Last night was not exactly what I expected...

But to be fair; are any nights ever what we expect? I suppose many are uneventful… but not always… The late news said that we could be getting nasty storms during the early morning hours, around one or two A.M. and sure enough… We did. I again fell asleep with the TV on and heard the low hum of the crawl message along the bottom of the screen. It warned of an impeding heavy rain storm with strong winds and possible tornadoes in several counties, including ours. It was a tornado watch, not a warning. But in my semi-awake mind I could not recall which was the more dangerous of the two and I got up out of bed and came here to our techno marvel. And turned the computer back on and was informed that a watch is not as worrisome as a warning. Although, the way my mind works I was not that certain that things couldn’t take a turn for the worse…after all, didn’t all those horrendous touchdown tornadoes come through in the middle of the night and kill many people unsuspectingly in our own country’s tornado alley, which is from the south, in Texas up through the center of the country to the northward encompassing some of the states to the east and west of that line? And I wanted to be awake to get Hubby and Skipper up and safe and ready to do whatever we had to do. The line of tornadic incidence fluctuates and so does the rash of erratic weather systems, a tornado is much more unpredictable than any hurricane, but can be as deadly! Here in Florida, the occurrence is not that often for tornadoes, albeit we do have them, why; I have no idea. It is just as well, since most homes here do not have basements, but of recent years safe rooms have been built into the wealthier housing development homes. Many recommend using a closet or bathroom without windows to hide in, in a pinch. And I have seen reports where many a survivor can attest to hiding in their bathtub with a mattress pulled over them. But we have all seen the devastation that and F4 can do and sometimes nothing can work…! Whatever method works I would try at the very least! Scary as these possibilities can be, we all must think before hand on what we can do to be safe. Fortunately, we made it through the extremely harsh weather last night without any of that happening here, thankfully! Every season is a new adventure weather wise. Yes, the world also has this commonalty; lack of control of the weather. So read whatever you can on any weather system that affects your area and be better informed so you can handle the possibility with confidence and self reliance. Moving on... Today we went over to Fishville and with the thought that they were having a day for celebrating Earth Day, and we found a few booths with crafts, which was stated in their events calendar, but not really related to this very special day. It was a lovely day after the rain stopped but too windy for outdoor dining and since we had our noble canine with us we came home and ate here. But don’t most of us celebrate Earth Day, daily with recycling, composting and with our rain barrels, veggie gardens and driving with much thought and non wasteful expense, well if not, we all should! Hug your earth today and every day! And an update too… Yesterday, we received in the snail mail a letter confirmation that our bank will be handling the refuting of the charges from Score Sense within the next thirty days, right after I receive verification that Score Sense will be refunding and canceling all the charges and membership and in fact they were already showing up in our account as just that, refunds. And so I tried calling our bank to let them know and this time they were closed, so tomorrow I will call and tell them that it is all done with, happily! Last night, before the weather got bad we watched another good movie with Taylor Lautner of Twilight fame, this time he was holding the lead quite admirably, in this 2011 movie, Abduction. It was a thriller action one and an amazing ride… it starts out as one thing and ends up going in a totally different direction. With an incredible cast including Sigourney Weaver, Maria Bello to just to mention a few; and if you enjoy a surprise with your idea of entertainment than this movie will suffice that need. Oh yes, a two thumbs up from both Hubby and me, once again! On that more idyllic way to spend an evening … allow me to be the first to wish you all a very happy good night and ask you to kindly count all your blessings and share those overages and we will too! And next time please be here or be square, ya hear?

Did you hear the one about...

