am still waiting to become a Priority of the United States Post Office. Okay, I admit…I did buy a roll of one hundred of the new $.39 stamps back before Christmas and put them away for future use…but…I still have a couple hundred different $.37 stamps that I would like to use up first! More practical! Prettier! Doggonit, I planned ahead. I exercised responsibilty. I spent money! Where is my product? If other businesses operated this way we wouldn’t tolerate it and they’d go “out” of business pretty quickly. I wouldn’t shop there and neither would you.

On January 9, 2006 I sit here and contemplate my role in the furtherance of the U.S. Post Office’s future. Dang, I hate feeling so impotent! I keep getting little cards from them urging me to order online and not have to stand in line and encounter the sometimes very rude people behind their counters (only some, most are courteous, and besides they didn’t say that about the rude people, I just added that in because it sometimes happens and it always makes me feel crappy). They mention convenience in these little notes. Convenience!! For whom?! Certainly it hasn’t been too convenient for me and I paid an extra buck for this inconvenience! I’m beginning to wonder if anyone receives any of the stuff I send. I do know that the mailman(woman, whatever…) comes later and later these days.

Oh well, here it is January 9, 2006 and I resolved not to complain so much this year. I was happy to put last year behind me and sally forth into a brighter future. Last year at this time Older Sonny was still in the hospital and we hadn’t even celebrated our Christmas, let alone ushering in a new year in celebration. There wasn’t anything to celebrate and the year continued on a downhill spiral bereft of hope. I had a hard time posting because I felt so awful and in fact, this is my first post since November 8^th, which many of you have reminded me often. I just couldn’t subject you to my gloom. I am trying to look ahead to better days now and I resolve to work on my optimism a little more. Now don’t you think that the United States Post Office ought to help out a bit on that? Say yes and I’ll send you a card…

Bored out of his gourd...

2005-11-08T15:59:00.000-05:00

My dear friend, who provided a few chuckles a couple of months back, has struck again. He is bored. I can tell... He needs a different job, one that provides him with stimulation and a chance to be creative and pays him double or even quadruple and doubles his vacation time or even quadruples that. He's definitely cracking up. As proof, I offer you this, his latest email to me...

Did you realize that fried pork rinds are sold by the bag? Evergreen trees are usually green. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches may contain nuts or nut by-products. You can tune a piano, but you can't tuna fish. Big bad boopity boppers will inevitably boopity beep bop biddy boo until the cows come home. And for a little while after. Pink cashmere sweaters are frequently seen as being pink. Sausages can be smoked, but not in a pipe. Two heads are generally thought to be better than one. You should never hit a guy wearing glasses. But, if you're hitting the bottle, it's usually more polite to pour your beverage into a glass. quattro rules!! "San Dimas high school football rules!!" Bogus! What did you find between your couch cushions? Who was Harvey and why would he bang a wall? Why is there no rule of big toe? Have you broken into a smile yet? How long until Monday morning at 8:00am? How much wood CAN a woodchuck chuck, since we all know a woodchuck can chuck wood? Would that hold true for unseasoned wood? Norwegian wood? Wood-grained linoleum? Butter brickle ice cream?

There! See what I mean? He's seriously...uh...seriously...unserious. How I adore him. He makes me feel almost sane...

Curses...

2005-11-01T17:38:00.000-05:00

Halloween seemed to have been cursed this year. The neighbor who had expressed great interest in our house informed us that he didn't think he could swing it after all. The trees felt obliged to shed their leaves in one fell swoop all over our freshly raked lawn and our fairly new and unfairly expensive Miele vacuum cleaner fizzled and died last night just as the Rock was going to clean up the substantial quantity of paper bits all over the carpet from the demon paper shredder which had just stroked out and died without warning. I cut my finger on sharp scissors and the milk was sour when I poured it over my cereal in the morning. There was a little pall of doom prevailing in our household yesterday and I think evil (or at least ornery) spirits were loose. However, the ghosties and ghoulies who visited us in the evening seemed pretty benign. Just hungry.

Halloween is over now for another year and our thoughts are turning from witches and black cats to fat turkeys and full bellies. How fast we change gears... Soon the snows will come and the gleaming icicles will be hanging from the roofs and the world will become a wonderland of sparkling white and there will be a special kind of quiet that can only be had when the snow blankets everything and mutes all sound and makes it seem "otherworldly." I love it when that happens and it amazes me when the same neighborhood that "sprouts" outlandish and raucous demons and ghouls one month becomes a dazzling fantasy land in another. I think I'd better get out the baking supplies. The holiday hormones are at work...

Halloween images...

2005-10-31T14:46:00.000-05:00

I wrote this little poem for the inside of my handmade cards a few years back. I usually use a font which looks scary and I rip the edges and smudge them to make them look old and crypt-like before mounting them on the insides of the cards...

HALLOWEEN IMAGES

Ghosties and ghoulies and ferocious black cats..

Witches on brooms, spiders and bats..

Jack o lanterns scowling, all orange and round

And lots of screeching, screaming sound.

Crooked tombstones all weathered and worn

and devilish scarecrows standing out in the corn..

Have a frightfully good Halloween!!!

A cookie a day keeps the cooties at bay...

2005-10-19T10:00:00.000-05:00

I confess to having a lifelong affection for Archway classic oatmeal cookies. Yes, I know… I shouldn’t be eating cookies and most especially I shouldn’t be eating storebought cardboard cookies from a package, as I call them. I have always prided myself on cooking and baking from scratch. But there’s something about those darned cookies that appeals to me. Don’t tell anyone, okay? I had one of those cookies just a little bit ago. The Rock brought them home to me as a gift the last time he went to the supermarket. Wasn’t that sweet? Of course it was probably to assuage his guilt for picking up potato chips and stuff for his stash. We each have a stash of junkfood that we hide away and have done so since the kiddos were little and now the habit remains.

The Rock is fond of potato chips, pretzels, cheese doodles, tortilla chips, nuts, etc. My affinity is for gum drops (spicy) and jelly beans, dried fruit, ginger gummy bears from Sweet Energy, hard candies and of course we both succumb to chocolate in some form or another. Oh and red licorice! I don’t know why we call it red licorice since there’s actually no licorice involved but I have a strawberry Twizzlers addiction from you-know-where… Ah gads I love those things. I know better than to buy them because I will continue munching on them long after I’m sick from eating too many of them.

