Dead is so permanent...

The news is carrying the horror stories of the failures to try and cap off the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and today was the day of the first deaths to be counted due to this manmade pollution, dozens of sea turtles are washing up on shore in the Mississippi area.
The turtles from the outside look completely normal but the wildlife people are presuming that they have ingested oil filled foods of fish and the like.

Sadly we all knew the time would come to see this and we all know that no one is standing around twiddling their thumbs watching the oil escape into our beautiful scenic and economically fulfilling waters being destroyed.
Amounts of the free for all flow have been reported from one thousand to a hundred thousand gallons a day, and each news media franchise has their own numbers.
All I know is that it is NOT good whether it is any of those above mentioned numbers!

Lee and Collier Counties to our south here in Charlotte County Florida, have devised plans already for when it comes to their shores. Charlotte on the other hand has not gotten on the news to let us know what they plan for us, and we are even a wee bit closer to the actual spill!
I do know that all the Emergency Management Facilities had a conference call today with our Governor Crist, who held a news conference at noon for all of us Floridians to see, although many were probably at work or school accept the unemployed and retired like us. He poignantly stated that “we should all prepare for the worst but hope for the best”. Now that I see that in print isn’t that the same lame stuff everyone pipes in when they have no idea what to do and since that is all we as Floridians can do?
It’s not like a hurricane that we can evacuate from, since we aren’t even sure exactly what is going to happen here, yet if anything.

BP is saying that they have a few ideas of trying a dome like cap, or to drill another side well and shut it off from there. Problems are they have never done that dome thing ever at a depth of five thousand feet and they have no idea if it will work since it is only a theory that it should, and the other idea could take as long as two to three months to build by robotics!

News keeps telling us it will hit Florida the only question is when and where, whoa mine too! To be fair only a soothsayer could know for sure even with wind and water current directions they are all still just guessing, since those things change hourly, daily and weekly.

Now to the practical side of this, tourism, the reality of that realization is way too scary for our already sadly compromised economy here.
Now Governor Crist is extending the National Guard coverage to Sarasota County, just above us to our north.

Hypocrisy is us we all know there is no way at this point with our energy needs that we could possibly all switch to anymore Green ideas for transportation and utility needs. Why it was less than a month ago that two major governors were saying drill, drill, drill baby!
My fear was that they were sending Palin clones to other states, but thankfully Governor Schwarzenegger of California, duh, as if you didn’t know who he was, has seen the light and changed his mind today and I know our Governor Crist has too!
If the United States government will follow the trend, please Mr. President we Gulf Coasters beg of you!
Nature’s wrath is again just around the corner next month is hurricane season; why then must we endure manmade mistakes?

Can you imagine if a hurricane was thrown into this mess, then where would all that oil go to?

Not to make little of our friends to our north between tornadoes and flooding the human deaths of dozens has been horrendously significant!
What did we all do to create all these terrible happenings folks!
It’s so scary not knowing what might come next!
Be careful peeps and keep the news in your daily living to know.

Good night to all and take care, count those blessings and we will too!


PS Good night, sleep tight, dear sweet Georgy Girl, for Lynn Redgrave who portrayed you, has lost her seven year battle with breast cancer and has passed on to a better place I am sure but only at the tender age of sixty-seven.
Footnote: My niece that was my eldest and that had died back in 2006 at the age of 50, from colon cancer and I years ago, in our teens since we were only five years apart, me being the elder, entered a talent contest where she sang the song Georgy Girl and I danced to it, and so that movie has such fond memories to me.

The water came up to temperature earlier than expected today and so...

I was ready when it was and started my exercise program by eleven A.M., and as promised we had another scorcher of a day.
Breakfast was made by me and so Hubby made lunch and brought it out to me, and you know I felt like a Queen being served on our patio by my handsome Hubby!

Life can be great even if it’s simple, and ours is.
Complications sometimes cause anxiety.
Not looking for trouble therefore not finding any is the best way to handle living in peaceful co-existence.

Tonight we shared in the making of dinner, which consisted of leftover turkey meatloaf turned into pasta meat sauce with embellishments of added spices of oregano, basil and garlic as well as onions sautéed in extra virgin olive oil. Our heart healthy jar mix comes up flat tasting in my book and so we only add the best ingredients to jazz it up. To my own plate I add a little bit more a little bit of the pecorino, which is the hot pepper flakes that Hubby doesn’t care for, but we both top most all pasta dishes with parmesan, and tonight our pasta was angel hair, and on the side a multi veggie fresh tossed salad.

I made garlic bread from our five grain bread slices, with the olive oil, the parmesan, and garlic of course!

Dinner was simple and elegant though too.

