Careful!

Hello again friends.
Tonight I would like to discuss something that was brought up again on our evening news.
Trusting older ladies who leave their purses in the child seat in their grocery carts!
DON’T!
Why? I hear you asking.
Because you are asking to be robbed!

Once again the in-store security camera picked up a man, this time, stealing a woman’s wallet right out of her purse, and when she returned to her cart she appeared to have no knowledge of what had happened! Wait till she gets up to that register and tries to pay for all her groceries, oh my!

Personally, here at the Publix we go to there was an incident with an innocent looking mom who was the thief and her child was the distracter.
So please people watch you stuff!
I have told many a woman not to leave her purse there, and oddly enough it never seems to occur to them as being a problem, oh but it is!
I explain that my husband is retired law enforcement to legitimize my knowledge and concern for their safety and that usually does the job and they then opt to carry their purse or put it on their shoulder or under their arm.
The best advice anyone can give to anybody is just to be aware of your surroundings and keep any valuables close or out of sight or leave them home under lock and key.

While involved with the support group for arthritis back in the late 1990’s until the early turn of this century we would have many guest speakers come to our meetings to talk to our people about this and that, besides dealing with all of the one hundred different types of arthritis on a daily basis.
Since it was mostly all seniors with the mean age of about seventy-five years old or young whatever you prefer, I thought that any members of the sheriff’s office who could teach them about scams or self protection were good ideas. At the time I was a co-president of the all volunteer group, and of course I had access to those people to come on over to the Cultural Center where we would meet monthly.

There are generations who are so trusting and that is the only reason that they get taken so I really felt I was doing a service to these fine people who adopted me as one of their own, since I was about the age of most of their kids at the time.

Many have since passed away for that I am sure, law of averages and all.
But oddly enough I did bump into one of those older woman who consequently is now much older I thought that I had recognized her but couldn’t remember her name, and when I said to her I think I know you, while we're both in line at the cafeteria style eatery at the cultural center she said, “you probably do I have been here forever” and then she said her name and sure enough I did know her! But she sort of remembered me, slightly but I look so different these days and we were both quite a bit older than then, oh well…
The meeting was bittersweet, as they say.

My fondest memories of those older folks that I did enjoy quite a bit since we all went through so much together, not only me teaching them Aquacize, doing fashion shows with using them as my models even once having a golf tournament, but all those losses of spouses and pets and homes after the hurricanes that we had to bond over.
Yes, my surrogate moms and dads… how I do miss them all…

Since all those older folks did somewhat really adopt me; knowing that when we moved here back in 1986 and that both of my parents had already passed away at the ages of 70 and 79 (you see my parents had me late in life at 39 and 43, their second marriage and all), and so they appeared to really care to take me too under their wings; it was so nice of them.

I slowly disconnected from them due oddly enough to my own health problems, but to be honest I don’t think I could have taken their deaths full-out up-close and personal.
My own parent's deaths were hard enough to take, and then moving into a neighborhood with a large elderly population it never seemed to end, the deaths that is.
But making friends with anyone over seventy seemed like I would lose them and I tried hard not to get so attached.
And yes I do know that death is as much a part of life as life is.
But I am a BIG chicken with losing friends, and that is not to say that some of my best friends have not been younger and gone too… my own niece, for one, was only fifty, cousins too under sixty, and kids in high school dying from leukemia; in those days it wasn't so curable.

And so I am being way too maudlin, so sorry!
Where was I?
And what was the point of my title tonight?
Oh, that’s right, ‘CAREFUL’; yep, all of you please try to be; all of my friends out there in cyberspace.
Do whatever it takes to be, remember to watch your stuff and dear ones and hold them all close; it keeps you warm anyway, so why not? LOL!

On that slightly more positive note I would like you all to have a very happy good night and to count all those blessings and share those overages and we will too!

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

Anticipation!

Can you feel it?
It’s in the air…
What? You ask…. why…
JOY of course!
The joy of the season and the thrill of the ideas of love and peace and good will towards all mankind and that means womankind too!

We are all so expecting the best to come magically.
With the chill in the atmosphere we feel this time of year is destine to be whatever our hopes and dreams have surmised.
And if we are optimists it will be just as exciting as we expect!
Ten more days for all of the Christians of the world to celebrate their holiday and it is in my feelings that, that has always been contagious to the rest of us.
Yes there are many religions in this world who do not celebrate this holiday called Christmas, but amazingly the world has taken to it as a very wonderful time of the year and welcomes all to celebrate with them; how truly nice.
Yet when we invite them to celebrate our different winter holidays sometimes we don’t get that same response, huh?

