Seventy is the new twenty, and if that's right, what does it mean to be sixty?

Should we all be ashamed of our real age?
Why can’t we say seventy is seventy?
And that you are doing fine!
Think about it, if seventy is twenty than what, is sixty, ten?

Nah, at ten we were all in school and had homework, couldn’t date, drive, vote or join the military, or work force, since Mommy and Daddy took care of us…Geez, ten ain’t that bad, him?

And at ten, we didn’t have sore joints or bad eyesight or care about how we looked or competed with other men or women to be the bestest, oh sure, maybe in board games or sports we would play or a foot race, but not in life, and wanting to make more money than G-d! (And that statement is wrong, since I am more than sure that he doesn’t deal in that type of currency.)
But being the age you are when you are should be just that, and we should all be proud at each and every year that we gain another! Since we all know the alternative to not getting older is DEAD!
Take a clue from George Burns who always told his age and lived to one hundred and worked nearly till the end or Betty White now ninety and proud and working more than ever and today an octogenarian, Rita Moreno feisty and loaded with smarts and gainfully employed and like Betty as sharp as a tack!

I so wish that I was in better health to do half of what they do! Yep, the health card does change things; even a child of ten can feel like ninety, if not well… that’s what should be important, i.e. how you actually feel… But be damned if you mention it in public…I have learned to fib, just a little, I know I abhor lying but, as many do… when I am asked, how are you today? Lately, I find myself saying okay or fine, even ‘great’ or ‘just ducky’; when I really am not, but if it is someone who knows my medical score/story I have a tendency to say, can’t complain, and if I did who would listen to me anyway. (Ha!) That ‘ha’ is important since most will think that you’re odd saying such a thing, but we all know that I am anyway, but it fools the strangers that know my ills, hmm that makes no sense what-so-ever!

We all know going out into the world when your life is not that exciting due to the inability to get out that often. Human contact is a lifeline to you being part of the world order and feel the need to talk to everyone you come into contact with… I know many have too much going on and don’t need some short fat scooterized blond blue-eyed gal annoying them with small talk or more substantive talk…Now when I say it like that it doesn’t sound that bad, does it?
I was referring to the blue-eyed blond part, yep its odd how my hair has maintained its natural blond colorizing since my fifteenth year on this planet with a few years of deviations of trying some other palettes along the growing up period and beyond!
The blue eyes have always been I hear tell that I was born that way! Although, believe it or not our younger son had blue eyes for years and then in his teens they turned hazel, just like his grandpa’s, my Dad’s, how odd?
And sadly I had not noticed until filling out a form, he held me to task on that one! Horrible mother I felt and feel that to this day. I always thought his were like mine and his two grandmas and our elder son’s were the same chocolate brown of his Dad’s…I was embarrassed by not noticing and saddened that they had changed, since we had been so much alike in too many other ways…I do believe it was only the beginning of our differences … another story another time…too sad.

In closing, I do have a point to all these ramblings and that is… that I will be in about three weeks, if lucky, sixty-two years old and I am looking forward to that milestone… some never reach it, too sadly… and I am pretty sure that I will…so I am happy about that and you should display that badge of honor and share it with all you hold near and dear, family and friends and strangers and whom ever will listen to you, get a loud speaker and shout it from the rooftop scream with your lungs or out of the window but hold on tight if you are up several floors, that you are so proud to be, Blankety Blank or an additional digit, like Willard Scott wishes Happy Birthday to those over one hundred which are many,(Willard being usually in D.C. or Florida) the station being NBC out of New York proclaims those daily for Smucker’s jams and jellies, his sponsor!
I mentioned holding on tight, because the last thing and it would be is... I mean if you let go and fell out of that window from, let’s just say from the tenth floor, now that’s gotta hurt… kidding! You know why? Because… if I gotta tell you than, see ya! HA!

On that loonier than I ought to be dissertation of the evening.., allow me to be the first to wish you all a very happy good night and ask you to kindly to count all your blessings and share those overages and we will too!

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

I will try hard to maintain some decorum...

