Happy Father’s Day

Hubby here, Tobi is under the weather tonight.

She wants to wish all the fathers out there a Happy Father’s Day.

She hopes to be back tomorrow.

Hubby

Gaffe... the meaning of the word...

Gaffe... the meaning of the word as defined by Webster’s is ... a social or diplomatic blunder, a noticeable mistake…hmm…

But I bet you all knew that.
I was pretty sure I knew it was something like that, oh actually I just thought it meant putting your foot in your mouth publicly… I guess that’s about the same, huh?

You see, in reality who hasn’t said something that they weren’t sorry for later?
I know I have many times, and most people would have learned by now, but not me.
Isn’t that the definition of crazy doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome?
Some call it not thinking before you speak, or as I like to say foot in mouth disease.
But me not being in the public eye or in politics or even in any business related position these days my big mouth of un-requested opinion and feelings about an issue hurts no one but myself usually.

On the other hand being a CEO like Tony Hayward of BP is business suicide when saying anything stupid, and so he has been removed, but not fired. He actually got to go on a cruise on his yacht in a race today back in Merry Ole, huh? But we are told we all still hate the man, OK?

I have no right to judge what others say or do, since my track record in that arena is pretty darn nasty to admit to myself.
Brain editing is for …well an editor, right?
I suppose it is a delayed conscience in my case, but I really do have one just not when it should show up, on time and in place when I absolutely need it!
My sorrowful conscience is so deep and so raw you would be surprised how I hate what I may have said without thinking so many times; I guess its part of my defective self.
But no excuse I hear you all yelling.
And you are all sooooooooooo right folks!
Thinking before one speaks is a learned art I truly believe, which admittedly to date I have not mastered.
Any clues on how to conquer that practice would be most helpful and welcomed.
I know I know you are all saying this gal has proven not to be even able to take constructive critism without going off the deep end, perhaps but learning by repetition or by rote might work? What do you think?

Alienation of people aint what’s cracked up to be or becoming a pariah to the world either.
Too bad there isn’t like a short film we humans could watch that actually showed you the results of your actions before you committed to them publicly?
WOW what a concept.
The person who comes up with that one will definitely have to get a patent fast.

Today we were able to finish our small projects of getting the signs in place, and I had a pleasant time in the pool too.
This evening we received our ration of late day storms, which keeps our gardens colorful, rain barrels full and our lawn heading towards plush once again.
Who can complain, so far we are fortunate that we have basically nothing to complain about yet…
Sadly that could all change in a moment’s gasp of a breath.
Not unlike many profound blip’s in time.

Please dear world remember that this ecological catastrophe is not something just unique to the Gulf region it unfortunately has been happening all over the world and each one has its domino’s effect on the rest of the planet.

So we as a race of human beings must find the answer as one.

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

Dead Zone, Watergate, Waterloo, what's next?

Methane gas that nasty lethal stuff that killed the miners in West Virginia is now one of the possibilities emanating from the leaking well five thousand miles down in the Gulf of Mexico which could be responsible for creating a, ‘Dead Zone’! Here’s the commentary, just copy and paste: http://blog.al.com/live/2010/06/overlooked_bp_oil_spill_proble.html

This my friends is astonishing and more frightening than any other imagined bogyman, horrors or what-have-you!

Not trying to be facetious, but racking my less than capable brain for any ideas to help come up with ways to resolve this problem. Perhaps, Stephen King who wrote a book with that title Dead Zone circa 1979, but had nothing to do with water masses but with a dead zone in the human brain caused by an accident, and how the victim becomes psychic from it. Now I am not saying that our massive Gulf of Mexico’s oil leaking killing off of all wildlife and our delicate ecosystem is anything similar to that, but go with me here… This man, Stephen King, has an enormous imagination and ability to see way beyond any box… and perhaps that could have a bearing on how to solve this problem, and it’s a plus he has a home on the Gulf Coast right here in southwest Florida!

Is this a euphemism of our latest Watergate, nothing personal Mr. President or our government’s version of their Battle of Waterloo, which ironically was fought today June 18th, but in 1815 in Belgium? Sorry, just trying to find water named devastating events in history but looked at through a different prospective that puts this all into some type of format, but there is nothing that even comes close, not even the Exxon Valdez … not anymore, this is horribly much, much worse! Katrina, tsunami, yes, but much worse historically to date and oh so horrendously devastating disaster caused by nature and later the slowness of man to react, and nothing compares with them, but next on the list would have to be this unforeseen incredible future of what this disaster and sadly all manmade, which means that it most likely could have been prevented will cost our world in the long run in all of our futures!