Another thing we have a great fondness for are Edy’s frozen fruit popsicles. The Rock prefers lime and my poison is tangerine. Yum! Whenever we decide to watch a movie I always ask him if this movie comes with a popsicle? The answer invariably is “yes” but once in awhile we find ourselves out of them and suffer appropriately (if there is such a thing as appropriate suffering). Everyone has their own vices and ours are simple in nature and not very high up on the sin meter.

Anyway, tonight for some reason, as I sat masticating my oatmeal cookie I found myself looking at it and wondering what those brown things were that were interwoven with the other ingredients. They were moist, brown, amorphous and unidentifiable. They weren’t chips or raisins or anything with a structure that I could tell. My mind ran away with me for a minute while I envisioned bug-parts or something gross like that, although they tasted just fine. But then for all I know bug-parts might taste just fine. Some people eat bugs by choice. Eeeeeuuuuwwww, gross!!

I dug the box out of my cupboard again and scanned the list of ingredients and right there in tiny little letters, along with all the other ingredients (many of them unsavory sounding) was “bugs.” Just kidding, just kidding…it said…“raisin paste.” Raisin paste! What the goldurned heck is raisin paste?! Why on earth would anyone smoosh raisins up into a paste and insert it in a cookie? What’s wrong with using plain old regular raisins? Of course I probably wouldn’t like these phony but delicious cookies nearly as much if they had raisins in them, not that I have anything against raisins per se but they do tend to distract since I’d rather not have them in my cookies and I’d have to eat them first to get them out of the way as much as possible so I could enjoy the rest of the snack. All right, maybe I do have something against raisins after all.

Raisin paste! I still can’t get over that. So how do they get this raisin paste into the recipe then? Do they add it in little lumps and stir it in or what? And why? They don’t give the raisins billing in the description. They don’t say Archway classic oatmeal with raisin cookies. They don’t mention them at all except far down on the list of ingredients on the side of the package so why put them in there to begin with? I can just imagine some executives sitting around a board room discussing whether to put raisins in their cookies and finally getting into an imbroglio over whether to do so or not. The compromise, I’m guessing, is to pulverize those little buggers into a paste and add them surreptitiously. But why? Yeah, that’s what I’m asking too…

I had a friend once who really believed in health foods and herbal preparations and she told me about some wondrous mixture that she used on her family’s cuts, scrapes and afflictions. She called it “people paste.” She was quite serious about it and couldn’t understand why I laughed so hard and so long. People paste! I guess it was her earnestness or perhaps it was late and I was overtired but whatever it was, it tickled me into an incoherent condition. She went on and on touting the virtues of this “people paste.” I couldn’t stop imagining little people being ground up into a paste to be used as an exotic poultice on cuts, or having various pieces of wounded people glued back together again with this miracle mucilage. She did mention using it on her husband after he cut himself with the chain saw. It was made with goldenseal (I think) and I don’t remember what else but she claimed it worked miracles when put on copiously bleeding cuts and amputations, etc. Okay, she didn’t actually claim it would work on amputations but with such a track record as she recited, why not amputations?

Do you suppose raisin paste has some miraculous designation? Maybe it helps to hold the intestines together after ingesting too much fiber rich food? Maybe they had an overstock of moldy old raisins lying around in a warehouse somewhere which they needed to ditch somewhere? Maybe it was to fool unsuspecting cookie eaters so they wouldn’t realize they were eating healthfood? After all, most of the raisin eaters I know are health nuts and though I shouldn’t say it, they often look a lot like raisins themselves. Maybe it was to save the nosher’s life.

I once knew a little boy named Phillip who had 2 older sisters and every single time I ran into Phillip he was toting a little box of raisins and obviously relishing his gummy little snack. I questioned Phillip one day about his raisin eating habit and he told me, with all the gravity that little boys can muster, that he ate them to protect himself from cooties. Cooties, I asked? What about cooties? They’re from girls he told me. Girls have cooties and if you eat enough raisins they will protect you. What is it about the raisins that’s so effective in cootie control I asked him? He didn’t know so we brainstormed a bit and decided that it was proably the wrinkles in the raisins. Well, how about prunes, I asked? Prunes are bigger and have more wrinkles than almost anything. He didn’t buy it. He was all for sticking with the tried and true method. For his next birthday I bought him a huge box of raisins and I put a label on it which said that it was the jumbo size for cootie control…guaranteed 100% effective in preventing cooties caught from girls. He thought he’d died and gone to heaven.

I wonder whatever happened to little Phillip? Maybe he grew up and ended up becoming the head guy in charge of making raisin paste and including it in cookies. If so, then he really ought to speak to the advertising department. Just think how many lives he could save if people knew this important fact…

On the waterfront...

2005-10-14T16:57:00.000-05:00

Bam! Bam! Ding dong, ding dong, bam… That was the sound we awoke to last Sunday at 5:30 am, when the world was dark as the inside of a bat infested cave in Kentucky. What the heck..?! As the Rock struggled into his clothes to go downstairs and answer the door I tried for some semblance of consciousness. As a joke (only a joke), I called out to his retreating backside, “I will not evacuate!” Well, can you imagine my chagrin when the Rock came back up and said we had just been informed by a member of the town’s finest “disaster specialists (heretofore called firemen) that there was a voluntary evacuation in progress. A few dooors down the voluntary part of that warning was not an option.

By golly, that was an adrenaline rush I can tell you. Having suffered a shortened and fitful night’s sleep to begin with, this news pushed us over the edge and into action with coffee, black and strong, being the first order of the day. After the caffeine titration started to take effect we began the preliminary process of pacing, assessing and planning, all the while accompanied by copious hand-wringing on my part. Oh, have I neglected to mention that it had been abundantly and briskly raining for a few days prior to all this? How silly of me. It had been abundantly and briskly raining for a few days already, prior to this calamity. And it still damn is… Ooh, did she say “damn?” Yes she did and she should’ve known better than to mention dam(n) right now while the rivers are still rising and the rain is still briskly and abundantly streaming…one damn week later!!