Being in the condition that I am daily has a way of changing at the drop of a hat…
With that said… my day went well… spent some time in the pool today, actually this morning, and my best time of day! I even helped Hubby weed a few of the backyard gardens… and then the drizzle came, and so I called it quits.
But it stopped and started, but with weather, one never knows its true intentions; does one?
So I hit the shower as usual ate some lunch and took my Copaxone, for the Multiple Sclerosis, shot as I do when done with my shower…
When I went into the zipper compartment holder, the size of the old pencil holders we used to use as kids, for my supplies for the shot I noticed I was down to only one left and so I went to the fridge to grab another five pack, that’s how they come, attached in fives.
The box in the fridge was the last one, which holds a thirty days’ supply, minus the packet I removed I had twenty-five days left, and so I wondered why I didn’t hear from Walgreen’s Specialty pharmacy, they always call before I need them…
And so I called, oddly enough they were just about to call me! All taken care of, and will be here by next week, Ta da!
My Dexilant, for GERD, also comes by mail, and that order went out the beginning of the week, oh that’s right, yesterday, yep, Monday.
Those two are under Assist RX (877-422-4412, is their toll free phone number, perhaps you too may meet their criteria or just copy and paste their site: http://www.assist-rx.com/) and fortunately I fit their criteria and get those two higher priced medications for free!
I am always here for you to help and share.
The other day I called them to tell them that I will soon be on Social Security and they said after a few necessary questions that it will still be covered by them, whew!
Just those two medications are over four thousand dollars a month!
Sadly, I have no idea what causes some medication to cost so much, which makes it always an issue for insurance companies and people without insurance to take what could save their lives, now does that seem fair to you?
Well, good companies like the one I mentioned above are a safety net for those of us who fall through the cracks, truly!
People should not have to die because they cannot afford the prescriptions that they need to stay well… most illness is not caused by the people who acquire them.
I do know that many unhealthy behaviors do cause some ills, but still, should people die because of that too?
If the scientists in the medical field would make the realization that anyone who becomes sick deserves to get well, perhaps the prices would come down and then the pharmaceuticals wouldn’t charge as much.
Those research programs are a good start if you are desperate and need help and don’t know where else to turn…
Why I myself considered them at one time.
I take fifteen prescribed pills and one prescribed shot daily, and thankfully my other medications only range in price from $2.99 to $16 a month, which makes it not that hard to manage. Not to mention, the pharmacy they come from also has free delivery! I know, amazing in this day and age. Although, I think I heard on the earlier news today that some of the hospitals are considering sending doctors out into the neighborhoods here to help the infirm…WHOA retro medicine! About time!
You never know what will come of that, perhaps humanity is back in the field of medicine, and instead of treating it as a business; wouldn't it be great if it will once again be a calling like the clergy is and that I thought that it was originally?
I hope I live to see that turn around!

Oh back to my health changing on a dime, well, I having been sitting here feeling sort of woozy or dizzy and weakish and so I do believe that I am done for tonight…too much maybe, even accomplished some laundry and homemade soup making too…tomato!

On that thought of warm fuzzies of comfort food, imagine a tuna salad sandwich to go with or a grilled cheese, neither that we had, but we did have multi grain garlic toast … allow me to be the first to wish you all a very happy good night and ask you kindly to count all your blessings and share those overages and we will too!

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

Sometimes we wait, and wait and wait and wait, then we wonder why we were waiting, hmm?

Have you ever felt as if you wasted too much time than you wanted to spend on something that was apparently more important to you, but not to the ‘tech’ that you depended on to fix it for you?
Okay, I suppose that should have been rhetorical, hmm.
Yes, we all have, haven’t we?
We are slaves to our techno marvels that we for some reason feel that we cannot go a day without…huh?
Sure, it’s like cutting off your right arm if it were to breakdown, without you trying your darndest to rectify the problem! Almost like a sick relative or dear ole friend, with a terminal illness, hmm? That’s just CRAZY!
Are we all crazy in love with these inanimate objects of so much desire that we compete with each and every one of us to have the newest and the bestest with more bells and whistles, as us older folks would say…SURE we do!

Although, some of us are more grounded by finances and realize that fixing what we already have is the only way to go…since reality kicks in and we know that we have no other choice, but that’s OKAY, since we still can compete on a bit lower level!
Is this a contest?
Gosh, I didn’t know that?
When were you all going to tell me and include me in…?

I hear tell that it was said many moons ago, full moon again tonight a tidbit to chomp on…any-who, us more mature folks used to say the one who dies with the most toys wins…SILLY and downright ridiculous!
In this economy, what; is any of us sane anymore?
Reality check, and all of you know that we don’t over spend anymore, especially money we don’t have… or think that we may have in our near of distant futures!
We are all trying harder to change those ways, those fun and free childlike ways of no cares in the world, living for today and tomorrow will take care of its self…
Well, we as a world know how that turned out, hmm?

