Saturday, August 31, 2013

The chances are that you will say something...




…Stupid if you open your mouth too much, and that is definitely true for someone like me…who never ever shuts up!
Even when I write it is always the same, no absence of space until my motor runs down.
Truth is that I do talk as I write and vice versa.
Never ending, silence is too harsh for me to deal with and that is my reasoning… why I do it.
To me dead quiet is frightening.
And I do often wonder why that is?
You see, even if I am all alone I must have some form of white noise, usually the TV in the background humming even if it is two rooms away, like ours is now, being in the living room, with me in the sun-room and Hubby’s outside watering the potted plants under our lanai.
That is a bald faced lie!
Right now the TV is off in the living room and the only noise, other than what my brain is telling me in my head to write is this noisy keyboard, aha! Fooled me...you too?
Although, Hubby just passed by this windowed door with our watering can and then went back to the rain barrels to refill!
He is not stealth all of the time, but on occasion he is…

Dinner is done, we had left overs, since we went down to Punta Gorda today and ate out, again, this time at the Crab House on the water there… I had points for ten dollars off any entrée of twenty-five dollars or more and so we went! Hubby had a Grouper Reuben and I had crab tomato bisque soup with a Crab Louie salad, mmm, mmm good! Coffee for him and unsweetened iced tea for me with extra lemons, but of course.
The reason for the trek down there when nothing else was actually scheduled or going on at any of those venues, how weirdly quiet too? Any-who, Hubby received one of those come on down to see if you won $25,000 or two lottery tickets or $100 from a very reputable auto dealership, in fact the one we bought our car from back in 2001. It is called, Palm Auto Mall, since they carry several different makes of brand new vehicles and used ones too and has been there for a very long time…since 1955, gosh they are almost as old as me, ha!  
Of course we won the lottery tickets that were only scratch offs, and were losers, worthless, but we expected that!
It was something to do…
Hubby met a gentleman that was willing to show him a new Toyota Sienna mini van although Hubby explained that we might not be ready until next year to seriously look. And he was very nice and didn’t seem to mind at all…and showed Hubby all the bells and whistles although, we will be looking then for a leftover new one and you never know what’s available then, and we really would prefer a Town and Country by Chrysler, we will see… We will try saving some big bucks by then.
Not having any major things to pay off right now we have a bit more in our pockets to save and I already started this month, so who knows?
Barring any emergencies, ha, who am I kidding we always have those!
But we will have that saved for.
Our SUV now has less than 40K original miles on it, although it gets lousy gas mileage, but it was paid for years ago…and so that is why we stay pretty much always in our ten mile radius, with so much here and gas prices rising daily, not too bad, really!

*Did you see that eleven cent increase in just one day?
Thursday, Sam’s Club’s gas was 3.41.9 a gallon and the next day it was 3.52.9 a gallon, yesterday, Friday! Must be due to what’s going on in the Middle East… and the holiday weekend?
I give up trying to figure it all out.

It is what it is and that is only about gas prices; the other stuff is all tremendously frightening to me and you too I am more than sure, their annihilation of human beings!
If we don’t intervene what does that mean about us?
That we are heartless?
I think of how long it took for us to get involved in WW2! And we all know what the result with that wait was.
We have to figure the best way to stop this inhuman behavior and let those who believe otherwise to know it cannot continue!
We are definitely walking on eggshells with this; hopefully the powers that be will do the right thing.

I hate leaving you with that last thought, albeit an important one to ponder, since many feel to stop us from getting involved in another war and have launched protests to that affect today alone… Geez, you are singing to the choir here! But if there is a way to let them know that they have to stop without, as the president said, without boots on the ground; then I say let’s go for it!
And I support that decision whole heartedly!

On that note of a bit more positivity, allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you to kindly count all your blessings and share all your overages with you know who and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

PS if I waited for a conversation to ensue while writing this… it would NOT be a BLOG, it would be a … WHO KNOWS WHAT? HMMM?

Friday, August 30, 2013

The BIG holiday weekend is upon us!



This is one of those BIG three day holiday weekends, and in the case of us here in the United States of America, it is called Labor Day Weekend.
Now even that name is a misnomer, how might one have a ‘day’ that is also a ‘weekend’, one might ask?

Not me, since I have always known that this was called Labor Day Weekend at least since I was a small child anxiously looking forward to my first day of school, which in New Jersey always started the day after the holiday ended, on Tuesday!
“Observed on the first Monday in September, Labor Day pays tribute to the contributions and achievements of American workers. It was created by the labor movement in the late 19th century and became a federal holiday in 1894. Labor Day also symbolizes the end of summer for many Americans, and is celebrated with parties, parades and athletic events.”

Ending our long summer, in those days to us they were three months long…and just before it was time to go back meant new school clothes and notebooks and pencil holders and gosh everything that was needed had to be brand new, because the school year was brand new too!