1. “Modesty is the art of enhancing your charm by pretending not to be aware of it. 2. Ideas not coupled with action never become bigger than the brains cells they occupied. (Apparently, double negative intended?) 3. In this world of contradiction, it’s better to be merry than wise. 4. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” (Apparently, it is in the wrong tense.) Any-who, those above quotes were in our tonight’s fortune cookies. Now I will start with my interpretation of the first which brings to mind that English gal who was so full of herself a few weeks ago that made the news in a negative way, or I should say brought a BIG discussion on such topics or the importance of thinking that being attractive or thinking that you're attractive gets you things or not. But then I think it is an archaic way of thinking, we all should be proud of ourselves and use everything that the almighty has given to us…let’s face it though aren’t all fortunes from those cookie factories ancient concepts? The second one gives me pause to think about what it says and that it could be considered quite poignant. And my interpretation is that actions speak more than words, but where would that leave me? Here, I guess, oh well… Moving on… The third one was how I would like to be, but oh darn I am both! LOL! As well we all should be, Ta da! Number four is downright ridiculous and I don’t believe for one minute that it is a Chinese proverb or whatever these really are, predictions, suggestions, ideas to toss around to use or throw away? I still, like Hubby believe that Henny Youngman said that one! I will let the kids Google him to know who Henny was To be fair though, some are remarkable in content, but tonight’s, which I don’t eat the cookie; I give them to Hubby to do the honors of ingestion of those sugary treats… The ones that we were given didn’t cut their usual mustard…but not everyone can espouse nightly jewels, hmm, and why four cookies were given to only two of us? Our order was for two and we even had leftovers, mmm wonderful leftovers for future munching. Today, it was raining on and off all day long, as was predicted by our smart weather people on NBC. Tomorrow they promise it will be better, but we sure did need the rain… sadly River City AKA Punta Gorda had a block party scheduled for today, without a rain date, since this is still our dry season, well what can you do, except yell to the rain G-d’s! But they never seem to listen on cue, oh well… Right now it is getting pretty nasty outside my weather window here in my sweet little abode and so before I possibly lose power and with that said I have a few updates to tell you about quickly: First: Score Sense did come through with refunding both $29.95 charges and their initial one dollar charges for both too that I didn’t request back, and we are cancelled too as requsted! Next, we have seen some pretty great movies in the last few days “My Week with Marilyn” yes, about Marilyn Monroe in 1956 while filming in London a movie with Sir Lawrence Olivier, which was as good as the hype, and so was “Incredibly Loud and Extremely Close”, Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock with a young man that I predict will have a long career ahead of him, Thomas Horn, the movie takes place just before and after 9/11, that also was something to see, and so if you are of the ilk to view quality... get both that get two thumbs up each from Hubby and me! On that issuance of mine of some note to note, allow me to be the first to wish you all a very happy good night and to ask you to kindly to count all your blessings and share all those overages and we will too! And next time please be here or be square, ya hear?

Interesting happenings...

Have you ever wished that you could be stealth? Sure you have. For those who may not know what it is to be stealth I will write the definition here: furtiveness, surreptitiousness, sneakiness, slyness, craftiness, secrecy, and covertness. And you just thought it referred to an aircraft unseen for secret missions, hmm? Surprise, we can be stealth too. How would you do it? We have all heard the expression; if only I could be a fly on the wall in such and such room, hmm? That would be being stealth, right? Hiding from view and overhearing something could also be considered being stealth too. Would it be a good thing to have this super power? Because that is what it would have to be to not be seen sort of, no just like the invisibility cloak in Harry Potter that is definitely being able to be stealth! Gosh, we should all invent one that would be so neat! Being an ordinary citizen though; what would it be that we would want to know? Now that is a bit of a quandary, hmm? What or why would we need to be invisible to know anything, are we spies? Do we need to know what people are saying about your own business practices, but wait; I’m retired, actually real-tired! Perhaps, they would be discussing how to get me to spill the state secrets that I maintained to take to my grave, but wait, I don’t have any! How about the patent pending on that nifty thingy Hubby and I were designing for the masses? Huh, nope, none of that either. Guess no one would be discussing me or mine in anyway that I would need to be trying to find out about, and you know what? That’s just kind of sad… not enough mystery in my life…or excitement either, apparently. Do I have any time left before I leave this planet to have something that special that someone may not want me to hear about them finding out about me? Or did I just get this whole thing backwards, yep that’s it! I want to know their patents pending their state secrets their family ones and their hidden agendas, yes that’s the ticket; it is just me, nosey me but in imagine just me in stealth form! AHA! On that crazier than I ought a be, oh before I close tonight I said something that I would like to retract, since I was a bit too misinformed with the concept of the meaning of the expression, ‘Blockhead Writer’ that I foolishly gave myself as a moniker that I sure hope will not stick. You see what I meant was that without me being able to control the paragraphing in this new Google Blog format it appears to be in block form with making it more difficult to understand… and sure enough I goofed, but I have goofed before… and I belted out the new horrid expression 'Blockhead Writer', and all I can say is that I sure do hope that it is not true, at least I sure hope not! Since, ‘Blockhead’ refers to stupid, and I might not be a genius, but I am not that dumb either with an over the average I.Q. of 120 (read than forget please what I just wrote here, since it is nothing to brag about) and besides who wants to read anything from a stupid writer? NOT ME OR YOU EITHER! So now that we have discussed stealth, everyone can try it at home, huh? Sure, be invisible sneak up on your honey, and those little darlings… or the four footed loves… and report back to me with whatever you find out. Why? You so boldly ask, to know what’s what in the world of course, and if you are anymore interesting than me, but of course! Boring is as boring does…! Excite your life, shake it up and we will too! And next time after you share and count those blessings please be here or be square you hear?