Not to divide us as a human race but I just wonder why that is?
Many holidays like Hanukah, Kwanza and the like would welcome the world too, but you rarely hear of such enthusiasm to join them in celebration.
How odd, I say and at this ripe old age I wonder why?
Freedom to believe in whatever you want to in this country is definitely allowed and traditions are part of all people’s faiths for this I am sure.
So why is it that we don’t try to recognize all others holidays as well and celebrate with them too?

I am not trying to start any trouble, you all know me… I am just an inquiring mind who wants to know why that is?
Yep, that’s it.

Anyone have any ideas I am opened to all suggestions, OK?
You see, in my immediate family we are of two different religions Hubby and me and everyone always wished me a Merry Christmas along with him when it is not my holiday, but people assume that I celebrate it since my husband did, got that?
Actually, not to be rude I haven’t said anything all these years, but neither of us converted from our religions.
He is still a Catholic and I am still a Jew.
And after all these years I would have loved for one of my in-laws to wish me a Happy Hanukah, since I always wished them a Merry Christmas, but no, it never ever happened and I wouldn’t ever make a big deal of it except I am now getting old and I have time to think about it.
I guess it always bothered me.
To me it is respecting others for who they are.
Am I wrong?
Oh dear another TABOO subject, RELIGION!
And why is that I ask you?
Since it is over religions that more wars than any have been fought, and no one wants to discuss it!
Crazy! Perhaps that is the reason for all those wars!
It could be just me, but I am not that smart…
Any-who, all of you wonderful people out in the world know that being of any religion means to love all of the world equally and respect our similarities as much as our differences, OK?
What a world it would be, huh?

On those words of joy of the season to ponder I want to wish all of you a happy, merry or whatever you need to be you to be happy and celebratory!
Because you know that Tobi loves you as you are and hopefully you love her too!

On that note of happiness beyond belief please have a very happy night and count all your blessings and share those overages and we will too!

And next time be here or be square, OK?

Complaining...

Is there something wrong with that?
We all have to say one way or another how it really is, true?
How come though when women complain it’s called the ‘b’ word that rhymes with itching or witching?
But somehow when a man does it its being strong and assertive?
Just like this crying thing… you know we get the double standard on that one too, I am speaking about us women in case you weren’t sure!
John Boehner our new upcoming speaker of the house seems to cry at the drop of the hat, and it’s no longer a crime for any man to be that emotional, but still we women would be considered weak now? What?
Yes, that’s what the story is when Hilary Clinton nearly did while running for the presidency she nearly broke down into a crying state during it and it was commented on that she was showing her human but weaker side, huh?
Men are now allowed to but we are not!
Boy, how things have changed, although, we were never allowed, it was considered unprofessional or worse!

I know I do have the habit of complaining nearly nightly and if I cry at times I occasionally mention it but not all of the time because that would just add to the boredom, but I do have feelings too!
And why would mine be considered wrong and now all these gents being allowed to show how they sincerely feel about something without being told that they found their feminine side?
Yep, you got that right!
Crying is no longer considered a gender thing and us who used to be called the weaker sex are no longer?
Well, that’s a good thing, I think! Sure it is.
You know, that is true over the last few decades we females as a gender have proven that we are extremely capable of holding our own in any situation!
And many today are the so-called bread winners with many Hubbies’s staying home and taking care of the kiddies, wow! Or many women are the sole parent.

Topsy turvey, huh?
Upside down from what my generation knew and held in temporary esteem, since we are the ones who began the women’s movement of equality for all.
Men and women should be able to play any sports that they wanted and to also be paid the same for the same work as any man. This one I still think is a wee bit off so I have been told… men are still getting more than their fair share for when they are in the work force.

Emotions as I have mentioned a few times over the years are not unique to one gender over the other we just used to show our feelings differently.
At one time men were told to hold their emotions in and to buck up and not cry.
Women were told to try not to, but if you must do it, do it privately not publicly, what?
Mixed messages as always have been the problem, but now I am confused does this mean we all now can cry if we wanna?
It would be so nice to know the rules.
I’m not COMPLAING, oh yes I am, but in some ways it does make things easier being no definitive gender defining attributes or flaws, or what-have-you?
We are all just human beings in the reality of going about our business and so I do believe it may be a good thing that we are equal in this crying thing.
I can live with it.
But please stop changing the rules every few decades because as I get older I don’t think that I will be able to necessarily be capable of keeping up, OK?