Our street was seen on national media outlets. But we were still better off than a certain little town not so far from here…called Alstead. Those poor folks! Well, I can’t even express how sorry I am for them. Our little city was inundated and the arial shots made us look like a mini New Orleans (sans the looting, of course). Our house was about a driveway and a half away from the worst flooding around here. Some folks were waist deep in the water in the street and I don’t need to even tell you what that meant for their humble abodes. They were the ones unlucky enough to be evacuated with no “voluntary” about it.

The rain actually did stop for a time but the water continued to rise for quite awhile. Our sump pump was very adequate but at 9:30 am the power company visited the pole outside our house and the sump summarily stopped. Because of danger to the folks in the flooded areas all the power was shut down and we went without electricity for the next 38 hours. Bummer! Dark. Cold. NO computer!!! Aaaaaaagh..! My window on the world was figuratively boarded up. No news, no mail, no morning puzzles, no blogging, no “light” in this corner of the room. I called the sonnies, who live in this town, and made sure that they were alright. They were alright.

Meanwhile, the Rock was in the basement, bailing by hand so as to keep the edge in our favor, totally expecting that the water out there would go down quickly and the power would be restored soon. After all, the rain was stopped or at least down to a light drizzle off and on. Nope! It was not to be. There was a lot of activity out on our street though as neighbors began to sally forth to get a gander at the new lakefront in our neighborhood and ponder whether it was in our interests to invest in boats and perhaps erect some docks and maybe a little sand for the beach. In the end, the sand we envisioned in our humor-filled fantasies ended up in bags for the not-so-lucky among us to “shore” up the breaches.

The water filled street and yards remained for most of us a curiosity and we truly had no idea of how far reaching the flooding actually was nor how serious. Neighbors chatted at the water’s edge and caught up on each other’s lives and some took pictures and after an interval more folks began to show up from who knows where? Canoes began to appear and row boats and kayaks too. And yahoos in big trucks with huge wheels and who blithely and with complete disregard of the swells they were making and whose basement they were putting in jeopardy, began plowing through the water only to discover it was deeper than they thought and the rest of us had a diversion watching the steam come out of their sputtering vehicles. I didn’t hear of any betting going on but the comments I heard were quite entertaining.

We live on a corner with our driveway around that corner from the house. Right behind us on that street we have a new neighbor and a swell fellow he is too. That street didn’t have their power turned off so he strung a heavy duty extension cord over from his place and the Rock had another one which he attached to it so it would reach the basement and even though we had no lights, computer, what-have-you, we did have power to the sump pump. Consequently, we never had a wet basement and the Rock didn’t stroke out as I was afraid he would. His parents’ house in New Jersey suffered extensive flood damage in the past and whenever it rains the Rock goes on high alert. It was “touch and go” for awhile but it ended up as us being touched by the kindness of a neighbor and the water going away.

Friends of ours were not so lucky and for them we have the greatest sympathy. One of them does woodworking in his basement and it flooded totally and they had to be evacuated and he won’t be doing any woodworking down there for awhile. Personally, I think they should buy our house since the Rock built a workbench which wouldn’t surprise me if it was earthquake proof. We have a new workbench in our future (we hope), which is ensconced in the basement of what we consider our dream house and is being sold by friends who actually are related to the young woodworker’s wife. Our house is on the uphill side of the street and we have always been very lucky water-wise. I hope our dream house’s basement is at least as continent as this one has always been.

Oh, did I mention that during the horrible rains and just before the flood the realtor brought someone through our home who might have been interested? With all the folderol happening this week I haven’t heard from the realtor in a couple of days. Maybe she floated away…

On the other hand...

2005-09-17T01:19:00.000-05:00

Some people write when their lives are turned upside down and they’re feeling muddled or depressed or stunned. I’m not one of them. I know you can believe that since it has been such a long time since I posted here. Are you even out there reading this? Somehow I imagine that everyone has moved on and forgotten this little isle… If not, thank you for your stalwartness and loyalty. Please pass it on…she lives!

I am not going to go into minute details about the past few weeks. They’re over. Their ghosts float around the edges of today but life goes on and so do I. So…a great big hello to you, dear reader. Thanks for stopping by. I guess we’re all drawn to train wrecks, even if we state otherwise.

The Old Guy made a total and somewhat miraculous recovery from his Canine Peripheral Vestibular episode and seems much more animated than he has for quite awhile. Good. He’s a fine pal and we like having him around. He’s one of life’s “positives…”

The Rock had hand surgery (again), for a trigger finger this time and as usual, he is healing splendidly and took out his own stitches a couple of nights ago. He will go up to the hospital for the surgeon to say “good show” next week and we will have delicious Italian food at a favorite restaurant to celebrate. The hospital is North of here, about an hour and 40 minutes away and is a truly fine hospital with top notch doctors and staff. (And, ahem, located conveniently near one of our favorite restaurants…oh, I already said that? Well...)

The Rock has had about 6 hand and wrist surgeries, in as many years, and I tease him that he has a crush on his surgeon. Actually, I like her too. She’s terrific. I’ve been with him each and every time through the short surgeries and am getting quite adept at putting on my mask unaided. My glasses still fog up though, so I guess I’m not pinching the mask around the bridge of my nose properly. Maybe I’ll get to perfect my technique since The Rock still has a couple of fingers left. Hopefully he won’t require any more intervention…but who knows?!

Our old car that we bought from my mother a couple of years ago for The Rock to drive back and forth from work died…after we’d recently invested almost $800 and expected another year from it. The Rock hated that car. We gave it to my sister on her birthday because she was truly needy and my dad threw a little more money at it and hopefully she’ll be able to get the year out of it. The Rock now has a new little Nissan Sentra. They made him a deal he absolutely couldn’t refuse and gave him a 2 % loan as well. He’s happy, she’s happy, I’m happy. We’re happy. Well, mostly…

I developed some horrible edema in my ankle and leg and foot and couldn’t get the swelling to go down no matter what I did or didn’t do, so I broke down and visited the doc. “Hi doc... Look at this. My foot and leg are swollen and it’s hard to walk and I’m having trouble getting my shoe on.” Darnitall, I knew what he was going to say. He gave me 2 prescriptions, one of which I will not get filled and one for an unending supply of anti-embolism knee high stockings. Old lady stockings. The kind that take at least 10 minutes of every morning and the gyrations of a contortionist to put on. They work. The swelling has gone down pretty nicely but now I have old lady legs. Oh well. I usually wear slacks anyway.