Although…ramp up thirty plus years later from my first day of school and our children’s first day of school in FLORIDA, in 1986 when we moved to the other coast to Ormond Beach, on August 19th we felt the urge to get here as soon as possible due to being misinformed that they would be starting school in August!
Ridiculous!

And for that one year, oddly enough, they too started the day after Labor Day, but that was the last time that happened to our then ten and fourteen year old sons.
For after that first year, when it appeared that they waited for us to settle in, we closed on that first house in less than a week, we had to look for a home since we hadn’t before we moved down here looked and so it was a bit of a rush anyway…but from that year after the boys were to start every year in the middle of August, but all schools are air-conditioned here and that allowed for them to get out in May, which they both liked. Even though it was still the same one hundred and eighty days that all United States schools require, odd how August to May sounds psychologically different than September to June?
Who knows why that is?

You see, we were on a rather odd adventure when we moved from New Jersey; we had sold everything, our big five bedroom bi-level and our underground sprinkle business and even most all of our furniture, we were due for new anyway…and so we had, us, Hubby and I and the boys, a dog, a cat and a cockatiel as well as a box turtle, and surprise our idea of renting a place to take our time to decide exactly what we wanted to do… was expedited due to no one wanting to rent to us with our children and our animal menagerie!
We knew the area well, since we had been to Ormond Beach many times before on vacation via our trips to Disney World with our boys and knew they had excellent schools that were not unlike the ones we left in NJ, with 80% of the taxes going towards the betterment of the schools…taxes were higher than many other counties in Florida, but a bit lower than ours were in NJ… and worth that in our opinion and so we sold everything and made the journey! My last of parents had passed away and that is why I finally agreed to leave NJ, we had been very close.
Hubby, if he had, had his way we would have been here ten years sooner, but I wouldn’t leave my parents.
Anyway, I also had my father’s estate to contend with too, being the executrix, but my best friend’s husband was our family attorney and I left much to this trusted friend, which worked out just fine… we did much by overnight mailings and even electronically through the bank there in Ormond Beach, at that time Barnett.

And so buying a home in record time was amazing to us, for when you live in NJ closings take three months, minimum, and that is why we were concerned, but not that much… with title insurance, no lawyers involved, and acquiring what are called abstracts, the history of the home, and so we moved in seven days after we arrived. Funny thing is I did try registering the boys for school while we were staying in an efficiency motel and the schools gave me a hard time and wanted Hubby there… as if they were not my children too! Ah the south… not that happy to be here then. I argued, but it got me nowhere and Hubby showed up to prove they are OUR sons too, from both parents! I pitied the single parent…
Inoculations were another thing, we had all their school transcripts and proof of up to date inoculations, I thought, but we were told more were required and so we went and did that too!

Ah, memories the boys had two different schools due to their ages one got the bus, our number one son since his school was further away, but little guy had two choices either to be driven or to ride his bike since it was less than the required distance. I drove him for quite some time, but eventually he rode his bike, due us having our restaurant.

I walked from kindergarten through my senior year of high school, well really only until I could afford my car that spring, due to both towns I lived in having the requirement that you must live more than two miles away to take the bus, and Hubby’s did too, walked that is! And we were fine.

Oh so Labor Day Weekend oddly is called that because it is the unofficial end of summer vacation for children I suspect and it helps the economy to have another one to sell, hotel/motel rooms, gas, plane fares, beach time, water sport rentals, etc… and to remember, why on Monday no one except the tourist industry and police and all other emergency people and hospitals etc have to work, ha!
Retail stores and car and all large and small appliance centers and you name it have their sales!
Now you tell me if everyone is actually working the holiday, why bother? LOL!

We retirees just consider it another day…but here in PARADISE!

On that note of have a good one however you choose to spend it, allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and to ask you to kindly count all your blessings and share those overages with you know who and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Talking to or at people?



Here we go again…
There was a time that I really knew what a conversation was, construction-wise, one person talks, then another and it sort of goes back and forth like a ping pong or tennis match. How about that seventeen year old gal winning that game…? I digress…
But somehow between studying management, motherhood and teaching classes I lost the art.
What I have to say cannot always be more important than what others have to say or need to tell me about this or that, can it?
Truly, I just want them to know that I know too.
And that at times they are telling me what I knew before they opened their mouths, ya know?
Why is that?
Could I be psychic or just plain rude?
Please don’t say the latter, for I really do know at times what someone might say in any given situation… that is why when I wrote my novellas or any fiction at all, it was so realistic and that was my strongest part of my whole writing ability…
dialogue.
I suppose it could be that I am just really weird… but being weird can mean that you are different/unique, said in a nice polite way, true, and that ain’t that bad, really, lonely, but not bad.
When I first came to the south, that is Florida, as a resident, not a tourist and I would talk to other, ‘residents’, some natives and some from other parts of this southern hemisphere of our United States of America… with interesting more southern expressions such as, ‘Bless your heart’, for a long time I thought well isn’t that just too sweet of them, always another woman, usually a bit older than myself, but on occasion a woman younger that would chime in saying that after my soliloquy was done…

Any-who, being from New Jersey and thinking I was way too worldly, after all with all my travels and just the fact being a north-easterner makes one think they are somehow superior, education, and access to cultural things like museums and live theater and real big cities like NYC and Philly etc…living between the two.