On that slight bit of silliness I will ask you to politely, since that never seems to go out of style, to please count all your blessings and share those overages and we will too!

And next time please, here I go again, nice, huh?
Be here or be square, OK?

Taboo

Conventional wisdom is to keep private things that you are concerned with becoming a problem when exposed private, correct?
Most of us have a few things in our lives which we know may not be ordinary and could even be considered controversial.

Lately many celebrities have come around and out about the fact that they had suffered a miscarriage or even a few.
Sadly this topic had been considered taboo for way too long.
Lisa Ling: copy and paste her site below: http://www.dosomething.org/blog/celebsgonegood/lisa-ling-provides-forum-women has started a web page for women who have these so-called sensitive secrets that seem to have touched many but that we as a gender have been told not to discuss in public.

Honestly it took me a few days to come to my own personal conclusion to bring up this particular topic which happened so long ago and at the time I felt was swept under the rug as if I did something wrong, which I did not.

I had three miscarriages in total, one two years after my first son was born in 1974, he was born in 1972 and I was at four and half months and told by the doctor at the time that it was a mal formed fetus since I was hemorrhaging profusely and that I needed surgery to complete what was happening and it was G-d’s way of taking care of these things. By my third pregnancy in my third month in 1975 I began cramping and the doctor put me in the hospital under bed rest and on Provera, a drug at the time for preventing early delivery, and our second son was born perfect at full term, six months later in 1976.
It was when he was a teenager that I attained a Physicians’ Desk Reference book and found out how dangerous Provera was and could have caused deformities not unlike Thalidomide used in forties and fifties for the same purpose, I suppose we’re extremely fortunate!

I had two more miscarriages after my younger son(1976) was born, one in 1979 only at six weeks but placenta was caught in my uterus and so surgery again was done, and the third was another four and half month one in 1981, and not once was I told what was the gender of the children that I had lost and no one instructed me that I could have asked, I had no guidance what-so-ever. I was so naïve and under the circumstances it was not discussed.

Five pregnancies in the first ten years of marriage that was not due to my lack of knowledge of birth control for I had been on six different types of ‘the pill’ and even had an IUD after my first son was born; the pills caused what is called breakthrough bleeding and the IUD ripped my insides and most likely caused the next four pregnancy problems although one doctor did cauterize me. I always wanted two sons and a daughter that is all I ever wanted, but by the third four and half month miscarriage, which took another severe toll on my body with hemorrhaging, and so I gave in to the only type of birth control that would be permanent and at the tender age of thirty-one I opted for having my tubes tied, a tubal ligation, a final irreversible way to not have anymore pregnancies. Sadly my mother passed away within months after that final step and I was miserable for I would have loved another child to name for her.

Clearing the air feels so wonderful, and I hope that we as women in this twenty-first century could and should feel able to talk about anything without anyone telling us that we shouldn’t!

Only one woman in memory was willing to discuss these traumas that I went through in peculiar shame of the times and oddly enough it was an octogenarian who had been through it herself, my Hubby’s grandmother who confided in me of her own miscarriage before she had either of her two children.

What has happened to us as a people when we can’t discuss these things of utmost frailty and importance to us as human beings; I thought we were truly in this together, are we not?

That is why when everyone out there is talking about their grand’s and children’s spouses I feel sad and sorrowfully stupidly jealous, for that was in my plan and unfortunately none has come to pass….
And I fear that I may never see that day.

Sorry for this sadness but my heart aches at this time of year for family and we are short in that arena.

But please remember to count your own blessings and to share your overages and we will too!

And next time be here or be square, OK?
I need all of you; for you are my abstract family.

Again!

Once more we are heading towards brrr temperatures and no, we have not enjoyed the short cold snaps that kept on staccato-ing through the last few weeks.

But alas, here we go AGAIN!
The chill is in the air and is to your bones and when not used to these things as many long time southerners aren’t, even we transplants seem to find it too much for us to deal with; this is hideous weather for us.
Oddly enough as I write this my toolbar reads only sixty-one degrees!
And to most, anyone that is not bone chilling but I do believe it is incorrect or we are bloodless souls here in the Sunshine State because to me it is definitely freezing!
That is the outside temperature by the by… in the house it is in the seventy-six degree range, just lovely!
The humidity seems to add to that feeling when outdoors; cold or hot temperatures with humidity appears to cause more of an effect.

