I don't know how to say this, but ya know that meeting that I was going to have...

Apparently, no matter what I said or did, did not change the woman’s mind and so it looks, no it is definite that I will be filling at least one half day a week with voluminous valuable time well spent, huh? But although I was right about one thing the walker being a not an easy way to maneuver in their small space of offices and so I won’t be answering the phone. Good news though a generous donor has given the clinic a building of 8,800 square feet that will be renovated and ready to be moved into by this October! A much larger space than their trailer type office, like a double-wide one would be, tiny! Oh, my volunteer job will most likely be as an assistant to the woman in charge of patient advocacy! Something near and dear to me! I discussed with my interviewer all that I have been through over these last, nearly six years without any insurance and how I have learned so much that is what is out there to help anyone who needs it…I think that is what sold her. This afternoon they had me fill out forms and get finger printed on this new fangled fifteen thousand dollar computerized system that is supposed to make it more simple, but it seemed harder than the ink method to me, since the lovely patient woman who was manipulating my fingers to be photographed into the system and it does look as if they were inked… had to do it over and over again because it kept buzzing! Apparently, as we get older there is less blood going into our finger tips, and here I thought it was due to my parathesia and my MS? Any-who it appears to my naked eyes that it, is a done deal, Ta da! Moving on… with an update… Not to be telling tales out of school but my dear ole chum up north has been going up and down with anticipation of how her Mom’s procedures will go and be done appropriately. First they were going to have to go last week for blood work into the city then it was Monday and then her Mom was going to have open heart surgery and now it, better give you her direct quote its more accurate, “Got a call from the surgeon who said the good news is that she will have the catheter procure instead of the open heart surgery. However, it will be done in two stages. So she will have her blocked artery cleared with a stent on Thursday, spend a couple days recuperating, then GO HOME and wait a week before the valve repair.” Does anyone but me feel their frustration? Gosh and there is nothing anyone can do. Oh, and if it matters at all in the bigger picture of all this, my wee problem with my lower back is… still not good, but goes in and out where I can’t walk, now it could be my spondylosis with my compromised discs or the MS, in either case all you can do is wait it out…I guess? Another thing that I read here is that as I am sure you do, and we do too that is wash our bedding once a week in hot water… But did you know if you do not have protective covers, the zipper ones that I have on other pillows that sometimes even with the cases being washed in hot that whatever gets into those pillows can come through and yuck you up with allergies or perhaps my eye problems? Anyway, while out today we bought more zippered pillow covers and I already washed them in hot water in the machine and dried them in the dryer as we all should and tonight we will see, perhaps this will help my sinus and eyes problems…but who knows…all anyone can do is try, true? On that hopefully eventful follow-up, allow me to be the first to wish you all a very happy good night and kindly 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? Geez, I surprised myself, my pain in this boring continuing back problem is intermittent, which means a GREAT BIG OUCH! Night, night friends…!

In my recent memory...

That when all else fails… you should go silly! Last night I received a phone call during watching Bones, yep, I bet you all were watching Dancing with the Stars or The Voice, hmm? But not us, too much of all that good stuff and fun and competitiveness, give me instead a nice gushy body lying in a park to try and find the who in the who dun it, and I am in my glory! Did I mention that I once wrote a whole novella series of mysteries? Any-who, Bones suffices my need to try to find out with exceptional quality writing comparable to one of my many fine favorite authors, but this one I am referring to, is Patricia Cornwell. Anyways while watching the programming the phone call was from someone I did not know even with the caller I.D. working, you know that’s what it does, it tells you who but never how or if you know them or where from; I believe that it is a bit incomplete in my view, ya know? Hubby answered and said it was such and such and that she was the person from the free clinic where I applied to help out one day a week, gosh a few weeks or months ago, at least it seems that way to me, but I don’t really recall. But that’s not important the important part is she wants me to come in for a look see, actually a meeting on one day this week… and I said yes. Now she is the coordinator of the volunteers and we sort of hit it off via the telephone, but did we really? The office there is rather small and I have equipment that needs to be with me, like my walker. And then I have in recent years become a wee bit germ-a-phobic due to having three autoimmune ills, Multiple Sclerosis, Sjogren’s and Hyperthyroidism which all makes me more susceptible to catching something and not having a good outcome. I have had my flu and pneumonia shots but not the other ones for working with sick people, inoculations. That’s why my last two IV steroids of 1000 mg Solu-Medrol for three day courses were done in my home that and the fact it was much more cost effective to have a nurse come in and set it up here. And the fact that when I did have it done in the hospital I ended up with an infection so severe I needed to be on heavy doses of Cipro, you know the one they give for Anthrax! What was I thinking? My heart was in the right place, but I suppose I didn’t think it out as well as I should have. And today my body told me again that it may be a big mistake. I have been unable to walk most of the day; in fact I spent most of today in bed. All because of severe pain in my lower back and numbness in all my extremities, absolutely no fun! Stress again I suspect with a bit of fear thrown in. My only concern is that Geez, I just had spasms through the roof sitting here! What I started to write, by the way I did forget to take my after dinner dose of my Baclofen and Hubby just delivered it here to me at the computer where I am sitting, but you all knew that... Gosh pain makes you think oddly, hmm? Well, my only concern was the reliability of someone like me to be there when they need me. That’s why I originally stopped working, since being in management most of my life I wouldn’t hire someone who you never knew if they would be able to show up, and yes, I do know they’re laws against that way of thinking. But I deal with my own realities as well we all should. You see, that’s why I did go whole hog on the volunteer thing and figured if anyone should understand they should…WOW did you see what I wrote…I just answered my own question, hmm? Oh well… it is more than satisfying to have this format as a sounding board…but those ills were not contagious, autism, Downs Syndrome, CP, arthritis, MS, heart disease, cancer…oops still not sure…guess I will have to sleep on it. Where’s the silly I promised? It’s got to be somewhere? Oh that’s right, I am the SILLY! For worrying, since when I go in I will be turned down due to me taking up too much room in the small space…anyway! And talking way too much and not very good at keeping secrets anymore, if ever! See, dumb idea, what was I thinking? Now, you tell me who won his war of words with me; because I truly don’t have a clue. LOL! Maybe I should punt and allow whatever will be, be…or call and cancel… I will let you all know the outcome… after all, it is only one day a week… and I always complain I have way too much time on my hands…? On that way too complicated for me conundrum, 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?