It was so interesting for me to learn that, ‘Bless your heart’ was actually code for you stupid sad gal, or some such thing…!
Not to say that some people don’t use that term of nicety as a calming affect on most of us ‘city bumpkins’ with highfalutin ideas and not even realizing that we were had, we were being put down, how southern of them, hmm, too polite?
Now if I go off on my talking at you tangents and someone says that to me, I smile and leave…but you really can’t blame them or me…sure you can, me that is, but it is too far gone, my ways, that is… and I am way too set in that way…

Hubby even used to get upset when I finished his sentences, until he realized by watching some TV shows about long term relationships saying how that is the ultimate form of intimacy, anticipating each others thoughts and needs… Gosh, we have known each other since August 31st of 1967, when we met at work at Ohrbach’s, but didn’t start dating until March 16th of 1968 and that’s a long, long, time! We have been married since February 14th of 1971; and so why not know what’s what?
I do believe most of my knowledge of human behavior could be attributed to observation as well as a few years of taking psychology too, but who knows… there is so much that I cannot explain that I wish I could…and I am still baffled by, like why I feel the need to tell everyone everything, oh that’s not right, since I did explain above my thought-out reasoning, I suppose I mean why people run from me, oh I do know that too! I am a terror! LOL!

Sure I turn people off and don’t let them get a word in edgewise, but you know something?
I am not alone!
Geez, there has to be more than just me out there…perhaps the X-Files knows where more of my kind exist?
Kidding or not!

On that note of what, allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you to kindly count all your blessings and share all your overages with you know who and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya here?

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Sabotaging ourselves at times...



All the hullabaloo about the water releases into the Caloosehatchee River from Lake Okeechobee forty plus miles south from our home is causing the water to turn brown and harming the estuaries as well as the tourist business! (The reasoning is so those 35, 000 homes and people there would not get flooded from Lake O’s overflow, which is way beyond what its capacity has been due to all this rain…Sure the Army Corps of Engineers should step in and build another dike to shore up the waters, but the funding fell down on the job… oh yeah, it was a go, but as you would have it the federal government has not done what they should about the situation. Where have I heard this before?)

An alligator was even seen in the Gulf of Mexico near the shoreline at the beach in Fort Myers, ordinarily unheard of!
You see, they are mostly fresh water not salt water reptiles, although, we have had a few down our saltwater canal here in Port Charlotte, but not recently, without any merging of fresh and salt water here.

Our Governor Scott came down to the area to tell the people south of us that he is authorizing 90 million bucks to make a two and half mile bridge over towards the center southern part of the state, and that will have the future waters, re-directed, going out to the Everglades where the water will be filtered naturally and our southwest friends will not have the brown muddy scary waters harming their local waters or tourist industry!
Hip, hip, hooray!
But sadly, the hitch is, it will take three years to build this project… oh well… isn’t that always the way?
Bureaucracy at its finest!

Meanwhile due to all the publicity locally and probably nationally that we, Florida, appears to get negatively, our number one industry, tourist, is taking another nasty hit!
Why couldn’t we keep this one little dirty secret to ourselves, hmm?
I think sometimes that is why we have all these issues, telling people what’s going on down here.
So many other states practice the state of mum-ness or hush, hush-ness!
Even when the tourists arrive the news covers their expressions of distaste.
One even thought that we had another oil spill!

DEAR PEOPLE, LISTEN UP! THAT OIL SPILL OF 2010, NEVER CAME DOWN THIS FAR, BUT THE MEDIA FORGOT TO CLARIFY THAT AND PEOPLE ASSUMED THAT IT HAD AND AGAIN THE TOURISTS STAYED AWAY!

Our Gulf coast has taken many hits in these last few years other than natural disasters, and that is why I truly believe when that woman said that the water looked as if it was another oil spill someone should have said right away, no it was a chocolate spill and we know how much you love chocolate! Now, who doesn’t, really!?
She would have spread the word and the tourist industry would have been back on track…problem solved.

Crazy as it sounds; the water is perfectly safe to swim in and has been tested. Sure there are algae blooms down canals, south of here, not here, but the rain and the heat can cause them too, why we have even had them in our back yard freshwater fish pond and our fish are fine! The usual cause is runoff from fertilizers and such…sounds bad, but here we are not allowed to use high nitrogen fertilizers during rainy season, June 1st- thru- November 30th, every year, you would think they too had the same rules, if you live on the water you must respect the law! See not so terrible, really!?

Moving on…
Port Charlotte Florida’s homes have gone up in value by 40% for some reason!
More so than any other county in our state!
And the sales of homes here have gone up too!
Due to no more overstocked items, the glut has diminished and demand has gone way up for the lower quantities of choices...