Today we stayed home and Hubby mowed the lawn, I know, with all this cold however did it grow, but it did here and there and needed a neatening up of all those bits of sticker uppers, as I boldly call them, which he did do.
Besides we have been periodically getting a bit of rain, not very much or for very long, but drizzle would be more accurate, really!
Water still has a tendency to make things grow though, you know?
I am a poet and I know it. LOL!

While Hubby did his manicuring of the lawn thingy I on the other hand did not do too much. I did take care of a bit of cleaning and changing the sheets and a load of wash too, but not very much really.
It saddens me that I won’t or can’t do more.
I did play some online dominoes which I do enjoy and lost and then reclaimed my dignity and won again.
Some agains are good, wouldn’t you say?

Again life tells us that we should be knowledgeable of how things go at this time of year, since it does come every year, correct? Then why do we seem more times than not to allow it to get us soooo stressed out?
Experience is supposed to teach us, and that is why this again confuses me, does it do it to you too?
Hustle and bustle of the season they say… here we go again with ‘they’, please let me know, if you do, who ‘they’ are? LOL!
Shouldn’t logically by now we all know that tis the season is here and now that we should not be soooo surprised by what we must accomplish to make it all go smoothly?
Oh yes, it is possible.
We are capable human beings with logical minds and simplicity and lists are the way we handle things at other times of the year, what makes this time soooo different?
Deadlines in many types of jobs are not unusual, reports, proposals or whatever’s need to be done by a certain time, same with homework for those kiddies to relate to all of this.
We are accomplishers tried and true and so…STOP being concerned and take a deep breath and you know that YOU will get it all done!
You HEAR ME?
Now breathe again…
And smile and tell yourself you are a wonderful capable person who can do whatever you set your mind to, got that?


LET US ALL PRAY THAT I AM RIGHT! LOL!

On that consoling silliness but done with love in my heart and soul, happy night to all and to all count those blessings and share those overages and we will too!

And next time be here or be square, OK?

PS please ask those weather angels to turn up the HEAT!

Whirlwind

Whirlwind: noun
1 [count] : a very strong wind that moves in a spinning or swirling motion and that can damage buildings, trees, etc.
2 [singular] : something that involves many quickly changing events, feelings, etc. ▪ My life has been a whirlwind lately. ▪ He attended a whirlwind of meetings. ▪ an emotional whirlwind = a whirlwind of emotions
Thanks to Merriam Webster Learner’s Dictionary

I have been a guilty user of words that are not always clear in their meanings, you know?
And so I enjoy delving further into my first language that I utilize usually without much thought.
And yes today was a whirlwind of movement, therefore definition number two would be what we did.

We left the home front fairly early on our venture to accomplish shopping for gifts and needed items. The weather was to be much warmer today than it has been over the last few days… and it did get there in and out really due to whenever the sun showed its face.
And so Hubby and I were prepared for anything temperature wise, layers is what we wore and periodically would zip up or remove clothing during our morning rounds. Yes we had a few stops a flea market for my ideas of finding this or that for the house, no luck there, and then a quickie healthy lunch at our restaurant for that Crispers, which has something to do with the Publix grocery chain I believe they own them, but I could be wrong. They do not allow tipping there only contributions to their one and only charity, United Way and so we do give what we can when we can and today Hubby did once again, got that?
The food is of the soup and salad variety with a few other choices on the menu which changes often and the prices are not very high considering no tipping is allowed. From there our intention was to go on to the larger chain store where I felt I could find the remainder of the items we were searching for.
But after going down a few isles and through a few departments I had a strange feeling come over me. Of nausea and being closed in, and so I urged Hubby to return the one item we had chosen and to get me out of the store!
And so we did leave, oddly enough once outside of the building the sensation of foreboding left me immediately as we got into the car though I did feel light-headed and needed cooler air the open window didn’t help, and even though the outside temperature stated it was fifty-six degrees, we have a computer read in the car itself which came with the car, but I needed the air-conditioner on and as soon as it went on I felt some relief, except from the sun that was shinning in and hurting my bad eye, my right.
So strange I wonder what it was all about even at home when my blood pressure was checked it had gone up and my pulse too.
An anomaly I suspect for within hours I was better, thankfully.

And having all this new found time on my hands I decided to get to a pleasant relaxing calming job that Hubby was not interested in that of watching two movies that I had chosen Humble Pie and The Wronged Man, which he actually watched part of while checking our chicken cooking on the barbecue. Both movies were quite different and both of a quality that was quite incredible in many different aspects, one was a fictional story and the other was based on a true one. I would give you a synopsis but that would ruin the stories for you! But I do recommend both.