Exhaustion came upon me once out of the shower this afternoon and again I could not keep my eyes open and so I felt the need to grab a few winks by two thirty. But this time Hubby was asking me when I should be awoken and we agreed within a half an hour, unfortunately it was not good enough since I was till extremely tired on the first wake-up call, and again agreed to have him try again in another half hour.
I did manage to rise at three thirty for the second call but I was still groggy and I suggested a cup of coffee, which Hubby was kind enough to get for me while I was nestled in my chair in the living room covered by a blanket because for some reason I was freezing! It was in the nineties outside, and inside the thermostat was set on seventy-nine and then because of the chill it had been moved up to eighty.
And even though I had dressed ridiculously warmly after my shower in sweat pants and blouse with sleeves I was shivering so I pulled the throw over me in my chair, how odd?

Well, I am happy to say that has all diminished by this hour, and I am once again comfortable in my own skin and in our home.

Last night, movie night we opted out to watch New Moon and it was very enjoyable.

Good night to all and to all count those blessings and we will too!

Our swimming pool called to me today and I answered!

It’s a wee bit later than last year for my first dip into our pool, but blame it on this crazy weather that we had over our too long cold spell, not me!

Luxury was the name of the game once the pool was hovering around eighty-three then a short trip to eighty-four degrees and finally it eventually succumbed to the eighty-five that I needed for me to feel comfortable!
And so by around one P.M., I was dipping my tootsies into the cool calm waters on my way to the entrée into the realm of pleasant divine exercise without harm to life or limb.

Pool exercise or water aerobics, Acquacize is truly the only safe way to move those limbs of mine without creating more damage and halleluiah I am in that mode for the next few months, maybe even until November like last year; now wouldn’t that be great?

Most people in my age range or I should say in the Baby Boomer sect, should exercise daily for at least a half an hour. The best and most inexpensive forms are walking, bicycling, and swimming, if you have your own swimming pool available or sometimes a Y or public one!

The next few days we have been told we will be hitting some truly high numbers on the temperature gage, the nineties! And so even though our solar panels are toast, the solar blanket did its job for today, and I am pretty darn sure that the weather or Mother Nature will do it from now on or at least till the fall that is keep the temperature I need for comfort in the pool. It is not an obscure number; you see it is the recommended temperature for when I taught Acquacize as a certified instructor for the Arthritis Foundation, but oddly enough the National Multiple Sclerosis Society has the same recommendation for comfort, too hot or too cold can cause many significant problems from heart attacks, strokes etcetera from too hot, and too cold or too hot causes muscular spasms for MS, and too cold for arthritis is very hard and harmful on the joints.

Sounds silly to some I am sure.
I can think of all those extremely hardy people in their Polar Bear Clubs going into that frosty icy water, hopefully they don’t have any underlying medical conditions!
What about hot tubs and hot springs?
I suppose for most with arthritis it is beneficial, but not if you have a bad heart or high blood pressure, and with MS too hot causes those nasty spasms, and don’t forget that bacteria is notorious in hot water, which means in a hot tub more chemicals… we know that more chemicals means…well, you know what it means.
Sorry to be Debbie Downer on all that, but those are the facts.

Tonight is the Kentucky Derby, are you going to watch?
It has become a tradition in our home and this year we even bought the fixings for Mint Juleps, how about that? For a whole two minute race!
Update: Calvin Borel wins again this time on Super Saver! He won last year on Mine that Bird.

After all that revelry it will be movie night once again in our abode, and the choices tonight are, ‘It’s Complicated’ and ‘The Twilight Saga, New Moon’.

What an exciting interesting day. LOL Bet you wish you were us…LOL

On that enormously silly note we will bid you all a very pleasant good night and to all count those blessings and we will too!
And pray for those powers that be to figure out how to stop that gusher of oil to stop pumping in the gulf!

PS Today we proclaimed it to be International Sons Day!
And sent our sons cards in honor of this day; now we wait to hear their reactions...

Today I went back to the eye doc and found out....

That I did have a detachment but not of the retina a much less serious one that has no negative affects on your eye sight to speak of unless… what it says below the good stuff actually happens, but not to worry I was told…
A vitreous detachment.
Copy and paste the below site:
http://www.nei.nih.gov/health/vitreous/vitreous.asp#1

And so you all knowing me you will also know that I NEVER EVER worry! LOL
I thought the information above was important enough to share with all of you so if any of that happens to you, you do know what to do, OK? Don’t thank me now but if later it helps you in anyway just let me know, OK?

Oh the day has been continuing in that exciting vein.
I again did wake up in time to enter the contest, but did not win since all five days worth of winners are announced on their site, and I did check.

After the eye doc we went to the warehouse club since we had been invited in there for a food tasting and so we went as members for us it was free.
We really thought it would be more in the sustenance department but alas it wasn’t any different than their usual samples of this and that.