Tonight's the night that all my options have been taken away!

Sounds so fatalistic, hmm? That my friends is called a grabber line. But not too far from my truth, tonight is the first night of the rest of my Blogger life with this new format that I appear to not have much control over, got that? A while back I gave it a test drive and didn’t like it but unbeknownst to me, not knowing I could have changed back sooner to what I prefer. Although, days later Google made me the offer and I took them up on it, and changed back to my old format. Unfortunately, tonight though I do not have that option any longer so here I write, as usual on my Word Program that I copy and paste to the body of my post, under my logo and title and do not know yet if I will have any paragraphing or will it again be a massive block of words without any symmetry? Causing what I write here nightly to be even more difficult to decipher or not? I am one who definitely knows about challenges in life, and having maintained the knowledge that easier is always better! No arguments from most people I would think. So why? Yes, why, would an intelligent site of mega bucks in value want to tamper with simplicity and perfection to create difficulty and in my opinion, flawed? Are we wasting their space with our own brands of gobbledygook? Perhaps, they would prefer to utilize it for something more profitable? Somehow I can’t imagine that. They know that we stir the pot with all our provocatively, interesting, informative, and controversial and colorful ways of bringing just about anything to them and therefore the world in picture and word form! We are more than an asset. Why we are an advertising campaign with substance and brilliance for the use of this venue to prove to the world! I do know that we on occasion have been belittled for not fact checking enough or even being a wee bit inaccurate with our so-called knowledgeable concepts… But this is the real world and even the legitimate newsies, such as newspapers, cable news and nightly, daytime and morning news networks have made mistakes, and you all know that too! The fact is stories are not that dissimilar to the old game telephone…You know the one where you stand on a line and whisper in the person next to them's ear? And they into the person next to them and on and on, etc…and soon after fifty or less people have been hopefully told what the first whisperer said verbatim…WE KNOW THAT NEVER EVER HAPPENS and oops human error happens! Even with fact checking and all our techno marvels these things can ruin the actual original words that were said, only one person might misunderstand and that could change the course of the whole shebang! So although we think today everything should be more accurate, I would like all of you to realize that it is still impossible to be…and accept that as a probability, okay? And the next time someone asks you if you are sure about something tell them the truth…and what is that you might ask? Yep, that you don’t know, but you might be able to find out if your resources are accurate but there is no guarantee for them either and so to cut to the chase, just say no…okay? And that should keep you human and real and honest and you know if they don’t like it tell them the wrong answer that you know for sure is wrong, but do you really know if it is, or is it, hmm? Confidence is wonderful in your own truths but within the broader spectrum of what is in the world, let’s face it unless you were there and saw it for yourself it is not more than a guess…true? You got that right, allow me now to wish you all a very happy good night and ask you kindly to count all your blessings and share all your overages and we will too! And next time please be here or be square, ya hear?

Follow up to my helping myself with company that offered a freebie and then charged you!

Score Sense this weekend had me incensed!
If you recall, on the eleventh of this month I called them after I found two $29.95 charges on my Visa bill for their ‘FREE’ service, and so I asked them to refund and cancel this since I did not want this, which would have become a monthly charge and the young man Derek said that he would handle it and that it would be removed within one to five days and I thought that was that! Saturday, on our old email address that I did not give to them, they sent to Hubby a denial of the claim of refund and cancellation. And so I finally called my bank and told them the situation and that I was refuting these charges. The bank said fine and that we would not be responsible for them. And for good measure I emailed the Today Show to let them know too, since it was during their financial segment on the fourth of this month they suggested using this FREE service, which I did!
I could not call the Sure Sense customer service department then since they were not going to be open until Sunday at noon to six P.M., and I did call on Sunday…
And a very nice woman who stated that she was a supervisor named Elise in the Orlando area said that now that she sees the problem and that we had just asked for mine to be cancelled without the refund, huh?
Why would I ask for Hubby’s to be refunded and cancelled and mine to only be cancelled. That was rhetorical, since I know you all are smart enough to know that I would never do that!
My main concern was that she fix the problem, and she assured me that she would, and finally today we received another email at our old email address that Hubby’s was approved for refund and cancellation and also the initial dollar charge that I didn’t worry about, hooray! I notified the Today Show that I thought the problem was handled.