The only thing is… when the value goes up, so must the taxes…Ben Franklin's quote "but in the world nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes.” How prophetic of the man.  

Finally…
Today is a very important day, it was fifty years ago today that a great human being gave our country the hope to make significant changes in how we get along with one another, all people, the honorable Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with his historic, I have a dream speech and here it is: http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf
It is six pages long, but worth the read… I was thirteen when he originally spoke those words and probably not as interested as I should have been, but over the years you grow and you learn and greatness has a way of shinning through when truth, along with understanding prevails.
Maturity resounds when one takes the knowing of others trials and tribulations can make us all stand up and take notice… I think that two years later is when I did finally did get it when my parents and I went on the two month trek to see our fine country and every major city we stayed in or passed through had race riots going on after we had left…talk about getting that light bulb to go off I do believe that in 1965 was when I finally started to get why this hatred of people had to stop the emotion in me became volatile too, but in a positive way… and of course when our sons were small and watched Sesame Street and they too back in the 1970’s talked about how people were like flowers all of us in different colors and shapes and sizes and we're all beautiful in our own way!

On that note of my feelings of this day and other none of my business nosiness sticking it, where it don’t belong, allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you to kindly count all your blessings and share those overages with you know who and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Bare hand and cast iron pan without a potholder is not a good combo!



Do any of you also have Aloe plants growing in your backyard?
When you make a stupid knucklehead move like I did, than you should!
Since here I sit with my left thumb holding onto a decent size chunk of some that that Hubby kindly ran out to get one from our yard to aide in relieving my writhing in agony! I am therefore writing with one hand tonight, not an easy task/accomplishment!

To be fair I told Hubby to put the cast-iron pan in the oven to finish up our dinner in a four hundred degree oven for approximately fifteen more minutes. Hubby in his all non-Kosher Catholic glory had us, his Jewish gal and himself both enjoying pork chops for years and years and tonight he decided to bread them with egg and Panko (check it out if you don’t already use it), our go-to breading decision for the healthier minded concept for doing this sort of thing; that is when we don’t just sauté them in lime juice and olive oil with a dash of garlic and dill…
Any-who, I asked Hubby if he had seasoned the Panko, and he said no, so I thought once the chops were done that I would make a nice sauce from the drippings along with white wine, lime juice, dill and a bit of garlic powder, smidge of butter and thickened with a sprinkle of all purpose flour.
Hubby removed the pan from the oven using the oven mitt and put it atop the stove burner; he instinctively put the mitt back in our basket used for that, and after the two chops were removed to a plate…What was I thinking; it was clear that I was NOT thinking at all, since I grabbed the handle to pour my separately prepared concoction into the pan!
The sensation of pain was instantaneous and for someone like me who is used to pain daily this was no fun! On a chart of 1-10, one being a minute tingle and ten being through the roof ouching; I do believe this fell between an eight and a nine!
But I am tough and have been burned stupidly before… a pack of matches in my hand and a nasty wind coming up from no where!
That time I stuck my blistering hand in a glass bowl brimming with ice water and cubes, oddly enough it too was my left, since I am right handed and that stuck with me all these years and that was back around 1975, if I recall.
I was walking ‘number one son’ to his Montessori school in a private home in the neighborhood and foolishly tried to light a cigarette with a cold wind at my back, damn that was dumb! But then I was young, now I am just foolish, an old fool.

There were probably more times over the years that it happened, but not that severely. PS when I took my hand out of the ice water the pain was much, much worse and so I opted to keep it in. Now we know that was not the best way to treat it, but somehow it healed without scars, wild! And right now my left hand is allowing me to use it again too tonight; the thumb was the worst and still is a bit tingly, but not too bad now. Anyway, this was not as severe just a reddening of the skin, no blisters.
Perspective, at that time, that was the worse pain I had ever felt, except for labor pains, of course.

Thinking is an important thing to do especially whenever cooking which I used to love to do and it was always quite rewarding and enjoyed by all who tasted what I made… another thing I miss doing without second thoughts…

Moving on…
Today I had a very nice experience with a friend/ mommy from my very long ago past… contacted me!
When we moved in to that first owned home of ours that we lived in for six years, our townhouse condo we had quite a lovely group of moms and kids to enjoy being in, with that commonality of learning from one another; we were five gals with approximately two kids each that would meet once a week so the children could play and we could chat at our teas…We did this for New Year’s Eve too; the children would sleep in the bedrooms upstairs as we partied downstairs at each others homes with Hubbies of course too, over the years, in walking distance from each others homes it was great! Sharing and enjoying being together with women that knew what you too were going through, even sharing the children’s clothes they had outgrown.