And so we decided to grab a bite on the way home after we did buy our coffee, water and the like. But all the restaurants were full up? Odd since most all of our snowbirds have already left for the north and their other homes.
And so we went through the golden arches drive thru and I got a salad and Hubby got his burger and fries, and we ate peacefully at home.

This afternoon Hubby was kind enough to finish the shopping up at the grocery due to my exhaustion by the afternoon.
And when he got home he decided to go out to the lanai to read for a while’s break from his hectic day.
And he noticed our adjacent neighbor sitting under the Royal palm tree of our across the canal Canadian gone home to Montreal neighbors and she was taking pictures of something in the canal she told Hubby!
When asked what she said that she had been watching an alligator. Now we have been living on this saltwater canal for nearly twelve years and we have only seen maybe two or three gators actually come down it, and so this was an unusual and scary sight!
She was concerned for her dogs since she only has rip rap on her side of the canal, but we have a seawall and yet I still worry for little Skipper because he is fearless and nosey!
Hubby has taken a few picture of the vicious beast and I have sent its mug shot on to friends and family to see!
I do this quite often with other wildlife, which have been many living on the water as we do.
I used to think our otter who I called Otto was so cute and we had taken many pictures of him, until it made it on the news about a half an hour north of here in Venice that an elderly man was attacked viciously by being bitten several times by a rabid one!

It is a joy to watch the many different species of birds we see daily and so far they have been a joy; hopefully they will continue, but I don’t forget the herons that ate our pond fish, which was definitely NOT good!
Oh well, even in the animal kingdom there is good and bad too!

This morning while reading the paper, the editorial comments I got fired up again with the stupidity of someone thinking that people wanting health care reform are looking for freebies; well you can bet I wrote my own editorial submission countering his stupid comments and hopefully he will be set straight!

Now this disaster of the oil spill in the gulf is scaring the bejeebers out of us all here, and rightfully so, according to the professionals it could be much worse than the Exxon Valdez of yore up by Alaska, and we all can remember that horror!
Let us pray that is not the case since that will definitely be an environmental catastrophe unlike any we could ever imagine!

On that something to think about informative dissertation I will bid you all a very good night and to all count those blessings and we will too!

Chilling and willing...

Yep that is what I said!
Why the kids use that expression, and do they have an exclusive on that?
No, I don’t think so.
For us oldies but goodies it means the same thing to relax and kick back.

The willing part is just me being a wee bit silly tonight since our local station is running one of those contests to win a battery digital seven inch color TV for emergencies and I finally got into the game today to enter it.
Waiting is like any waiting one might do, and so far no news is not such good news, since winners are contacted daily, and so far I haven’t heard a thing.
They notify you by email or by calling and nope not a thing….yet!
And this game is on for the next two months, but the difficult part is you must watch and listen from five A.M. to seven A.M every weekday morning until June fourth!
I do watch the news every morning and on that particular channel, NBC out of Ft. Myers, but my times of waking up fluctuate.
I have a wild wake up schedule from the wee hours like three A.M. to as late as eight A.M.!
So you can see my problem the word given is randomly said and shown during those two hours!
I just went to their site and sadly, no it wasn’t me today!
But I do have some time as long as I get those words daily!

Most people are probably wondering why I am so competitive for such a small item that probably isn’t all that expensive, but oh contraire they do go for more than a hundred bucks in some brands. The fun is in winning I suspect since I don’t really know though since I could probably count on one hand how many times that I have won something over the years. The other reason I would like to win is because the contest is going right into the beginning of our hurricane season being that it ends on June fourth, and the season begins on the first of June, and usually by then the stores have all sold out!
I know now that you are all saying; what’s the big deal?
Well, our little battery TV that I used during the Hurricane Charley hours was the reason I knew what to do and when to do it!
And it won’t work now due to it not being a digital TV its junk now thanks to that modern better gem of an idea called digital TV!
I know you are all saying battery radios work for us now still and are for that too!
But I am still a very visual, hands on type of learner, and it was good to see just where it was and when it was coming here, got it?
I do believe that that little TV may have saved our lives!

On that note of you all hopefully cheering me on in this venture I will wish you all a very good night and to all count those blessings and we will too!

PS So far no oil or smells here ….yet!
We are way far south of all that being here in south west Florida, but we are on the Gulf of Mexico quite south of where the spill actually is!
Let’s hope they fix the problem before it does its worse.

Salvaged fish and colorful ideas...

When we bought this priceless diamond in the rough nearly eleven and half years ago it was quite something!
I am speaking of our current home and final stop in life.
First of all the entire block structure and surrounding foundation, carport even its rafters, its floor and our cement path from our front door and even the patio was painted a vivid sky blue.
Now ordinarily I am a big fan of blue, why it’s my favorite color even, but the expression too much of a good thing comes to mind…
And this particular home had been used as a rental for eight years so it was in a major need of mucho TLC!