So today I thought the problem was solved and I waited, and waited and waited to see if my email would come to our newer email address, actually two years or more old, and nothing, nada, bupkis!
And so, you got it I gave the company called ‘Score Sense’, to me they are beginning to seem more like ‘Nonsense’ another call… I spent some time explaining to another woman named Bonnie, in Colorado, this time what was going on and after she had to speak to Hubby to verify who he was, how insulting!
Any-who, I had already told her that his went through and we received the email for it.
But after half an hour on the phone with this incorrigible woman she finally gave me what I wanted to know… an answer… but not one that was right or really that informative…That my complaint: was pending!
Now, let me get this right it has been just me doing all this calling and handling of the situation and consistently at the same time as Hubby’s since I am the only one on the phone except when they needed him to tell them to speak with me!
Talk about CRAZY!
That woman was, archaically trained to talk to people.
She did sound fairly young but had no gumption in her, when I felt that asking to speak to my husband of forty-one years was insulting to him and me, and he told her that when he had no other choice than to speak with her.
Any-who, if this is not resolved within the week with them I will just have to rely on what my bank told me that we are not responsible for any of those disputed charges.
You see in all my years I do not recall having this situation ever before.

Between our new across the street neighbor having someone arrested then released adding into some afternoon drama, right here in near to River City AKA Port Charlotte. I asked Hubby to take a picture and he did of two Sheriff’s Patrol cars that were only here for about a half an hour. Could we have a crook in our midst? We have had them before. GEEZ and then people wonder why I don’t make friend with the neighbors… Here’s a graphic reason why!

And our across the canal neighbors are being proved to not so be totally truthful… by relaxing blatantly without doing so much after all with their new buddies of the last couple of years… that is so truly hurtful.

And I still am feeling funky in spite of no more mold, and Skipper’s having his tummy issues, where he needed his spasm medication and half of a Pepcid… I am a bit stressed and in fear of relapsing, due to a bit of this and that’s all over the place…

And when my ole chum does not realize that when she says that she never investigates anything medical for herself due to she doesn’t care about herself; only for her Mom, and thinks that I read into things too much, which makes me quite savvy into my own personal needs. PS she professes to be healthy.

Well ole chum your attitude makes me think that you are very depressed and that you don’t think that you count and that makes me very sad for you, when you don’t care to help yourself! Her mom’s hospital did not do a small thing and take her blood for the surgery and so now they have to go all the way back to NYC tomorrow, since apparently they said that she could not have it done locally… well that’s not very convenient, Columbia Hospital, is it?

But I did not say that to her and I won’t since I have to stop talking to anyone except on here.
Since no one ever tells what I write here, do they?
Oh whoa is me, oh whoa is me, what a day… the heck with it all! LOL!

In closing I am sad to say that a really neat man has left us today, he had hung in there for quite some time after fighting off the throws of a stroke from 2004, he passed away from a massive heart attack today, Dick Clark, he was eighty-two. And he will be sorely missed by all his fans, and New Years Rockin’ Eve will never ever be the same again! We all danced to his shows music, even my mom did when I would come home from school.

Allow me now to be the first to wish you all a very happy good night and to ask you all kindly count those blessings and share those overages and we will too!

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

Check for mold... I did.

Sadly when we had our home destroyed by Hurricane Charley on August 13, 2004, a Friday, we also did not have any electric service for more than two weeks. Can you imagine that not having air-conditioning with it being summer in Florida? Temperatures usually averaging high eighties to low nineties, so even opening the windows did not help, and for a while we had to shut them when the sewerage from a plant upstream had been hit by one of the many tornadoes had the waste moseying down all our saltwater canals…talk about YUCK!
Any way at that time I was fortunately in better health then I am now, but I would take cool/cold showers to deal with the problem.
Almost immediately we removed the wall to wall carpet we still had in the few spaces in our home where we had not yet replaced with wooden flooring that also warped, buckled and lifted up, thus us having ceramic tile since then.
Any-who, with the rain coming in the many holes in our roof, and Hubby covering it as often as he could with first tarps and then temporary rolled roofing, until our insurance monies came in, he actually covered it with rolled roofing three times! But he did save all the receipts for the temporary roof work that he did and for that we were reimbursed too until we were able to get professional roofers in to do the work that was covered as well.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to us, but my nose noticed the musty moldy smell and we had that covered too by our insurance, and they, the professional mold people found some and treated it… that can be nasty stuff, even deadly!