Hubby and I were in our stay at home creative mode today. We are both involved in mild or small crafty work. I decoupage a sign for a snake crossing for our yard with a clip art picture of a black snake actually the decoupage, and my wooden letters spelling out X-ING also in black, on a two sided plaque of cedar painted white. We love our black racer snakes they are a wonderful addition to any garden for natural rodent control.
The other two signs were just black arrows on yellow plaques showing which way to go on the diamond boardwalk split around the Tangelo tree down to the dock just really a comical way to enjoy our yard, and who knows someday I could forget! LOL, I could tell you such stories of what I have already forgotten! And the pool also called me for over an hour and a half today!

Any-who, Life goes on here as usual, and no we have not had any signs or symptoms of the oil leak here yet, and the locals, the professionals in that arena state we should not, due to that loop current. Although, we are preparing like all of our neighbors who live on the southwest coast here; booms are eventually or I should say if it proves necessary will be placed at the mouth of our Charlotte Harbor, a five minute by boatride from our canal, and hopefully aid in preventing any infiltration, but as we have been seeing up many hundreds of miles north of here that has not been successful! I do worry, but what can one do at this point?
If we all knew that we would have the problem fixed I would think!

On that sad note I will still wish you all a very good night, and please count all of your blessings and we will too!

Library day!

Which in Tobi speak means…The Cultural Center!
Since our library branch is attached to our multi-faceted educational, club, retail, eatery and entertainment facility. We ate lunch there, and had an amazing chicken Marsala for only five bucks! After we perused the shops we each chose two books from our library.

We had arrived shortly before one P.M. and by then I had already been in our pool for moving around exercises and a mild short ROM program. I’m still not back 100%, but working on it. I must admit I did have a fairly good night’s sleep though, about seven and half hours with only getting up a few times due to the call of nature.
Then on our way home at the grocery nearby the center Hubby purchased dinner and extra bleach for a mold problem project.

You see, Hubby removed the steps from the deep end exit ladder due to it needing a very dire cleansing from mildew build up; and that to me doesn’t make any sense since our chlorine is showing always high or normal high in the tester. Perhaps it is from the wee bit of rain we have received recently? For that project he had to go into the pool which he does very infrequently, he never says why. Most people would kill to have even our little swimming pool, but he keeps his reasoning to himself, I guess some of us just aren’t into explaining things, unlike me! LOL, who always has the tendency to give way too much information and explanations.

He can swim just fine, by the way and even used to teach water skiing as a teenager in the Pocono’s, he even is SCUBA certified for over twenty-five years!
So that is why it baffles me, oh well...

The three exit steps for that end are still soaking in a bucket of strong bleach and water and hopefully will be good by tomorrow, but I don’t exit that way anyway. The steps are heavy duty white plastic and the rails are all stainless steel.
I need the railing and steps at the shallow end to pull myself up to grab my walker.
Our swimming pool does go from three to five feet deep, and is extremely tiny at only eight by sixteen feet in dimensions but fine for our needs; sort of like a large hot tub.
I can exercise well enough holding onto the sides or swim very short laps, just enough.

That’s why I still think we are very lucky, we have most all our needs met, but on a smaller scale.
There I go again with my feelings about enough.
You know the one where I say we should never be greedy because enough is enough, having what you need, no more or less.

I am in the process of waiting on an answer for a way to get a small gangplank for our little twenty foot boat. Hubby can lower it on the lift for me to slide onto but if I want to get out at let’s say Fisherman’s Village like I used to there is no way, I need a ramp or gangplank, I so miss going out on the boat to different destinations.
The only reason now its not that big a deal is due to this unrelenting heat, and even on the water it’s not that much cooler but by fall it would be so nice to be able to go here and there without worrying about if I wanted to get off to see things like parks, shops or restaurants; I have contacted Spinlife.com where I got my mobility scooter and walker from since I thought they might know what companies might know about such a thing.

So far no news from that artist I contacted Carolyn Blish, may never hear, oh well…

Some never feel the need to answer questions I suspect.
But on the other hand many do, which I personally prefer.

On that note of wanting, needing a desire to know what’s what I will wish you all a very good night and to all of you please count those blessings and we will too!

BP and other commentaries...

When is too much too much and when is it enough?
BP in all its wisdom has decided today NOT to pay their investors their quarterly dividends, I say that’s a no brainer, what do you all think? Personally, I think that they should wait on that for the next few years, don’t you?

