Dear Blog,
A thought flashed across my mind. A thought that confirmed my belief that we humans really are a rare and crazy breed. For example: Would you find it strange that I know many intimate things about that beautician...here in Bismarck...who cut my hair?
For instance:
I know about the ugly mole on her face that may or may not be cancerous. I also know that she won't know if it's cancerous since she doesn't go to, believe in or trust doctors. I know that she has never had a flu shot and never plans to have one and thinks it is some kind of a governmental conspiracy to use drugs to keep us where they want us. So me thinks, "What...well enough to go to work?" For once, me being the one to raise my eyebrows with a (do you really think so?) expression on my face. Says she to me, "Doctors are a waste of time and money." I certainly know where she is coming from. I have spent a lot of my time, energy and money going to doctors and swallowing the pills that they have prescribed and I feel none the better for it. I also know that she does believe in spending her time and money to bring her three cats and two dogs to the Vet. Thus, I feel she thinks Vet's are above suspicion to conspire.
She has no photos of her dead son or his sons to share with her clients. She has several photos in cute frames and others tacked to a bulletin board of her cats and dogs that we can all readily see. She proudly displays these. I also know that the snipper has a mannish look and does nothing to make her womanhood shine yet she has a feminine touch using pinks, lilacs and purples to decorate her salon. Making it seem (to me) as if someone has told her that these colors and the many trinkets, crafty objects and containers of plastic bright colored flowers would be pleasing for her customers. Women magazines splayed about for a quick peek and smells that shout women. Ruffled curtains in a girly bathroom and cute finger towels for drying one's hands. It is a feminine shop ran by a woman who does not purport a personal feminine thing to her clients. She lives on the opposite end of town on the same street as does her ex-daughter-in-law and two grandsons. She hasn't spoken with any of them in years and knows nothing of their lives. She is about my age.
I know that she grew up in a small northern North Dakota town near the Canadian border and as a child the family went occasionally to Minot (a small northern city) an hour or so from their home for big shopping trips and entertainment. She's lived most of her adult life here, in Bismarck, and she hates Minnesota. She especially hates Minneapolis and "The Mall Of America"where she lost her then 2-year-old grandson...she claims it is too big, too much traffic and too many highways to get lost on. I wonder what she would think of St. Paul where the streets were designed by a bunch of drunken Irishmen (as our late Governor Ventura used to say)?
She says that their family vacations are mostly spent at lakes and in camp grounds right here in North Dakota. She is not and never will be a gambler or a world traveler or much of a reader. She cuts hair and she does a fair job of it. Good enough and reasonably priced so that she has kept her business going for 20+ years. She is not very interesting nor is she charismatic or for that matter very chatty. Yet I found her interesting enough. Perhaps it is because she is so not in character for the profession she is in. Still, the thing that makes me pause is the fact that I know all of these things about her and I have formed a general opinion of her and yet...I will never see her again and I don't even know her name.
I do not know her name. Don't you find this a bit strange?
We truly are weird creatures. I wonder how many of us have had sex with someone (to me the most intimate connection other than giving birth that us humans have with each other) and never know that person's name? Yes, it gives me pause. Do we call this behaviour...casual intimacy or are we just so vain that we don't even bother to get personal enough to ask someone their name? I may call her to ask her what her name is. Perhaps I won't be left feeling like I've somehow stolen her intimate private thoughts. Why do people share so much intimacy with strangers? Why do I share here in my Blog? I wonder if she will tell me her name? I wonder why she didn't offer her name the minute I entered her shop? Maybe she felt that would be too intimate. Should I take a leap and ask what name goes with her story. Should I stop nonchalantly introducing myself to every one. Just thinking here folks. Later then...
Bye Blog, JjB...