Fast forward to today, actually yesterday… I was feeling rather funky again, but with Multiple Sclerosis it is not unusual to feel fullness in your ears, head or throat, but it can mean a relapse is pending…but…
Then I took from my shower my very pretty floor rug off of my handicapped rail in the shower. I put it down for when I get out, and I sit on my chair in there. I also have squirt type dispensers for my soap, shampoo and conditioner, ever since I dropped the large bottle on my foot a few years ago.
And the system has worked well for me.
But today, when placing the rug down on the floor I noticed some black like substance on the well padded not rubber but some type of webbing backing, and I thought, hmm…
Why didn’t I smell this I am very allergic to mold, but aren’t we all?
It has been known to kill innocent people when they least expect it!
A simple bleaching without touching it is preferable to retain the object, but if too far gone bag it up a get rid of it cautiously or even contact the EPA, environmental protection agency.
Ask them what you should do, but not someone for me to call for this minute problem.
Bleach does work well, when you live in Florida and summer comes with high humidity you realize that bleach is a tool for dealing with mold on anything you may have outside, hopefully not inside!

Anyway the picture I am posting is the after the mold was removed, I will have to make an effort to check the back of it more often before I throw it on the floor, hmm?

While I have been writing this evening Hubby made another discovery, outside…Would you believe, now we knew that there had to be a Daddy for the family in order to make all those cute babies that the mother possum that was relocated had but at the time he was nowhere to be found…
But now he has made an appearance, and I was hoping that Hubby would call Animal Control so the family could be reunited, but he said that it’s too late now. Maybe he will tomorrow? Here is the papa:

On that note of interest I think, of some true warnings, allow me to be the first to wish you a very happy good night and to 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?

Environmental reasoning...

Are you considered a bad neighbor, if your brand new neighbor is doing something harmful to our waterways and you tell him?

Hubby earlier this evening noticed that the person who bought the home across and slightly adjacent to ours was doing quite a bit of work on their new purchase, which we all believe is admirable.
It has a caged pool and apparently they had a few screens to replace and the pool itself must have needed a resurfacing to make it all new.
No problem with that and we would do the same if we too needed it, but the problem arose when the cement bags that were opened on the driveway where quite a bit of the cement appeared to be wasted and created a powdery mess all over by the workers and instead of sweeping it up; they chose to hose it down into our rainwater gutters that goes directly back into our canal, behind us.
This house is on the inner circle and therefore not on the waterside.
And the owner is from Ohio and new to our area.
So first Hubby called code enforcement that used to take care of these situations when he was a deputy but they switched him to another division and they said they would stop by in the morning to yell at them, ridiculous!

Any-who, Hubby thought that he could try to talk to the new owner nicely and let him know that it, could be a pollutant, and the man went nasty on him and said tell them his workers not him. And so Hubby used his past experience from these situations and let him know that he was a retired marine patrol officer and used to give out ‘Notice to Appear’, for a judge to decide for this sort of thing.
And the next thing we see is one of the workers going down towards the drain with an enormous broom sweeping back this way and all over the driveway into a bucket.
And so I suggested that he call back whomever he spoke to and tell them it was taken care of by him.
The reasoning for trying it the first way was not to make an enemy of a new homeowner; we have so few, mostly renters…they can be rather transient and seem never to stay more than a couple of years if that. We both hope that it won’t cause a damper on getting to know him.

Right now we are the second longest dwellers/ homeowners on our block that is a circle so there are quite a few homes.
The outer circle where we are, are all waterfront, but the inner one is not.
Not that that means anything; we have been longing for neighbors … that were going to set down roots!

Yesterday, I got a wee bit off track with my reaction to another blip in my timeline and forgot to mention that we had gotten the batteries at Sam’s Club and after Hubby installed them he took Skipper, yes that is why he was named that on the ump-teenth maiden voyage of Seas the Day!

How odd that we named her that, while her predecessor had been Miss-T after me of course and a fracturing of the use of my name and the mist spray of the water get it? But at the time I was in much better health way back in 2003 when we got her and every chance we got we went out on her. The one we had in NJ was named BLISS, named for our business, Bamber Lake Irrigation Sales and Service, thus the acronym BLISS, isn’t that so clever? Yep, I was the moniker bestow-er.

I was happy to see them go… not that I wanted to get rid of them but to see the little gal out with her guys that is, the boat and Hubby and Skipper; where they used to go often.

This is amazing to me for I have been feeling rather funky for the last few hours even running a low grade temp and dizzy with head pains even sitting down… but now I am not too bad…that is why I used the term, ‘amazing’, it must be knowing that I have all of you to chat with nightly that keeps me going… and on that accolade back at you all, allow me to be the first to wish you all a very happy good night and to ask you to kindly to count all your blessings and to share those overages and we will too!

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