Shortly, prior to that realization they had set aside twenty billion to be utilized, as a beginning amount for all claims and cleanups, and will be adding into that pot three billion per years afterward, until all is made right.

Kenneth Feinberg will be the man in charge of the distribution from the escrow account; he was the person who oversaw payments to the victim’s families after 9/11, and apparently did a good job, no bad news there.

Mind boggling to most of us commoners that kind of monies, huh?
But in reality what I find more difficult to believe is what’s in all our futures with this historically worst manmade environmental disaster’s aftermath; imaging is beyond most of our realms of our mind’s capacity. At least I know it is mine.

If only we knew how to deal with what’s to come, and only if we knew when we would be allowed to really take charge and clean it all up!
That too, is a wait and see game though unfortunately. WILL SOMEONE PLEASE MAKE UP OUR MINDS!

That’s the darn troubling part of all this, not knowing when, where or what will be coming exactly where or when, got that?
It’s crazy! And definitely NOT in a good way!
Frustration and lack of control comes to all of our minds, we as human beings like to think we have a bit of control over our lives, even if it’s just a little.
If this doesn’t teach us something about what we need to do when it comes to finding non toxic methods of movement, fuel, and energy what-have-you?

The only good part of all this is…we are not in this alone, we have each other since we all will somehow and someway be affected by this!
And so let me recommend that we try hard to come up with ways to handle this upheaval of many of our lives.
Using good judgment in all decisions and not work against our common goals of trying to make this part of the world whole and well again.
I see it as a cancer with a possible cure in the hands of the scientific medical people and pharmaceuticals all seeking a cure, perhaps that analogy is slightly off but work with me here…some cells will be destroyed along the way, and there may even have to be some amputations but in the end what will be left will be healthy tissue that will grow into a new beginning?
Nah, that’s just crazy!
We have a nasty disgusting mess that is killing wildlife, jobs and the economy, tourism you name it and its possible cure or resolve has yet to be determined!

Moving on, on my home-front…
Today was an errand day and after we stopped at the home store for orchid potting mix and then I am happy to say we accomplished our short romp to the warehouse store for gas, water, coffee, air-fresheners body wash etc.
Then we went on to BIG LOTS and picked up some garden supplies, actually two trellis’s for our climbing white Mandevillas, which are quickly becoming a beautiful screen for privacy at the end of the swimming pool facing the canal. You can still see the canal through it which I do like.
We lunched today at Beef O’Brady’s. I had a half and half, which consisted of half a sandwich and choice of soup or salad, I had half of a Cuban style sandwich and Caesar salad not eating all of the bread, Hubby had a roast beef sandwich and fries, him coffee and me my iced tea, and the bill was comparable to a fast food restaurant one, reasonable.
So dinner again we made homemade clam chowder, yum!

Let me wish you all a very good night too, and count your blessings and we will count ours!

MMMMMMMMM Drugs how they can also be...

A healthful adjustment, you see after only just fifteen pills, a total of 150 MG. of Prednisone I appear to be so much less pained, and actually the pain has diminished to nearly zilch! Hooray!
Only a few subtle problems remain of course anyone following along with this Blog would know that a year ago last April I had a diabetes scare which had been monitored for over a year since it was necessary while on those high IV doses of 1000 MG the Solu-Medrol for three days while hospitalized and insulin had to be administered.
And so after it, it was suggested I may have latent tendencies towards diabetes type two, (So glad I quit smoking nearly four years ago, July 11th it will be four whole years, hooray, not to mention all the meds that helped for me to now become obese!) and that I should monitor it. And now on this much lesser dose I began again to test.
Before I had my first dose it was at 111, and after it, it jumped to 200, but then when I went into our pool today and did walk without fear of falling, water you know, since it’s too soon to actually continue my ROM program yet, and my glucose level went down to 155!
See, exercise is the answer!

Now for the other problem although I seem to be better; last night but I was unable to sleep since it, the pred has that affect on me. It was close to four A.M. before I hit the sheets. Those three days in the hospital I was virtually an insomniac and got no sleep at all!
Foolishly, they gave me caffeinated green tea but I did not realize it I thought all green tea was naturally decaffeinated, my fault for assuming, caffeine and prednisone do NOT mix folks at least not for me! Their cafeteria nutritionist actually came to my room to apologize.
Today I took the medication before nine as recommended and didn’t even have my only cup of coffee for the day! By my first break from the pool I wanted one, afterall it was eleven A.M., and so Hubby was kind enough to indulge me, just that one. Wish me luck with the sleep thing tonight!