Responsibility and saving up is how the generations before the 1970’s did it… paid cash they did, why plastic was used to call something cheap!
Go with me here… now if we took a trip to yesteryear perhaps…we could regain those habits and the economy would revive without expecting a magic pill from any of the countries leaders telling us how or what to do, or expecting them to do it for us, right?
Just a thought… and Geez that’s all I have to share is those, and guess what…THEY ARE FREE!

Moving on…
An update: My volunteerism offer was taken up and you know those last fingerprints I gave worked. I am as clean as whistle, nobody is looking for me, now or ever, and you all were worried! I was asked to come on in the end of the week to see where they will use me, but I felt the original idea was the best, and so hopefully I will assist the patient advocate with her advocacy and do what I have been doing for myself for these last several years and help others do it too! PS I am seeing the woman who does need an assistant for that position, gosh I hope I get it…I really hope I get…nah, not chorus line, volunteer line! LOL!

Another update: Mom Clara will be going into NYC for her follow-up; yep it’s been thirty days since her first procedure, already, where has the time gone!
Number three update: going in order of occurrence… Mary, my toddler-hood friend is still having her thyroid meds regulated and so far her dose is up to 150 Mcg, high, but when you don’t have a thyroid, appropriate, I think.

On those upbeat finis, 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?

Sometimes you just have to tweak an object to create a better inanimate one so that it makes you smile when you look at it...

Life is full of beauty if you look hard enough, but if it is still elusive to find in some thing, sometimes we must make it that way!

With that said that is just what my intentions were with this mini project that was undertaken by me and of course Hubby who initially created the item of my story from recycling that cedar fence that we were given a few years ago… Many ideas and projects have come from that well used item and more in our futures to come, if I have any input with Hubby’s help of course!

Oh, back to tonight’s topic of conversation and ‘non-animate makeover’? Poetic licensing again, let’s just say, yes, I like that. And so let me just say that pictures were taken of before and after, although the actual making of the item before it was colorized were not photographed if I recall, but I could be wrong. Fortunately, that has no bearing on the outcome the main objective was to have someone out there go, ooh, Ahhh, or what-have-you once the painless to the object, but not to me, was completed, fete de complete, as they say…
Here’s the plain object:

A fish cleaning cart, the metal removable insert is left over from our stainless steel fryer table from our restaurant way back when, late 1980’s, actually. It was used and most of it still is for shelving in the shed, the fryer was sold years ago. The pipes for the handle and the one going through the wheels are actually an old closet rod from the bedroom that had broken, do we recycle or what?
Shall I continue?
Are you finished examining its un-dazzling natural finish?
Ready for the work in progress PIC?

It’s not that easy being green, but it is cheerful, hmm?
Next was deciding to give it a bit more personality….

By George she’s got it! That is personality, with a tad of masculinity… although, we both do like to fish!
Now the wheels were left au naturalle, but if any wish to give us any input on a color that would hold up well rolling around, go right ahead! Oh the paints were left over from our door project and front door chair… so the cost of this project was ZERO! Ta da! Now smile and share it!

On that note of some happy with a cherry on top…allow me to be the first to wish you all a very happy good night and ask you to count all your blessings and share your overages and we will too!

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

PS: On a sad note, Richard Dawson died today of Esophageal cancer and he will be sorely missed by all who remember him in Hogan’s Heroes and The Family Feud, he was just seventy-nine… Our condolences go out to all his family and friends.

Fort Myers NBC-2 turn for their Hurricane Conference 2012 version

Officially our 2012 hurricane season began yesterday, June 1st , and will continue historically, once again, until November 30th…Now, in all the twenty-six years that we have lived here, weather has not listened to this prescribed time line for doing what it is supposed to do, and so there is an oops factor or wiggle sub-line factor, of what is the actual in the realm of weather predicting…and as many a meteorologist will tell you, if they are honest as the day is long, which as we all know, that in this hemisphere it occurs in summer! So I do believe we are good… consequently we already had two named storms in May, before the legality of their appearance was accepted, but we are all flexible when it comes to weather and that is why we live here in this place called PARADISE, since predictability can be rather boring, even with weather, and so whether or not you believe that one or not…it always has a way of happening daily, as we know…