The second prescription was for Lasix, which I don’t think I need since I’m allergic to sulfa and it states in the literature…don’t take if you’re allergic to sulfa and especially if you’re taking yadda, yadda, yadda… I take yadda, yadda, yadda… You get the picture. Have to watch these docs like a hawk. I don’t think he wants to kill me…just maybe make me suffer a little bit. So I’m suffering already… Me and my old lady legs. While I was there I confessed to the MRI fandango. I told him I was prepared to take on a little extra pain but not to be subjected to THAT again. He said “we’ll see.” He said “we can give you a pill to deliver a k.o. to you so you won’t care what happens for a little while…if needed.” I said “we’ll see.”

I had my yearly patdown, uh mammy, last week. Either my pain center is a bit addled or they’ve made some minor improvements to the mammogram machine. Minor I said. It wasn’t quite the fiasco as it used to be. If nothing else, at least the artwork at our local hospital is worth the trip over. While I was there I stopped in to have the optician make a small adjustment to my eyeglass frames. When I first walked in she looked downright nervous but was quickly reassured that I’ve mended my ways and haven’t sat on my specs since last year. That calmed her right down and after a slight fiddle here and a fiddle there everything was “squared up” again and sitting atop my nose like they should be. I wish you could have seen her when I first walked in and asked to have my frames adjusted. I guess opticians have long memories.

We woke up one morning recently and the water wasn’t running down the drain like it should. Uh oh, call the plumber (after trying all the old true-blue remedies…we’ve been through this before) and prepare to hand over the rest of the paycheck. Life is just so doggoned unreasonable sometimes. My CD player has started slipping again. The Rock had at it but it’s just too old now to resurrect properly and even his ministrations can’t keep it from gasping and groaning. Darn! I like the sound of those speakers too. I wish there was some way of hooking them up to my computer. My computer’s speakers sound crappy. Oh well, we’ll figure something out eventually. Meantime I’ve been glued to the live web coverage of the New Orleans calamity and then this week’s live web coverage of Judge Roberts’ grilling. I set it to full screen and sit back with my legs propped up and think of how nice it is to be me and here. Like the man once said…it’s all relative.

Bird on a wire...

2005-08-21T23:05:00.000-05:00

This morning while reading the news on my computer I heard the unmistakable sound of a cardinal. My computer is in the corner so it only requires a small turn of my head to see out of the double windows. There he was, resplendant in his jaunty red suit, sitting on the telephone wire. Oh how bright and handsome he was. What a wonderful way to start a day. Seeing a Cardinal is supposed to be a symbol of something positive but for the life of me, I can’t remember what. Of course that’s folklore anyway…

A week ago we were supposed to travel down to New Jersey for an “overnight” so The Rock could see his folks’ old house for a last time and look through stuff to see if there was anything he wanted and to finally come to terms with the fact that his dad is gone. With the way our lives have been going this year he hasn’t really had any time to sit and reflect upon his loss and we figured this might help. We had reservations at a nice hotel and the dog had reservations at the doggy hotel with an additional request for a bath while he was there. Well, those plans were short-lived.

The night before we were to go, we were preparing to leave for a visit to see older sonny in the hospital, as usual, when the Old Guy suddenly collapsed and keeled over, unable to get up. Every time he tried he collapsed again. His rear quarters wouldn’t work at all and when he did gain some footing he was splay-legged. His eyes were wild and weird…sort of whirly looking. He got sick and threw up and was unable to stand. We thought he’d had a stroke or a terrible seizure. We made a quick call to the vet and learned we’d have to go to the next town to see the vet on emergency duty as it was just after hours and our vet wasn’t on call that night. Then we called younger sonny and asked him to give us a hand. He had just come in from errands but was quite willing and to his credit, he came over quickly.

The Old Guy weighs 56 pounds and we were still upstairs in my art room when this happened so he had to be gotten down the double hall stairs and then another short staircase to the outside. That was a trick and no matter what they tried, the Old Guy foiled it and yet he couldn’t get down the stairs himself, even with help. In the end The Rock picked all 56 heavy pounds of the Old Guy up in his arms and carried him down with little resistance. It was clear that the dog instinctively knew this indignity was in his best interest so he cooperated.

I won’t relate all the details here. Suffice it to say that 2 vets, 2 days, multiple blood tests and $326.99 later, the verdict was Canine Peripheral Vestibular Disease. He was a dizzy dog. He couldn’t eat, drink, walk, or be left alone and for 4 days straight The Rock had to carry the Old Guy up and down all the stairs so he could relieve himself and he had a tough time getting him to stand long enough to do that. He had to take Dramamine. We cancelled the trip to New Jersey, the nice hotel, the doggy accommodations, a couple of trips up to the hospital to visit older sonny and tended our loopy little buddy to the best of our abilities. For a while it looked as if he’d never get his sea legs under him again or regain his confidence but just when The Rock’s body started to rebel the Old Guy started to recover enough to cautiously and with help, get down all those stairs again. Thank goodness! In fact, he’s made what we consider a pretty nice recovery and seems like his old waggy tailed self again.

On another front, older sonny has, after four and a half months, been released from the hospital to an intermediate care facility (sort of a group home) in our town and it came as a totally unexpected shock. We don’t feel that he was ready and although it’s nice not to have to make the 102 mile round trip every other night to see him, we’d like some assurance that this is in his best interests. Thanks to their chemical lobotomy he’s not able to function very well and we’re really concerned. We’ve requested a meeting with the doctor and team up there to find out what’s what. We’d like to know their criteria and also what we can expect in the coming months…

When older sonny went into the hospital the voice signals were calling the shots and making his life a hell but he was able to have a conversation during the short periods when they weren’t as strong and he could walk and talk fairly normally. As I’ve mentioned before, he’s a very intelligent person. Now when he sits, he jerks and “pops” like an evil puppet master is pulling intermittently on his invisible strings, he’s clumsy and stumbling and he can’t put two words together and get them to come out coherently. He can’t concentrate and he has trouble tracking a conversation. To add insult to injury, he still has voices making him miserable. I feel like my son (his “essence” anyway) has been stolen. And yet he still suffers. We will persevere. Maybe we’ll conquer this foe yet… There is always room for hope. I have to believe that or I will go mad.