And so when this woman that I hadn’t seen or heard from since 1978 or there about, Gosh, it was wonderful!
We all moved out of our first homes to different larger homes and she had had another son, three in all, and they gave her six grand-babies, all quite adorable and dare I say they look like their grandma!
She and her husband were the opposite of us, she is an Italian Catholic and her husband is a Jew, and so we had another commonality.
We had gone through so much growing during those six years as anyone can well imagine… we had kept in touch for a while but the distance and lifestyles had changed considerably. Her husband was in the music industry in NYC, Arista records part of United Artists, one of his many groups he had under contract was Led Zeppelin, true, not name dropping and their kids would be wearing their rock group tees on any given day and we had been invited to concerts way back then, but never did go… Many of our neighbors went from domestic vehicles to Audis and BMWs etc. and bigger and better homes from our starter home neighborhood.

Her husband had been ill on and off all of his life; seriously, with many surgeries and so I was happy to hear that he is still hanging in there! Hard to bring up that topic, but we asked how everyone was doing and all our children faired very well with their choices of careers.
And in spite of my TMI spilling of trying to catch up with all her and my news for over thirty plus years, she was so gracious and said that she was always available to talk. She had taught as a Special Ed. teacher, first as a substitute and then retired last year. They still lived in the neighborhood that they had moved to in New Jersey, but also scaled down to a tinier home, twenty years ago, due to her husband’s ills.

She spends a lot of her time helping out with her sons’ children, but I did notice she had gotten to Italy with some lovely pics of the region; two of her sons live nearby her, and one is a state away. Her two eldest were on either side in age as my number one and our younger son and her younger one were a year apart too!

All in all it made for a nice day!


On that upbeat note, allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you to count all your blessings and share those overages and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

Monday, August 26, 2013

Storm coming in and so I will try to write fast...


It is not quite six P.M. and yet it is extremely dark out already due to clouds, rain and wind coming in; as shown from my back window... OOPS; It's HERE!



 This is our afternoon/nightly event when it's August in Southwest Florida, but fortunately it doesn't last that long, although the rain has been mounting in accumulations... as much as two to three inches daily...
And so areas south of us are flooding, but so far not us!
To me and most people this is much better than any hurricanes, thankfully, so far so good in that arena and the flooding is not that devastating, only a few streets and yards, but not into homes only a couple of inches deep.

 

We, after being here in this state of Florida now for twenty-seven years have a bit of experience with these things. The best part is when the rain comes in and after when the rainbows appear.... and the ninety degree temps go down to the seventies! Enjoy this natural beauty... I did use my 'poetic licensing' and found this particular beauty from Orlando, just up the road a piece, about three hours north and center of this state of Florida still here! But to be fair it does resemble our backyard pond...




 Dancing with light, Orlando

 On that very high note allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you to kindly count all your blessings and share those overages with you know who and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

Sunday, August 25, 2013

"Sure, you have duties, but what about your duties to yourself?"



If it’s Sunday it could be Chinese dinner night, bazinga!
Nah we aren’t that rigid with when we eat what.
But it was.
That is Chinese dinner night and the title was oddly enough my first fortune that I opened.
Odd due to last night’s blog sort of speaking to that concept…
Any-who, and my first because they gave us seven fortune cookies, due to Hubby mentioning that last time they forgot to give us any.

And the number seven means: “It is a lucky number in Chinese culture, because it sounds alike to the Chinese word (Pinyin: qǐ) meaning arise, which means I love you.”

“In Buddhist culture, it represents Buddha, Dharma and Bonze, so people toll the bell three times to worship Buddha and pray for the removal of calamities with 3 sticks of incense. Whilst no.7 implies holiness and mystery in Buddhism, it is lucky as well.”


And so we have seven tonight!
I only ate half of one cookie, Hubby ate all the others, but I did open three of the seven fortunes and so these next two were mine as well, are you ready?
I can’t hear you! I will take your demure silence as a yes…
“The stars appear every night in the sky. All is well”
I knew that, but a bit harder to see with all these clouds lately.
Next one of mine too: “There is always another higher mountain.”
Now just when you think you have conquered all the others, sure, than along comes another, but when?

Here’s Hubby’s in no definitive order of opening, okay? Does it count? 
First:
“The problem of today will be buried by the sands of time”
I’ll go when I’m ready not a moment sooner, okay!
Next 2:
“Time and patience are called for, many surprises await you.”
You got that right…See, if you ‘await you’ whatever does that mean? Perhaps it meant the collective ‘you’, as in actually meaning us both?
Next 3:
“Trust your intuition. The universe is guiding your life.”
Well, that’s a good thing, I think.Going with your gut always works on the Millionaire Game Show.
Next 4:
“Traveling more often is important for your health.”
Okay, I see a more cost effective vehicle in his/our future!

We ordered from them for the first time in a while that is, China City, and Hubby now goes the little over two miles to pick it up due to saving the delivery charges and tip, which can add up. We have been customers of theirs since they opened a few years ago and it’s only the last few times that Hubby picked it up.