The cast of talent that was sent from our local NBC affiliate for the conference of the above named occasion was enough of the famed stars of the weather crew… The locale was here in Port Charlotte, at our Town Center Mall,from 10:00 A.M. till 4:00 P.M.,although significantly absent was one of the main characters of much senior notoriety, Night Meteorologist, Robert Van Winkle and he is the guy on the left in the above picture, who had made plans over a year ago, a previous commitment, that could not be broken to appear, and he was missed by all who wished to meet him. To be fair the fairest of them all a young woman that we practically watched grow up on the program, Chief Meteorologist, Haley Webb, is on the right in the above picture, was there along with another seasoned professional, Meteorologist, Jim Reif, and that leaves him in the middle in the above picture! And of course to round out the guided information was our own county Director of Emergency Management, Wayne Sallade, is in the below pictures, the gentleman in the blue shirt, who Hubby has known for years through his job of being a member of the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office as a deputy. Here are some more of the action inclement weather team PICS of all the participants of the day!

Who I must say fielded questions without skipping a beat, like all true professionals have been known to do.
All I know is so far these last few years have been quiet here in paradise and the forecast is for a normal amount of storms coming by or near us, not necessarily at us… Since for that they would have to be soothsayers and again I checked and nope, not a one! My same question yearly is; “Will our home again have a direct hit?” And nada, bupkis not a one could tell me…and they call themselves proudly, ‘Meteorologists’, ha! I suppose that is not the synonym for clairvoyant or even mystic, gosh, than how they predict it all has me stumped! I suppose that all any of us can do is wait, watch and listen, since I hear tell that they have some types of instrumentations that aid them in their nearly always or sometimes, even occasionally on target predictions for our daily consumption of such things… We all know that it is on a need to know basis, and all of us with inquiring minds need to know before during and after… any major STORM!
So stay tuned and I will too, for they are and always will be our lifelines in these things…


On that tidbit of our view of how we handle things here in good ole redundant but accurate, PARADISE, allow me to be the first to wish you all a very happy good night and ask you to kindly count all of your blessings and share those overages and we will too!

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

The first true smile in a while, and benign means fine...now everyone have some wine!

Days come and days go, and today were an up and down sort of a day, so which news do you want to hear first; the very good or very good or not very good?
I think I heard you say the VERY GOOD, hmm?
The very good, you say, that’s a big okay and hooray!

My toddler-hood friend, Mary, was waiting and waiting for the results of her biopsy and sure enough it was very good news, yes, benign which means you are fine and that’s just like mine!
I must really stop this rhyme, but I am having too much fun all of this time…

Moving on… to number two:
Another, very good news was the endless teeth saga for Hubby who is a lovie and needed no more stubbies and wanted a set of chewies to be able to ooies all the gooeys, and to also chomp and romp with a gargantuan smile on his facie to return to the cutie that he always was in my hearty and soulie…
Gosh, I seem to have broken every grammatical law on this planet, but I am calling that poetic license and that is the only way it can rhyme, sort of…
Oh another PIC of Hubby’s new set, of teeth that is; get your mind out of the gutter!

They are so natural looking, even the gums, perfection just like his originals, hmm?

Any-who… now for the not very good…
My secret project which involved painting, but I will not say what, because than I would have to kill you, kidding… don’t worry pictures are forthcoming when all is done… Well, before Hubby went to his dental appointment today he moved the project of ours indoors, due to rain and so that I could work on it while he was away.

The obscure item has a bottom as well as a top and in order for me to paint the lower region of it I had to sit on the floor…Now, normally I would lower myself from my walker, but for some reason I furniture walked to it instead like I used to do before the walker came into the picture and than I lowered myself to paint with the paint and brush lowered previously to the bottom of the item…I completed my first objectives in color and then tried to get up, but the item was wet from the paint… and since for some reason I could not get up at all and had to crawl to the chair, success! But my walker was left foolishly in the kitchen around the corner and through the woods, not literarily but it might as well have been… I was weak and exhausted and was concerned that I was in for another exacerbation…tonight I was still feeling poorly and dread all symptoms that make me a little bit less of me…I might have not written tonight if it wasn’t for all the other VERY GOOD news tonight that I felt that I had to share and I am so very happy to be able to do that…and will as long as I can…!