Today is our anniversary. The Rock and I have been blissfully married for 23 years. I promised him 23 years ago that he’d never be bored. He says that in 23 years he has never been bored. Neither of us had ever suspected then what our lives would be like together now but we both agree that even with all of the stuff we’ve been through together, we’d willingly do it again. I’m blessed!! Together we will do what we have to do to get through what we have to but we’ve both agreed that a little boredom wouldn’t be such a bad thing right about now. A vacation wouldn’t hurt either…

Tyranny from within…

2005-08-08T00:23:00.000-05:00

I just realized that my blog is one year old today. Is it what I wanted it to be? I don’t know. I had never thought to have a blog so when younger sonny set it up and presented it to me a year ago, I didn’t even know what to do with it, let alone have a plan. I’ve enjoyed writing this blog…until recently. Here is where I thank you for coming over and being so loyal. I’ve let you all down lately, I know. A friend of mine sent me an email last week that said: “Geez! Y'know... I go ahead and bookmark your world-famous blog and check it most mornings and what do I see? No updates since July 24th! Boy, oh boy...”

He’s right. I haven’t written for awhile. I haven’t felt like it. Right now I feel as if my creativity has been sucked right out of me. It’ll come back one of these days I’m sure, but right now, well, I’m sort of nowheresville. Know what I mean? I can’t write when I’m feeling down and a lot of friends and family are wondering if I’m still alive and why don’t I respond to their notes? Maybe you’re one of those people. The thing is, I can write a long epistle but then you’ll just end up feeling crummy too.

Oh, we’ve had some good things happen lately, which I would have liked to have shared with you but then before I could get it down, a deluge of “other stuff” has come along to swamp and bury us. I will eventually get around to writing about some of the nifty stuff. We have celebrated (if you want to call it that) every holiday and special day for our family in one hospital or another, starting with last Christmas. I have never eaten Christmas dinner in a hospital before, let alone a locked ward. This year my older son has spent more than 5 months in a hospital. On April 7^th, my 60^th birthday he was admitted to the state psychiatric hospital and he’s still there now. It looks like it may be awhile yet before he’s released. It also looks like we may end up getting to know a lot more about electro-convulsive therapy before long. The future is not looking very positive for him or for us right now. It is a heartbreak.

My son is a handsome, sensitive and very intelligent man but in this case his intelligence is actually working against him right now. He has been diagnosed as schizoaffective, which is a fancy way of saying schizophrenia with additional problems. His case is complicated and his delusions are strong and elaborate. He is not responding successfully to any of the myriad psychiatric drugs, including the main one he's on now which was touted as the one which is different and would work where the others failed. There are no miracles here.

Schizophrenia is a chronic and severe brain disease which is classified as the most devastating and disabling of all mental illnesses by the National Institute of Mental Health. Sufferers often experience hallucinations and paranoia, and may have difficulty communicating with, and participating in, the outside world because schizophrenia interferes with the way a person thinks, speaks, expresses emotions, and behaves. It does not mean a split or multiple personality. The cause is not yet completely understood, and scientists are working to comprehend the chemical imbalances in the brain that may result in schizophrenia.

The hospital is an hour away…one way. We go up to visit on an average of every other evening. A minimum visit would take at least 3 hours of our day, although we try to spend more than an hour usually. This is particularly difficult for The Rock who must work every day and will soon be teaching chemistry classes at the college again 2 nights a week in addition to his regular job as a chemist. Occasionally, friends go to visit.

The hospital is a modern, efficient and very beautiful building with rolling landscaped lawns and looks like everything but what it actually is. The staff is friendly and efficient. The doctors and social workers, etc. are excellent. Every effort possible is made to try to construct some quality of life and dignity for poor, often forgotten, tortured souls. The people we’ve dealt with are patient, understanding and accommodating. They are special people. It is still a place of broken dreams and sad, dispirited souls who are unable to take joy from life.

My son is never alone. The people who inhabit his head hate him and shout at him and threaten him constantly. It is difficult for him to concentrate anymore. We have to compete with these “voices” or signals as he calls them, and often lose out to them as they are loud and aggressive and formidable opponents for his attention. He once told me I should tell you about his story and what is happening to him and what “these people” are doing to him. Alas, I could not since what is happening to him is a terrible illness and “these people” do not exist, no matter how much they torture him and render his life a hell.

I love my son and it is hard to stand by and watch him suffer and see his beautiful mind erode and his body, full of necessary drugs, become clumsy and unfunctionable. He is in a safe place and that’s a small comfort since several times he came close to harming himself irrevocably. It is a constant worry. He struggles to maintain but the fight is a tough one and he is being worn down. So are we.

So on this first blogaversary I thank you for stopping in and I’m grateful for all my blog-friends who have been so loyal. I have enjoyed getting to know you and I shall try not to treat you so shabbily in the future. I have taken respite in your kind words and sharing of laughter. At least now you know why sometimes there are big holes in my posting routine and hopefully, will not give up. We still have a sense of humor and try to keep that working for us. I do have so many good stories I’d like to share. And I will…

A breath of...

2005-07-24T10:30:00.000-05:00

We let something into our house last night which we have not had in the house for a very long time. It seems strange to have it here, although it’s also wonderful. Today, because of it we’re hearing cars going down the road and barking dogs and planes flying overhead. We’re also hearing the sound of the silence between it all. Lately all we’ve heard has been the drone of the overhead fans, a couple of smaller fans and 4 of Mr. Willis Carrier’s contraptions. Today, even the barking dogs sound good.

The sky is blue, there’s a small fresh breeze, not laden with humidity and the light is pure and not reflecting yellow haze off every surface. We were able to open all the shades to let this pristine light in and everything looks better because of it. We’re no longer being assailed by strong errant drafts nor assaulted by the constant low whine of fan motors and compressor motors from the machinery required to prevent our brains (and the rest of us too) from frying.

Today the temperature is no longer so high and the air is not so oppressive and my nose is not itching and running. It’s pure pleasure to take a deep breath. The dog is resting peacefully, we had a glorious night’s sleep and I’m happy to be awake now and looking forward to the day. Last night we were finally able to open all the windows again and let fresh air back into our home. Aaaaaaahhh…

Totally bonkers...