Moving on…
I am still drinking my green tea (and it goes well with our dinner choice), which is naturally decaffeinated and has been helping me get a handle on this Detox from the Gabapentin withdrawal.
You see, the one thing that has baffled me is that some days I am exhausted and other nights I have insomnia; sleeping way too much with naps and overnight time or sleep too little with no naps and no nights… I have got to get a handle on this issue. The good thing is by the time next Sunday rolls around I will no longer be taking Gabapentin and I will have diminished my use by few milligrams of my Baclofen too, hip, hip, hooray!

Yesterday, I got clocked by the door handle when I bent down to kiss Skipper goodnight, Hubby was coming in from the garage, which you go through our laundry room to get there and that is the door he opened when I bent down to kiss Skipper Hubby and you got that right he opened the door and got me firmly on the back of my head! An accident of course but it hurts just the same.
Now with my eye problems and Ataxia and other normal weird problems if you were  to test me for a concussion it would be futile, because all my daily symptoms are just like a person with a concussion with my Multiple Sclerosis! LOL!
Anyway, my cervical collar was back on and ice was employed as well all last night and part of this morning and until sitting here in this position at my PC I thought I was fine, but it is starting to 'OW!' me again and so instead I would like to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you to kindly count all your blessings and share all your overages with you know who and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Who's on first?



In the respect when it comes to talking to people, perhaps that should be who starts the conversation first?
I believe either party has that right to call upon another person to start conversing.
Is there a protocol to it?
And when is it alright to let someone know that they went over the line?
Patronizing a person is never right, but when a person young enough to be your child tells you that they know that you are probably smart and I can see that you appear to be, but what are you doing with your life; what would you say to them? As I stared up at this young woman from my wheelchair with only one of my eyes actually seeing her and not even that clearly…
I almost started rattling off my resume! And foolishly I have posted it here, but it is in my about in my profile for all to see anyway…
“Over the thirty-two years I did work on and off I had been co-owner of three businesses, a wicker store in Toms River NJ, one restaurant in Ormond Beach FL and underground sprinkler business which was the second largest in NJ, plus I worked in promotion and advertising as well as being a district manager for an international environmentally safe products company, as a department and credit manager for Lord and Taylor’s in Ridgewood NJ, and a sales and floor manager for Ohrbachs in Paramus NJ. Not to mention nearly forty years on and off of working with non-profits as a volunteer. Almost any ill you can think of fund raising, as a board member, teaching classes, advocacy and co-president of support groups. Also with my husband with Boy Scouts when he was scouting coordinator for Ocean County NJ and assistant soccer coach and Fire Chief in NJ too. And if anyone was wondering I also had the privilege of visiting 40 US states and eight countries all before I married. And yes, I did study journalism while attending LIM and have also been published in the local newspaper with a by-line a few times, and a page in a local book. I had continued my venture into writing by also joining a writer's workshop and group and I must have forgotten my five murder mystery novellas that are always in need of heavy editing, The Misty Gable Mysteries. My blog was five years old on June 25. 2013!”

But restrained myself and just said that I am done. That should have been that I have done enough, my anger in life is tangible at times and not good for public consumption. I know ‘assuming’ comes to mind… Unfortunately I too have been guilty of that stupidity.
Or I should have said is that at this point in my life with being able to pay all my bills and having health insurance coverage and physicians to care for me as well as a loving husband who does most of the caring and so that I have the ability to do whatever I want to do or am able to do!

And that is not necessarily doing what others expect me to do!
Freedom of choice is a wonderful thing to have…and I do believe many of us try hard to earn it…and I was thrust into it, by not necessarily my own decision.
Stress less lives are hard to come by and even with all that I said many days do have a load of stress involved in them, due to physical trials or just dealing with life's daily  grind of things not always going how they should, but that is how life is! Life is good in spite of that!
I believe that without a wee bit of adversity to keep us on our toes, how would one know they were still alive?
It has a habit of getting the heart pumping.
Too smooth sailing gets boring too and who wants or needs that, really?

Assumptions are rare with people you just meet, especially when most don’t get you. I recall a time way back when in Key West when I had had a relapsing remitting experience although not yet diagnosed and we had a borrowed wheelchair back around 1996 or there about and went on vacation.
As Hubby pushed me around the area that we had been many times before that and after… People would talk to Hubby, but not to me, as if just being in a wheelchair meant you were mute and brain damaged, and in those days were before my enormous weight gain and my facial scars…so I was not a half bad looking wheel-chaired lady.

It was after that experience, quite a few years later in that writer’s workshop at the Cultural Center where I met my dear friend who passed away recently… She had us writing, weekly and one of my stories was about that strange to me experience, and I entitled it, “I’m still me”.
And aren’t we all just that when you get right down to it?
No matter why people see you differently inside we are who we have always been…can’t change us and people who think that they can are dismally disappointed.
Restraint is good I suspect, but I always think, these days what I coulda shoulda woulda said, sorry Judge Judy, not really, oh well!
I am just a wee bit slower with the comeback…

On that Alrighty now note of intent, allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you to kindly count all your blessings and share all your overages with you know who and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

Friday, August 23, 2013

Ya know how you think you enjoy eating certain things...