Skype and other things I neglected to get...

Have you ever felt that you were perhaps out of the trendy loops? And later found out what you perceived to be a, ‘fad’ became a classic concept? For me it has been many times; if you were wondering. Just a few minutes ago someone, a Facebook friend asked me to join him on Skype and instead of fessing-up that I did not have the ability to Skype due to no camera or whatever you need to do that sort of thingy, and so I deleted the request. I also believe he would cringe at the sight of the real me…! Mystery is better with these glorious friends online anyway! Just from doing or not doing for some they have a tendency to drop off like flies anyway. But than my curiosity got the best of me and so I went to his page and saw that he looked like he was rather a nice person with a few hundred Facebook friends and so when I noticed that we only had one in Facebook buddy in common, so I decided to search his friend base to try and see who it was… it took me a while but I did, and unbeknownst to me, I had a rather pleasant surprise… his friend is also one of my favorite authors that is also a rather nice guy, i.e. to my slim actual knowledge of him from a few short messages back and forth…but who knows really, really? Sadly, I still do not have the ability to Skype, oh well… such is life! I was late on Atari and Xerox, never happened since at the tender age of twelve my Dad did not believe that such a funny named company could come to anything that was back in 1962. Oh that’s right I bet you all are wondering how a twelve year old could know about a company like Xerox? Well, even if you weren’t wondering, here comes the how…My seventh grade teacher Mr. Piazza, thought it would be a great Math lesson to let his class dabble in the Stock Market with an imaginary ten thousand dollars to spend and I cleaned up with my choices and his suggestions…I had bought Xerox and few other up and coming stocks due to my/his research that he told us about… and all I wanted to do was share with Daddy, but would you take a stock tip from a twelve year old, really? Dad also was offered a deal on a few McDonald’s by his cousin too, way back in 1965, the year he sold his own business and he felt he was done with work after thirty eight years owning his own and so he nixed the idea! I am sorry to say that he did get antsy after six months of not working and worked part-time until a year before his death when he was seventy-nine. And perhaps I got that wait and see gene from him? Computers we got into fairly early though, with two little boys bugging us for one at the time in 1982, a Commodore 64 and it was a learning tool and we needed it for our growing business too. But for some reason I stood my ground on Atari, I felt it would make our outdoor kids who played outside games with friends and rode bicycles, couch potatoes, and a new concept back then. But I finally changed my mind when a teacher told me that the game taught excellent hand and eye co-ordination, and so I was sold. But my sons were never clumsy, they were if anything quite capable, but I caved since all the other kids had one…shame on me! The rule was mostly to play after dinner and homework I do believe, and since it took over the TV, it was instead of, but even then we had more than one. Back when, as a student in college where I studied fads and classic things through interior decorating, fashion, history of art, and any other topics that suggested, at least in the fashion world that styles ran in seven year cycles. And anything that was classic was forever and was cycle-less! Maybe, I got that slightly wrong, but gosh that was over forty years ago, so give me a recall break! An update for me…sadly this writing is becoming painful every once and a while and that is physically, not with me trying to keep my noggin active though I thrive on that… My shoulders hurt so badly last night that I did not get much sleep, and that is pain and numbness, alternating, back and forth, all part of my MS. Sometimes it goes away and sometimes it lasts way too long… All I am saying is that I got to find another way to do this, I do know about Dragon Dictation, but it was very expensive… we will see… what the future brings…hopefully more sleep and less pain! Any-who, 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 all your overages and we will too! And next time please be here or be square, ya hear?

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?