Today I took a silly begging move by asking people on Face book to follow this Blog. I think it stems from me reading someone else’s by accident I was trying to find out more about my prednisone, and this one just popped up in the search, it also had this pink theme I guess that is why I was so intrigued, mind you this was in those wee hours of the morning that I was dealing with my insomnia. And I became slightly jealous since this other pink-paged copycat had thirty-three people who felt the goodness in their hearts to admit that they read her Blog and were HER FOLLOWERS!…My green-eyed monster went berserk, not really, but I wondered what I must be doing wrong for people not to want to admit they occasionally read mine?
Any-who we all know I do on occasion give you all too much information, but that’s me.
At nearly sixty, did I say that?
Yep, soon!
It’s hard for a person to change that nature.

On that note of again TMI I will wish you to all have a very good night and to all count those blessings and we will too!

Ooops I goofed!

Haven’t we all at one time also goofed?
And yes this is mine, mine to own.
I thought that I was really all better, but unfortunately it was not the case!
Going to sleep at about elevenish last night, after the Tony’s, weren’t they great? (That was rhetorical folks! We all know how could they not be with free Broadway snippets?)

Any-who, but by twelve thirty A.M. my body awoke me viciously and violently with a great big hardy har, har, har it screamed at my nerves, muscles and bones, and me too!
So you thought this was all over, huh?

No sorry, not quite yet, not now, not nearly over you nasty woman who thinks that MS is a singularly yearly or bi-yearly ripping at your moral fiber event, no not for you…it said to me blatantly haranguing me and went on…
Now I will come to steal more often of what you think are normal abilities shredding the nerves that keep you running smoothly I will sort circuit your life and breath in my own timetable not when you are free for all!
You will not be aware of when or where this will occur, but more frequency seems to be how I will attack and you can enjoy the waiting and freedom of not knowing when that will be!

Logically, I called my neurologist, wouldn’t you, and asked for some help, since I am still waiting on the approval of the medication, Copaxone that is supposed to prevent these relapses to occur as often or possibly never ever again, who knows? All I have is hopeful wishes of that.
She asked me if I was interested in the 1000 MG IV’s of Solu-Medrol again as an out patient and I asked about the step down prednisone and we agreed on that, since cost is still the issue with me. The step down steroids were the cheapest and known to be effective. And so today I started that, you start with eight pills at 10MG and then seven and on and on until the pills are all gone and by then you should feel all better!

Let me explain something to my readership, OK?
I have been noticing a short circuit in my writing too, brain induced. I know you are all asking now if I am sure. About having one, yeah I guess I might, LOL!
Missing prepositions have been rampant for years but now for some reason so are whole words, for that I apologize, but it seems this is par for the course since Multiple Sclerosis does affect your cognitive ability thus writing is connected to that for me.
And prior to my voracious writing desires and prolific production of these said works I was just a hack writer previously with a need to put pen to paper or in this case keyboard Arabic’s fonts to screen. And so I do hope that someone will give me leeway in this genre I have chosen for my drivelous (A Tobism again), attempts at put word to word in an order of understanding, wish us good luck with our future journeys together.
Oddly enough I was a late bloomer, oh yeah I did write my first play at twelve in seventh grade and got an A, a little ditty called Sweet Job about a candy store robbery.
And then when our sons were young I wrote letters to the editor to the newspapers that did publish them, and to my son’s silly poems. I had taken journalism in college, did again receive A’s and was told I had potential but never really utilized it accept for writing radio commercials for our businesses over the years, greeting cards for friends and relatives and the like.
Until I became a bum wrote my own scripts for fashion shows, went to a workshop for creative writing and loved it!
But had written five novellas by then that were in heavy need of editing and still till this very day, most edits were lost on crashing computers and lost discs due to hurricanes or oldness of my technologies.
And so my loyalty to this medium is perhaps due to the fact that online it may never be lost? And who in their right somewhat sane mind wouldn’t care to leave someone anyone a legacy?
Well, this is mine…
No grandkids yet and one estranged son but I still want them to know what was happening before and after I met them, which I do hope will be someday in all our near futures.
Because in reality who knows how much time any of us have?
Huh?

So on that note of what the heck is she talking about, oh yeah rambling appears to part of my MS too! LOL, actually I really don’t know but I’ll take it!

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

PS My heart and wishes are with you Mr. President you will resolve this problem too! I have faith in you sir!