But NOT shoe-leather!
Foods not unlike songs, places, and scents and other tactile things, for lack of a better word, evoke memories.
And today when I saw liver and onions on the menu of a local eatery I decided to savor that remembrance by indulging in their offering.

You see, when I was expecting our first born, you all know him as ‘number one’, in the months before his delivery, and in those days of his developing 1971-1972, and we were told that iron was important for the development of the fetus.
Perhaps they didn’t use the term ‘fetus’ then, in many circles they still had hang-ups about proper descriptive words used with women.
More than likely I was told the developing infant within me or some such euphemism, yep even then.
Any-who, and so we all knew that liver in most all forms was high in that commodity of ‘iron’, we had no idea about other sources and if we did no one mentioned that green leafy vegetables would have been a better choice, and had more than just iron to offer… and those veggies had no backlash of making you eventually have high cholesterol…

So once a week Hubby who hated liver as many people do and so I could never ever make it at home anyway we were both working long hours and he was still going to college then, and so we would go to a local restaurant on Kinderkamack Road in Oradell, NJ to Haggler’s, where we were living at that time.
They were a dark, near pub-like place with homey good smells permeating the air throughout their parking lot and beyond and of course amplified upon entry; it was the neighborhood hangout and it was more than usual to bump into people you knew.
That was in Hubby’s hometown where he grew up.

It was inevitable that we went there weekly, while number one son was permeating within my womb. Sorry, so graphic, but times they are a changing…Hey; we used to say that over forty years ago! I suppose they are a changing in slow-mo, ha!

And so when I saw that our now local place of frequency offered a meal I had not had that way in oh so long… my deep shallows of my compromised brain spit up that wonderful reasoning of health and vitality that of once long ago that liver and onions represented to me…that is before I needed my statin!

My rationale is that I hadn’t had it in a very long time, so why not go for it!
Besides my last blood work was within the normal range, isn’t that why we take these drugs?
That’s Hubby’s reasoning.
But I am going next week for my updated blood work and once couldn’t hurt, could it?
You know I am glad that I did throw caution to the wind, really!
Because now I know it was nothing like I remembered, it was yucky and dry and tasted not unlike that shoe-leather I mentioned above.
The best liver my Mom made with onions was chicken livers and this was… gosh I didn’t ask… Haggler’s was, dare I say, cows, I think, either way disgusting and I am now cured! That is when I think back and from today's experience that should last for years to come...
But oddly enough Hubby tasted mine, and extraordinarily he said that he liked it?
SCARY!
Not now!

On that note of a little realization that at times we cannot go back to some of those delicious memories of olde… and that, in my mind it is now just racked up to another learning experience; allow me instead to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you to kindly count all your blessings and share all those overages with you know who and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Slowly I turned...




And BOO-RAH!
Nothing happened; due to nothing much going on…Nice for a change, hmm?

Weather was calm until this evening and as I sit here writing, my nightly drivel, there is a light drizzle outside of my door…
Good thing it is outside, not inside!
Sometimes we over explain as people, don’t we?
Logically, I do think you knew that, true?
Sure you did!
Oops, I did it again!

My dear friend who passed away in January on the 29th, the college English professor, retired, of course and thankfully, which gave her time to enjoy that for a few years before she did pass away… well anyway, she said at our writer’s workshop that you must show not tell while writing… I could have that backwards, not sure anymore which is correct, ya know? Blame it on the MS, or not…  Wish she was here to clarify…

Any-who, that I did interpret as building pictures in the readers minds with your words being descriptive of what you wish to compel to the reader to think, therefore feel and imagine, or some such thing?

Books did that for me; they made me get lost in the story line/vein, with the understanding that I was being whooshed off into another world that was no where near a resemblance of my own; different, but more than plausible.
Those stories showed me that imagination and clarity of description and fact checking or research for probability factors is important even to fiction.

Sure when you write non-fiction you must be very careful with your research, and with fiction you can take that ‘poet license’, right?

“Poetic license definition…

Noun
License or liberty taken by a poet, prose writer, or other artist in deviating from rule, conventional form, logic, or fact, in order to produce a desired effect.
Origin:
1780–90”

Thanks to:

With that said; we all have taken poetic license in life too, huh?
Elaborating to create a special effect when relaying a story of a personal experience you may have had, hmm?
Sure you did.
Human nature at its finest!

I like the fact that it said that those who write fiction are considered artists.
I’m just saying…
Better that than some weirdo.

Stretching that part of the brain can be fun and if you do it right it definitely will be.
When I wrote at full force I could write by the tens of thousands of words in a few days’ times; as if I were possessed!

My five novellas were written in record time way back in the late nineteen nineties, The Misty Gable Mysteries.

The first play I wrote was in 1962 at the age of twelve and received an ‘A’ for that, entitled, ‘Sweet Job’, about a candy store robbery.

Lately my imagination has been on hold and instead for the last five plus years I have been enjoying this, (I am spreading my hands out over the screen of my computer) and writing my blog, which I am told is definitely non-fiction.