The backyard was so overgrown you could not find the canal; it was a literal jungle back there. But we Hubby and I could see its potential.
In good old NJ we had owned brand new homes, one a condominium townhouse and then our five bedrooms bi-level that we had physically built ourselves.

On the other coast we had had two homes that we renovated one with an addition nearly as big as this whole house we are now in!

So we knew what we wanted and when we saw it in our vision we knew what could come of it.

Prior to Hurricane Charley we had stuccoed the exterior over the block and had it painted in Navajo tan, had the jalousie windows replaced with wind resistant to 140 MPH’s modern ones. The carpeting also blue was replaced with wood floors, enclosed the carport into a garage, broke through the interior wall in our foyer to make the laundry an indoor one, and we had replace the water heater, stove, and refrigerator all before we got hit.
Hubby built a matching to our home long narrow shed adjacent to the garage forming a courtyard on that side. And we had done extensive landscaping and Grandfathered in our new seawall, dock and boat lift that were only slight remnants showing. And Hubby made me that octagon white lattice gazebo I have mentioned before. We also added two additional metal twin sheds in the backyard for our overflow of stuff!
One blue tiny shed had been on the side and was falling apart and when the sturdier ones replaced that its contents were moved, and I found a small treasure, a leaded glass panel, which I have painted twice in different colors over the years and it hangs in our living room looking very antiquey. In the laundry, which had consisted of two over size not working well washer and dryer they were replaced with a stackable set allowing for many cabinets and more storage, but in that room we found a couple of more treasures that were used and we still have! The old shelves Hubby made into a book case and that sits in our guestroom, two wall hanging white plaster fish that have been painted bright colors and hang outside in our lanai!
They hadn’t been painted by me in the last maybe ten or more years until yesterday and they are bright and cheerful once again hanging out there!

I enjoy and love remembering simple things in life and seeing how much we accomplished twice mind you due to the hurricane! I tease people when we go to those home shows that we only redecorate due to natural disasters, not so funny you say, yes I more than agree.
I suppose it could be considered a distant memory of all that horror, since it is nearly six years now but in reality it is still so fresh in my mind as if it happened just yesterday.

Good night to all and to all count those blessings and we will too!

My observations about organized religions and love as it pertains to the human populace...

Being of the straight hetero type species I feel my life is not too difficult far as the relationship understanding goes. I love Hubby and he loves me, and that is that our extreme differences are not blatant to the world but we have many or at least we did when we first met nearly forty-three years ago.
Oddly enough we are both Caucasian and Hubby is a male and I am a female, simplicity and quite evident at a glance that anyone can see.
But in reality he was raised a Catholic with a Lutheran father and I was raised a Jew with two parents of that faith.
His family seemed to favor the GOP, Republicans and mine the Democrats.
His Mom was a divorced and a single parent and mine were married.
He had two siblings a few years apart from him in either direction while I had only a half brother nineteen years older.
But none of those differences were for the world to see but as you can tell they were vast and extreme.
This coming February we will be married forty years and to me that seems to be something quite special and amazing in this day and age of the divorce rate being so very high, but you know something we love each other and no one can take that away from us and I bet none of you would even have the nerve to suggest such a thing.

It is true that over the years we have more than compromised on those above differences with both choosing not to be religious in any organized one, although I do believe in G-d, Hubby questions his/hers existence.
Politically we have also changed and are registered as non partisan for many reasons since we always vote for the right person not for any one party, and we get much less phone calls that way! LOL

His family is spread far and wide and most of mine has passed away, and sadly they are not in the picture, only fond memories.

There is a reason for all this explaining and now I will tell you why I gave you my background and where my heart is in all this angriness in the world unfairly over PEOPLE being in love with same sex or different races or religions… I say that LOVE is LOVE and all HUMAN BEINGS are entitled to have it!
I am wondering if the ones who think they shouldn’t are ones who don’t have it for themselves and are just JEALOUS! Who knows but having something as special as a loving relationship with anyone is miraculous today, right?
Go for it I say!
Adults who are in a loving relationship should be put up on pedestals for they are the truly lucky ones in the world.
And no one should stop that or prevent that from being a way for all of us to be happy.
More love creates peace!
Now really who could argue that point?
So here I go out on a limb, taking my life in my hands all in the name of ironically the COURAGE CAMPAIGN… below you will see what it is about.
Let’s face it folks if we believe that all men and women are truly created equal this is the epitome of that belief that will back it up! Proving once again that we should not be just all talk and no action…now you can put your mouth where it belongs in the right direction of doing something for your fellow and women peeps!
Get informed and do the right thing that’s in all of your hearts and souls and be heard!

Courage Campaign | President Obama: Sexual orientation should NOT be a factor in selecting a Supreme
www.couragecampaign.org

On that challenging note I will wish you all a good night and to all count those blessings and we will too!