2005-07-15T23:26:00.000-05:00

Well, for gosh sakes… What’s up with Haloscan anyway? Anyone? Totally screwy these days…

Speaking of screwy, yesterday I woke up, logged on and this, my first email of the day was waiting for me:

Subject: Thursday. Thursday? Thursday!

Well. I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say. Do you think you're being funny? I'm not really sure that cheese should be yellow. Although the right salami can make for a tasty sandwich. Did you remember to wind your watch? Where was the valve stem when the eaglet fell out of the nest? I'm sure you know what I'm saying. I know, I know. You ARE pretty darned funny. Good mornings generally precede good afternoons. Guacamole is a word that is enjoyable to say. Pine trees can be tall. Black holes are dense. When you put the pedal to the metal do you giggle uncontrollably or merely chortle and snort? I thought so. Oh. I almost forgot. Thursday. Yep. That's correct. Was the package really as heavy as it looked? Or was it all just an optical contusion? Or a state of confusion? Or a mild delusion? Did it drive you into seclusion? I came to the same conclusion. Peach fuzz tickles. Two heads are better than one. Four rings signify the finest automobiles a person can drive. Wyoming is big. So is Montana. Why is there no West Carolina? The Fonz just told him to "sit on it"!! And then they all cashed their paychecks before playing the ponies. Did you know that Winchester, NH is the home of the toothbrush? If it had been invented anywhere else, they would have called it a teethbrush. (rim shot) I like pizza. Is that all you have to say for yourself? Oh boy.

Don’t feel bad if you’re confused. It was from my very dear friend who is actually quite smart and usually sane, but obviously he needs a different job. Or a long vacation…

A crabby commentary...

2005-07-13T22:49:00.000-05:00

Summertime and the livin' is easy
Fish are jumpin', and cotton is high.
Oh your daddy's rich, and your ma is good lookin'
So hush, little baby, don' yo' cry.

One of these mornin's you're goin' to rise up singin',
Then you'll spread you're wings an you'll take the sky.
But till that mornin, there's a-nothin' can harm you
With Daddy and Mammy standin' by.

From "Porgy and Bess" - by George Gershwin

Okay, I’m back and I apologize to anyone who expended energy by clicking on over here while I wasn’t. Here, I mean… Well, I was here but not in any meaningful sort of way. I can’t say that I took a vacation…although it’s true that my brain sort of takes off on its own little excursions occasionally, but the rest of me was here subsisting like a bowl of half gelled Jello. It’s summer, you see, and the living is easy (no it’s not, it’s excrutiating). There are no fish jumping in this pond and the cotton will get a whole lot higher before anyone gets around to picking it. (My apologies to George Gershwin.) While it’s true that my ma is fairly good looking, for a woman her age, my daddy could hardly be called rich and of what use could that be anyway? And we’re certainly not rich either...not even in the same ballpark.

As for the wings in the sky part, younger sonny got back from San Francisco full of bonhomie and in one piece and while it didn’t make me break out into song, it did make me sigh with relief. We were definitely standing by but then, that’s what we always seem to be doing most of these days anymore, just standing by…

Well…it’s now many, many, many, many hours since I started this danged post, before I was intermittently and finally terminally interrupted, so I’m going to quit right here, post it and try again tomorrow for something a little more coherent. Absolutely NOTHING about this day went according to plan. This day went astray in the most officious fashion, none of it expected and all of it designed to keep me from writing. I do hope that at some point soon I might again be in charge of my life again and fate, nasty harlot that she is, will step aside briskly so that may be accomplished. I’m toddling off to bed now…

"To Sleep, Perchance to Dream; ay, There's the Rub." -Shakespeare's "Hamlet" - act III, i, 65-68.

Just some stuff...

2005-06-30T14:36:00.000-05:00

Did you ever notice that fireworks look even more spectacular when they’re going off over water?

…………………………..

My brother once told me that people live longer in the colder northern states than people in the warmer southern states because bodies tend to rot in the heat and the cold preserves people. He told me that a long time ago. I have no documentation to prove any of it. But since I hate the heat it sounds like a nifty tale.

……………………….......

The Old Guy (sometimes known around these here parts as the dog) threw up in the in the wee hours of this morning (try 2 am). I had just considered closing my book and turning off the light to go to sleep since The Rock had already succumbed to the ZZZZs when I heard the unmistakable sounds of a dog in distress. Aw shoot… Poor Rock…he had to get up and go for the Resolve and paper towels since he can still get down on his knees and I can’t. The Old Guy, in typical dog style, had most of it cleaned up already himself. Yuck! How can dogs do that?!

.......................

Speaking of dogs, The Old Guy has to have his nails trimmed and he gets as stressed over that as I did the MRI this week so they’ll have to knock him out to do it. Probably just as well, it usually takes 3 men and a boy, as my dad used to say, to hold him down. He has long ‘quicks’ so it’s tricky to cut his nails without him bleeding like a stuck pig. Poor ole guy. He seems to be having another ear infection and they’ll be able to tend to that without a problem too. He’s half Sharpei and half Dobie and his ears are all folded over, giving him a square headed appearance. It’s very cute but a bad design which causes recurrent ear infections and which may have contributed to why he’s deaf now.

…………………………..

Confession: I like to fill and empty the “recycle bin” on my computer’s desktop because of the crinkly paper sound it makes…

…………………………………..

They’re digging up the street for water main repairs down the block from us and the heavy equipment sounds just like that danged MRI I almost had this week.

……………………………………

Beautiful daughter and family are currently in Ghana until the middle of August and according to the weather report I read, it looks like they might be having the same or nearly the same weather as we’re currently having here in New England. Who’d a thunk it..?

……………………………………

Younger Sonny is heading out to San Francisco for a week with a friend, to visit another mutual friend. We’ll be taking them to the airport and that means we will have to pick them up around 3:15 am, which means we’ll have to get up around 2:30 am. Heck, we’re often just getting to bed at that time, but going to bed then is a totally different thing than getting up at that time. Ooh, the things we do for love.

…………………………………….

The other day when The Rock was home for lunch a stranger showed up at the door claiming we’d requested him. He was an insurance salesman from some company or another! I didn’t think they did that anymore…show up uninvited on people’s doorsteps. Of course he didn’t gain entrance.