-30-
Friday, November 20, 2009
Saturday, November 14, 2009
"Merrily, Merrily, Merrily"...Life Is But A Dream
Dear Blog,
Hell-o my old girl. I know I haven't been here for a week or so...still I have had a busy week that was accented with a bout of sinus problems. My nose has grown and is raw and red. I don't care how soft the tissues may be they still cause pain with enough use on the delicate nose and then along with the sinuses acting up I ended with having a small fever blister (IE...cold sore or herpes of the mouth) every single dammed year I have two or three of them appear to hurt and make me look like crap. Nose and mouth area all red...like I'm that famous reindeer (Rudolph). Still, he is so much cuter with his red nose than I.
As it goes then, I had a rather miserable week. In between whining, napping, blowing and snuffling I worked on my daily house keeping routine and cooking and crocheting and reading. I even managed to look at a couple of recipes from a new magazine I bought recently. I thoroughly enjoyed the two children's picture books I have taken on borrow from the library and had a few moments daydreaming about writing one meself. If only I could be open enough to think with a fresh innocent mind. I listened (audio book) to an author who is new to me and now I am thinking and speaking as if I too came from my homeland...the old country of Ireland. I am so dammed impressionable when it comes to accents and dialects. I will be a true Irish woman for a week or two now. I must give myself a break in-between the reading or listening of his work least I become totally Irish and forget about the Scandinavian half of meself altogether. Notice how all together becomes altogether when linked together.
The author's name is "Adrian Mckinty" if you too would care to become Irish. Try the audio if you want the true effect. I imagined the main character to be a young Colin Farrell (ah yum) and I fell in love once again. The good looking, bad guy that all (well most all) good girls fall for. So today I am thinking Irish and what a bloody lot they are. Tough old bastards even when they are young. No innocence in their warring world. No John Wayne to soften the fighting or boozing and make it seem friendly, funny and romantic. They share a hard-knock love that allows them to kill on a Sunday morning before Mass and then go home to a meal of Mulligan stew served with huge slabs of potato or soda bread. This meal being serve by a quiet mother, wife or a spit-fighting grandmother. Irish Catholics being so very different that the Catholics I have met here in America. I'd give this authors work a "R" rating with a warning that it is very violent and if true I would not want to be among that group of the Irish. I am after all a true American with violence being mostly distant from me and my daily life.
So anyhow:
I'm thinking I may have developed and allergy to yarn...thus, this crud I have been dealing with may well be from all the crocheting I have been doing of late. I started out making pot holder and trivet sets for my kids as stocking stuffer's for Christmas and as I will sometimes do (okay...often will do) I decided the colors and pattern would make for a wonderful new afghan for the brown covered love seat that now sits in my new room. The room I'm not home to enjoy. I got the love seat from Libby, whose boyfriend (of the time) that lousy skunk Al, brought to her from a Minneapolis street corner. I cleaned it up, sprayed it with Lysol and Fabreeze. Next I had my old boy cut me a 1/4 inch piece of plywood to slip under the cushions to firm it up for sitting so we won't sink to the floor each time we sit down. I bought a wonderful dark cocoa brown slip-cover. The fabric is knit and it fits the love seat like a glove. Now it is oh so pretty. It will be even prettier with a new afghan and matching pillows...if I am ever home to see it.
Don't worry...the kids will still get something in their Christmas stockings. Still, I find that I am allergic to the yarn so maybe it is my due and I am paying for being greedy with the would be pot holders and trivets. Makes one go hum. Maybe it is simply the dye in the yarn that my body is fighting against. My hope is that once it is finished and washed with Woolite and rinsed with fabric softener and fluffed dry, set on the cool cycle in the dryer, it will no longer bother my sinuses. It would be a shame if I couldn't even take an occasional nap with it. All of this misery would be for naught. If I am to suffer I want it to be for a good cause.