On that note of much ado about good things, 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?

40 years ago today...is a day that changed our lives like nothing ever did before...!

We became parents!
And anyone who has a child knows that life can change for the better with that major event created from love.
Yes, Hubby and I were very young, and still we did it the old fashioned way, since we were married for over fifteen and a half months by the day that our bundle of joy arrived, a boy!
And that dear sweet child was the spitting image of his daddy by the time he was a few months’ old, big brown eyes and toe-head blond hair. I had been given a picture of Hubby at eight months of age and it was uncanny the resemblance!
Love is so wonderful when it becomes unconditional.
And thankfully to this day that man, our son, has proven his mutual love for us, what a guy!
Like father like son.

Our eldest child did everything by the book as if it was written for him by him, rolling over, sitting standing walking and talking, all as if he was in collaboration with Dr. Spock.
He was a very happy child, always smiling and affectionate, and curious when we would go for our stroller rides along the bicycle path behind our condo, later on we would go with him on the back baby seat of our bicycles and long rides to parks in the area, twenty-one mile round trips.
As a toddler he was enrolled in Montessori preschool for two years prior to his brother coming along.
While a student he was tested and beyond his years mechanically on the I.Q. test he came away with a 145 plus score!
He got along well with other children and played well with them and always had many friends, which has continued into adulthood.
He played a few sports: soccer, surfing, swimming, beach volley ball, and water skiing, and SCUBA; he played the piano, and the guitar and he would play pool as a teen on our own pool table with his brother later on in our game-room. Camping, boating and fishing and crabbing were all family initiatives and we all got to go to places via reasonable camping locales, wherever we went, it was for the love of the out-of-doors and on rainy days we would go into museums.
In the summers we would join the library programs for the kiddy story telling, when he was small. And he swam from the age of three with lessons at the pool at our condo, it was actually funny since the life guard who taught the class had to chase him around the pool to get him to jump off of the diving board in the deep end with the other students, he was frightened but finally jumped off the board and swam to the ladder and then went back several times with joy, full giggles, doing it again and again…and later on he continued his lessons with his baby brother at the Y when his brother took water baby classes with me in the water. He was very young when he received his SCUBA certification, only thirteen. In high school in his senior year he did do dual enrollment with the local college for electronics and he received an A!
He went to college for an AA degree, and he made the Dean’s List, he was more capable, but it was his choice not ours and he worked for Nissan as a certified mechanic for several years, then, Sears, and for the last several years, fourteen, for Busch Gardens as maintenance mechanic for the amusement park rides.
It is dangerous work, with a lot of responsibility.

He has had many loves in his life, actually, three that were serious and long term.
As a man he is complex but loving and giving, the strong silent type, and the kind of guy that has your back and is very dependable. He was right here with a bunch of friends for us right after Hurricane Charley destroyed our home back in 2004!
I used to tease him when he was just a teen that if he wasn’t my son he would be a great best friend, since no matter what, he was there for you. He showed that with all of his friends as well. In recent years he has been a Red Cross blood donor that is so wonderful, he has given quite a bit… but to be fair I only know it has been a few years that he has been doing that, but not the quantity.
And so in closing in the gushing of the thoughts of our first born who is on vacation with his sweetie and we called already this morning to wish him a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

I always remember it took him twenty-nine and half hours to finally arrive and Hubby and I played cards while in the labor room. Since the contractions were very regular they couldn’t send us home…I went in on a Monday night after we drove my MIL to the airport for her trip to Europe, and he was born on Wednesday morning at 7:48 A.M.! BIGGEST TA DA!
But he was a little guy of only five pounds twelve ounces and nineteen inches long, but tripled his weight by eight months old! The pediatrician yelled at me, since babies are supposed to do that by a year old…oops! Although, he was never ever a fat child, way too active, just right, but balanced with being taught computers in kindergarten in our NJ school systems. And by the time he was ten we had our own and he taught us how to use it. Over the years he has built his own computers, and he is our own private knowledgeable person/go to guy, for any purchases that we have made over the years in the technology realm.

I see that my little display of mother-gushing is over a thousand words… but there is so much more I know that I forgot… but he is the man we hoped that he would become and that is a decent caring capable independent human being who is concerned for others and the world around him.

Thanks son, for being you…

Love Mom and Dad

On that note of note, 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?