He was all dressed up in a blazer and driving a fancy Audi with a veteran’s license plate. Out of his respect for veterans, The Rock opened the door but Mr. Insurance Salesman didn’t gain entrance. For heaven’s sake, why would we abandon our regular insurance man that we’ve known and liked for a long time and who has served us well, and his father before him, for a total stranger who shows up at our door?

We haven’t had any uninvited people knocking on the door for a long time, not even the very polite Bible-toting doomsayers who regularly canvas the neighborhoods. Does this occurrence mean we might see a resurgence of Fuller Brush men and women coming to the door? Good grief, I hope not! Or sellers of magazine subscriptions? Would we open the door to them? I think not.

…………………………………..

Do I even have anything of consequence to say here today? Probably not…

The big bad machine...

2005-06-27T21:03:00.000-05:00

I’m a failure, a quitter, a ‘fraidy cat, an hysterical wreck, a total coward. That’s right, I’m a coward. I never thought so before. I always thought I was reasonably brave and I’ve even been told so before by people I respect. But no more…

You see, tonight I had an MRI…well part of an MRI…the first five minute part. And then I bailed out. Oh the shame, the humiliation, the shakes and the weakness. I am currently filled with self-loathing. I had no idea I was such a weenie. When they asked me if I was claustrophobic I said nope, I didn’t think so, not really. WRONG!! I am so claustrophobic that even now, an hour and half later, I’m still trembling inside, have a headache and feel faint. I don’t feel very good. What a wuss…

The awful silly thing is, I wasn’t even all the way in. I was having my knee MRI’d because pain is making it hard to walk and it is particularly excrutiating when trying to negotiate steps, especially going down.

I have arthritis anyway and a little over a year ago I fell over The Old Guy in the middle of the night when he was in invisible mode in the middle of the hallway. I had gotten up to use the bathroom and BOOM! I bumped into the invisible dog and then tried to step over him which caused him to panic and rear up and then I was airborne and finally landed (kerboom!) on my left knee which immediately started throbbing and swelling without even waiting for me to take a proper breath. It took a very long time to heal and lately it has started getting worse again.

The Rock took me to the doctor’s last week and the doc set me up for the MRI appointment to find out “what was what.” MRI. Magnetic Resonance Imaging machine they call it. Monstrous Rotten Intimidation machine I call it. It’s big and loud and the core part, the part you’re slid into is little and cramped and loud. The platform you lay on is narrow and there’s no place for your arms to go so you have to put them up on your chest or up over your head, neither place being suitable for the amount of time you have to spend there, unless you don’t mind having parts of you go numb or tingle with the urge to move.

The urge to move… I figured that was the part that was going to get me. I can’t sit or lay still for very long before I get that urge to move, to wiggle, to scratch, etc. Tell me to lie still and not move and you’re asking for the impossible. I also have trouble with the tonometer or the other thingy they use to puff air against your eyeball to check the pressure within said eyeball. The test is used by the opthamologist or optician to check for glaucoma. They always tell you not to blink for a minute. Not blink! What?! That’s all I need to hear to set that ole eye up for twitching and blinking double-time. I hate that test! And you know what? I now know that I HATE having MRIs.

What makes this especially hard to take, is that Older Sonny has endured not one, but two (2) MRIs on his brain recently, topped off by an EEG (electroencephalogram) and grueling hours of survey questions . And he did it voluntarily, as part of a research study being done at McLean’s Hospital in Massachusetts to study differences in brains of people with schizophrenia opposed to people without schizophrenia. They’ve been doing this research for 10 years. I wonder how many people they actually get to go through with it. I’m in awe of him. He never balked nor complained. And he was all the way in the damned thing!

I was only partially in it, up to my chest. My head was out. Honest to goodness, I never for a second figured it would be like that. I kept thinking of Older Sonny going in that tiny tube twice, all the way, and doing it like a trooper. If he could do that I figured, how hard would it be for me to go part-way? It turned out to be hard. It turned out to be impossible! It turned out that I am not the woman I thought I was. I had the mother of all panic attacks! I thought for sure I was having a heart attack. I thought that I would rather just go quietly along with my painful knee and not look back.

Tomorrow I’m to call my doc again and after he finishes laughing hysterically and making rude remarks (we’re friends you see…), I’m to suggest that he send me up to the big hospital in Concord which has what they call an ‘open’ MRI machine. They tell me it’s bigger, more open and probably easier to take. They gave me a brochure about it. They told me not to feel bad. Lots of people have this trouble. Lots of people have to take sedatives before undergoing an MRI. I’m not lots of people!

Psychologically right now, I’m a mess. My adrenalin rush has dissapated itself, the nausea has passed and I’m left with the dregs of my tarnished ego. I have decided that it would just be easier to get a pair of crutches and learn to use them skillfully than to face that damn thing again. Please, be merciful in your thoughts regarding me. I’m mortified enough! Siiigh….

Just a lucky so and so...

2005-06-26T02:16:00.000-05:00

As happens sometimes, life gets in the way of coherent blogging and that is what has happened the past couple of weeks. The trouble is, once the stitches are dropped it’s hard to knit the thing back together. I’d like to be able to fill you in but it’s not just my story, so I won’t… Let’s try to get past this hiatus, shall we?

Last night as we came back from visiting Older Sonny, a state policeman stopped us. Quelle shock! We were driving peacefully along in the dark when suddenly we saw flashing blue lights behind us. “That can’t be for us, can it(?)” I asked. “It looks like it,” said The Rock, “but I don’t know why since we aren’t doing anything wrong. I’m not speeding or anything” he said. And he wasn’t, thank goodness. Of course we pulled over post haste and so did the policeman. Gosh…

The policeman asked where we were going and we said “home.” He asked where we had come from and we told him. Of course he checked The Rock’s license and registration. It turned out that our left rear tail light was out, as was the brake light. We had just had the car in for a servicing the week before and in April it was inspected too, so we were surprised.

He was satisfied with our answers and told us to get it fixed as soon as possible for our safety and then bade us a good evening and a safe trip home. Whew! There’s nothing like flashing police lights to get your adrenalin flowing, even when you’re not breaking the law. I suspect that his adrenalin might have been flowing too. After all, they never know when they stop someone what might happen. It’s not an easy job that they have and I thank them for doing it.