Yes, what you read is what you get and whether it is my opinion, my crafts, gardening revelations, my complaints, my critiques on movies, song lyrics and restaurants or my consumer reports etc… it is as true as it gets!

And at this point in my life I like it like this, yeah, yeah, yeah!

So on that more upbeat declaration of who knows what allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you to kindly count all you blessings and share the overages with you know who and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

When was the last time...



That you had acquired something new in your life?
And I don’t mean disposables.
Food and their staples and clothing and jewelry don’t count.
I mean something more exotic or demure or tangible, possibly with breathing; and that is to you only?
Perhaps, you could attribute what I am suggesting to a living creature, a friend, a significant piece of your memories?
Who isn’t tempted daily by all those sad faces on those commercials of homeless… four-legged babies?
And all our socially aware pals on these socially media sites posting from their local Animal Welfare Leagues or shelters, or Humane Societies…
I too have had my heart broken in a split second online or in a minute segment on TV?
But since I have had all my medical issues and realize that one pet, if healthy can cost as much as a few thousand dollars a year between food and grooming and medical bills for just those yearly shots!
There was a time, long ago that we did have quite a menagerie of three dogs, two cats and our cockatiel too all at the same time!
I always made sure that their vet visits were spread out throughout the year, but in those days I don’t recall them being that expensive and they all had those important shots and yearly check-ups! Forget the never desired medical issues; we had one Yorkie with cancer cured twice with medical intervention and surgery over a few years period, but sadly became terminal from complications of another illness due to her medications, and died at sixteen, Brandi 1988-2004, was named for Benji’s mother. Our first cat as a family was Puffy, a gray and white domestic short-hair that was as soft as a powder puff thus her name, 1979-1992, had lymphoma and for five months she went in for IV treatments and heavy medication, and lost half her weight from an eight pound cat down to a four pound cat and the vet said she was not getting better and at thirteen she was euthanized. Benji, 1984-1998, should have been up their before Brandi, his was sudden he had syncope that was his only symptom until the ex-rays showed his tumor in his nasal passageway and the doctor said that there was a doctor up in St. Pete and so while Hubby was at work I drove those hundred plus miles with our dear sweet darling Benji periodically falling over in our truck, like those fainting goats, but they are otherwise healthy, as I made my way up to the doctor who was said to possibly be able to save him! When we arrived at the office, she, the specialty vet, looked at all those ex-rays and tests and did a few more and we waited for her conclusions…It seemed like it took forever and when she came out she said that over the years when she had seen cases like his they were extremely painful, Benji was a trooper and never ever complained! And when I asked her what would she do if Benji was hers, she said that she would let him go… and so I called Hubby and told him what was going on…He said his tearful goodbyes on the phone to him and I said mine as I held him for his last breath as I did for almost all of our loving pets…
And our dear Benji, who had the brains of the movie star one that he had been named for and the calm of a Snoopy, was going to be gone forever…since his suffering was more than any of us could bear for him as well…
Casey our long haired orange Tabby1996-2009 was given to us by our son when he left for the Navy, he was his and his girlfriend’s and when they broke up he got custody of his and Andrew’s from Hurricane Andrew 1992- 2001 the Collie Shepard mix companion and friend to them both.
Casey also died from a hideous cancer their story was told on my blog from that date…: http://tobi-adayinthelife.blogspot.com/2009/10/inevitable-happenedcasey-has-been.html

Mandy 1992-2001 our black and white feline, also a domestic short haired wanderer, who somehow a few months after Puffy passed away wandered into our garage, although, I think she was placed there purposefully, due to a friend of a friend knowing how sad we all were on the passing of Puffy!
Mandy had again every year her normal inoculations, but sadly had kidney disease from about age five years old and it was inoperable according to our vet on the other coast here in Florida, she lived till she was nine years old, but passed away at home with us here, in this house, on this coast.
And of course how can I forget Charlie 1979- 2010, our cockatiel broke our heart too when he passed away at thirty-one years old, way past his life expectancy of twenty for his species, the only one buried in our back yard… the others were all cremated and a couple of them we still have their ashes…
  
Anyone who has lost a pet knows what I am talking about…too hard to go through again…

I try hard never to think about if Skipper would get so very sick, I wipe it from my brain… but now you know why we haven’t taken on more than we can handle emotionally or otherwise… Geez Hubby and I both had pets as children growing up and I didn’t go there, but most of you know what I am thinking… it is hard since they all are part of your family…and loving memories do not leave any of us, whether it be the four-footed kind or the two legged kind of death, it’s oh so sad…

On that note, a real downer, sorry!
Darn those commercials and postings… in truth I want them all, but cannot do what I would love to do… give them a loving home.

Count all those blessings kindly and share those overages with you know who and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

Speaking My Mind: Which way will the war go?

Speaking My Mind: Which way will the war go? :   My eyesight is going again... in case you missed it... Netanyahu snaps back against growing...