On that note of peeked interest, I hope that you will count all your blessings and share those overages and we will too!

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

PS A site was provided somehow to me this morning on my Face book page and it is to send free letters to the military and so I will share the site with you, just copy and paste:http://www.letssaythanks.com/Home1280.html
And create smiles on their faces...

Have

Used to be during the ‘great depression’ of the last century, 1929 to 1941 there was an expression that went, “The haves and have-nots”, referencing people’s financial situations of the times. If you still had some money you were of course the haves and no money of course the have-nots.
A plain and simple explanation of how it was going during those horrendous notorious years.
People at the time and till this day truly believe that if it wasn’t for us getting finally involved in the Second World War, it had actually begun in the 1930’s and until Pearl Harbor was bombed we did not physically go ‘over there’ to fight, many believe it was what had helped to get us out of the depression.
Men went to war while women held down the home front by taking many of the jobs that men used to do, ah the days of ‘Rosie the Riveter’.
Movies portrayed the war as romantic and exciting and people volunteered left and right to partake in getting rid of the enemy!
Sadly, at the time little of the actual horrors I think were told of all the murders of innocent people, death chambers and prisoner of war camps that were really just more death camps, yes millions were killed for no reason accept for HATRED! Yes, there were news reels, but not so graphic until after the war was actually over, I believe.

So that war was not glamorous, no war is.
My brother fought, actually he was a medic in the Air Force during the Korean War where he was injured and spent the remainder of his years in and out of Veterans Hospitals.
Viet Nam was just as horrific and I was against that war for many reasons, one was my brother’s horrendous experiences, and my visits as a child to those VA hospitals that he was in, which made me realize even without outer scars inner scars are just as devastating, but also from the friends we were losing while we were still in high school and later on in college.
Even our younger son was six years in the Navy, but…
I will, to this and everyday support our military, but I would much prefer for them to never have to fight. They are someone’s fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, nieces and nephews as well siblings…all loved by someone who respects and hates the ambivalence of the war processes and what it does to all involved.
Sadly reports of friendly fire and innocent people not warriors die all of the time, not to mention all the suicides that come from having to deal with the war itself.
So again, I repeat war is not glamorous and I want any movie makers not to portray it that way and recently in the last thirty or so years the truth has been shown more than not.

Oh, why did I go off on the war tangent when I was discussing our depression?
Well, we are at war now and this time it did not do its magic trick… oh what trick is that, you boldly ask?
Put us Americans back to work.
Notice the other problem, without a draft like we had years ago many are not volunteering except the ones already in and so they go back again and again causing exhaustion and many of the above mentioned problems.
Good men and women pushed to the limits of what they got.
We love them all for what they do … they do this for all of US!
I only wish there was a resolve to help them more than just sending gifts and cards and the like, all good and needed, but you know what I mean…someway to relieve them of what they must endure…physical and emotional support too!

Sadly as I mentioned above this long war of ours, nine years plus so far, has not proven to help with providing jobs on the home front, but that isn’t why we are there; we all know it is to stop our enemies, the Taliban and the extremists that killed all of our loved ones on 9/11 and threaten us daily from all over the world.; good logical reasoning. But horrifically more than the three thousand who died on 9/11/01 have died fighting in this war, how ironic war is. We chose to fight due to many of our people being killed and then we killed more of theirs and ours and still do daily….in the process… now you know why I am at odds with the concept.
Yes, I do believe that there are bad people who must be stopped and righteous people who need to do it. I am just saying that it seems by now in this twenty-first century you would think we would have come up with a better way to solve these devastating dilemmas? It confuses my sensibilities as a human being on this planet.
Militaries are an absolute necessity I truly believe but I only wish they could be there to protect not to do what they have to be trained to do.
I know it’s my dumb idealism running rampant again!
I also think it’s because of the time of the year when family means so much to us all…
And when a war is going on there are separations of loved ones from one another and that makes me want to cry for all of them!
My only solace is to know that they are there because they chose to be, and that their families’ support and love them wholeheartedly and call and tweet and computer Skype them to tell them that; which is soooo twenty-first century! LOL!
In spite of my ambivalence of this practice to make the world a better place for our freedoms I would like all the people serving around the world or even here on our home shores now during these holidays to know how much WE/ME all appreciate what they do daily!
And in my own strange way this is a love letter to all of you!

In closing I suppose in our own ways we are all, ‘haves’ because it is more than money we have its love of all mankind, huh?

And so once again I will ask you politely to count all those blessings and share those overages and we will too!

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