This morning The Rock checked out the tail light and we were in luck. We didn’t have to buy a new bulb as it turned out to be a loose wire and a bad connection and easily fixed. It could happen to anyone at any time. We were lucky. And to think, I’ve always worried about moose crossing the road in the dark. Over the past few months we’ve travelled in pouring rain, thunderstorms and heavy fog. We’ve passed by accidents. And we’ve shared the roads with motorcycles by the hundreds who were travelling up to Laconia for motorcycle week.

It’s usually a pretty drive, especially at this time of the year and we’ve watched as the trees and grass have come alive again this spring. Vacationers are clogging the highways now, passing through our fair state on the way to Maine. Soon we’ll be making a few trips up to Plymouth as well, to the Silver Cultural Arts Center for some good concerts.

Life could be better but it also could be a whole lot worse. The sunsets have been spectacular and I’ve always been a sucker for a good sunset. The stars have twinkled in the heavens to help guide our way and the fireflies are out and sparkling in the fields and trees. Now if the highway department could just see fit to paint some lines on the roads we’ll be all set. Who’d have guessed that there’d be a paint shortage?! Okay, I’m being sarcastic.

Tomorrow we’ll make the 102 mile round trip again. I hope we’ll stay lucky…

A small tale of woe...

2005-06-08T00:30:00.000-05:00

Here I sit in front of the computer…bleary eyed and sighing. I cannot sleep, even though it is the middle of the night. I cannot sleep because there is a man in my bed. The man is my husband. I dearly love that man in my bed but…he snores! I am sensitive to noise in the night and snoring definitely is noise. In fact, snoring is extremely unpleasant noise and it keeps me awake. I wish he had come with a volume control knob but he didn’t. So here I sit in front of the computer…bleary eyed and sighing because I cannot sleep. Sighhhhh…

Meme thingy...

2005-06-03T00:47:00.000-05:00

Oh my goodness… I have been tagged for a meme by Ozzilyn Bean. I don’t even know what that means…a “meme.” Where did the term come from? Is it a bastardization of memo or memory or what? That doesn’t make sense... As a rule I am not a gameplayer. When I espy one of these things on someone’s blog, especially if they say something about looking for someone else to tag, I take off running and don’t come back for a little while until it’s all gone and safe again. I hate ‘pick one’ kinds of things because they’re never the things I would pick one of and I particularly hate anything that asks me to prioritize my answer by numbers of 1 to 5, or 1 to10. Quizzes that ask me to answer certain questions never ask anything I would find relevant or else they ask in such a way I can’t figure out how to answer since it either doesn’t apply to me or it’s asking for black or white when I see gray. I never answer surveys unless it’s something I absolutely can't avoid, like a doctor’s health quiz or something (and even then I balk). I have often wondered what I’d do if tagged for one of these game things and the answer I always gave to myself…quit blogging. But here I am now with a dilemma and I guess I shall have to soldier on and comply since I like Ozzilyn Bean…

As I understand it, the rules are: to choose five things from this list to expand upon and then add one more category to the list and pass it along to some other unsuspecting soul. My problem right now is this…if I comply and then choose someone else to foist it upon, that would make me fair game for them to hit me back with something else sometime later and I sure don’t want that. But then, most other people don’t seem to share my aversion to these things so maybe “whomever” will answer their challenge and that will be that. I don’t much cotton to fantasy games, books or movies. I’m 60 now so I don’t indulge much in ‘what ifs’ because I’m struggling to keep up with the ‘what actually ares.’ Life is keeping me amply supplied with those right now. I have found that advancing age doesn’t take away your dreams but it places limits on your choices and time to fulfill those dreams. It’s a whole ‘nuther ballgame…

Anyway, for Oz:

If I could be a scientist…

If I could be a farmer…

If I could be a musician… I would be able to speak the universal language and communicate with everyone. I could be a conduit to carry the sound of the spheres. If I could be a musician I could channel love through my instrument and touch the hearts of others and bind souls together. If I could be a musician I could well and truly speak…

If I could be a doctor… I could heal and ease the pain of others. I could fight against sickness and disease and pain and improve the health of others. I could help to put some quality back into their lives and maybe replace some of their despair with hope. If I could be a doctor I might have a chance to act positively for others and give them a useful gift of my time and skill and it would be a gift for me also…

If I could be a painter… I could create, create, create… I could use all those marvelous colors of our dreams and make things of beauty to move people and uplift them. I could take my dreams and render them real for all to hold if they so desire. If I could be a painter I could capture that spark I see in others without blowing out their flame and enhance that flame to ignite others who suffer poverty of spirit. If I could be a painter I could push back some of the darkness that surrounds us and let some light through…

If I could be a gardener…

If I could be a missionary…

If I could be a chef…

If I could be an architect… I’d love to be an architect! It’s the ultimate creative experience because you can provide shelter and practical function while assuaging your artistic nature. If I could be an architect I could do something useful while making great art. I would be like Frank O. Gehry, whose architecture is like giant sculpture. I love it! Or I could be like Buckminster Fuller who dreamed of sheltering people while setting their spirirts free to dream and roam. He believed that plants should have roots while people should be free to develop and be able to take their housing with them, or at the least, have less maintenance to enslave them. He wanted to make shelter practical but affordable for many. I could be like Frank Lloyd Wright who created what he called ‘organic architecture,’ organic education and conservation of the natural environment and who created Taliesen and Taliesen West, an enclave dedicated to the education of architects. Glorious stuff! Oh yes, I could be an architect…

If I could be a linguist…

If I could be a psychologist…

If I could be a librarian… I’d be surrounded by peace and quiet and erudition and would probably be very happy. I’d try to find different ways of getting folks in the library habit so as to arm everyone with ‘keys to the universe.’ If I could be a librarian maybe I could help to wipe out illiteracy and empower people with knowledge…

If I could be an athlete…

If I could be a lawyer…

If I could be an inn-keeper…

If I could be a professor…

If I could be a writer…

If I could be a llama-rider…

If I could be a bonny pirate…

If I could be an astronaut

If I could be a world famous blogger… You mean I’m not? Sniff…

If I could be a justice on any one court in the world…

If I could be married to any current famous political figure…

If I could be a show dog owner…

If I could be a fictional character…

If I could be a species other than human…

If I could be a funeral director…

That last category was my addition…ha, ha, ha, ha, ha… So, this then is my meme. I now turn you over to Heather because I think she likes these things. (I hope I’m right…)