Soon after we were given the street-corner love seat our neighbor Rick, who lives two doors up and across the street from us, put a perfectly good (very clean) beige colored wing-back chair out in his drive-way with a big cardboard sign with the word "Free". I had Kevin pop over and tell Rick we would take it and Rick tells Kevin that he and his wife were "out shopping at garage sales" that morning and found a chair that they liked so they were giving the wing-back away. I bought a slip-cover for it in a light sage green color. The cover doesn't fit right. Once I get home I plan to find some fabric I like and make a cover to fit. Maybe I should get some floral fabric and add a new splash of color to the room.
Is it just an American thing this leaving things on a street corner or a driveway with a "Take Me" or a "Free" sign on them?
What with the custom hutch...more of a low boy or buffet...that Kevin made and the large mirror that is hung above it I have a fine place to store my china. I found the mirror at a garage sale with a sign asking $10.00. I told Kevin to offer them $5.00. After a few words with me (arguing that they'd never sell it for $5.00) he finally (not so happy with me) did offer the fiver and they took it. Once the old wood frame was sanded and painted to match the hutch and the walls it all looks grand...like it is an old-time built-in. I so love it. All-n-all The cost was maybe (if I remember right) about $30.00 for the paint, hardware and all. The wood is oak and plywood which we had left-over from another project. The doors were oak and they were free from a cabinet shop where Kevin used to work. Any thing that had a dent, mark or scratch was free to the workers. That's one thing about being low on the money end of life...we learn how to be creative. I saw similar looking pieces in the catalogs that would be near $400.00-500.00. (SO) I say to the old boy..."Just look at the money I save you." Of course...I don't linger on the cost of labor which for me is free. One of these fine days (when we are back home) I'll have Richelle take some pictures and post them.
A few years ago the old boy built me a 4x4 square foot dining table made of oak and ceramic tile. He stained it (the legs & frame) that french redwood color and the tile I picked for it's top is a rustic deep maroon red. It looks like an old fashioned Tuscan table. It is huge and lovely and it weighs a ton. I then purchased 4 large parson chairs with the redwood stained legs and beige cushioned seats at $47.00 each...they were $250.00 chairs on sale for $80.00 each and I told the salesman that I would buy all four of them if he'd let me have them for $45.00 each. He came back with $50.00...I with $47.00... HE with (no delivery) and the deal was done. Now days what with driving these small cars that meant two trips. Short trips allowed it to still be a great deal. I think they charge at least $50.00 for delivery anyhow. No service these days from vendor's.
Thus, I bought the 4 chairs that would've originally sold for $1000.00 for $188.00+ TAX. Not bad, eh? That old boy of mine is a lucky man. The table materials were somewhere around $80.00-100.00. I'm sure it would have been at least $300.00+ tax and delivery charges if bought from a store . The thing weights a ton. I love that it is one of a kind. Other tables may be oak and tile (especially in places like Tuscany or New York City or Mexico) but they won't have my exact tile and stain color. I like one of a kind things. Mostly I am glad that between us we are able to make or buy things that we like and can afford. If not we'd be doing without at the cost of things these days. Big mark-ups and usually not made to last. This table will outlast both of us. I reckon it is (a good thing...as Martha Stewart would say) if I sew my own curtains, pillows, slipcovers and such with fabrics and colors that I choose. Plus, it gives he and I something creative to do and everyone needs creativity in their lives.
Now...if I'd come up with something creative to eat it'd make my belly happy and I could swallow a chunk of my morning pills and get back to the crocheting. Now that the afghan is becoming something I will work like the dickens to get it done. Good thing too since I will be all stuffed up with allergies till I finish the last few ounces of trim and put it through the wash and rinse cycle a couple of times. This may well be the last of my crocheting unless I can find some yarn that doesn't cause all of these problems.
Later then. I am starving...you can read between the lines. I re-read this and I know it sounds like a lot of bragging...still I did start this blog as a way to communicate with my mother and let her follow along with our lives and she always though me and he to be so clever what with making and building things and who doesn't want to be thought of as clever and creative? Who doesn't want Mom's approval? I wonder (what with her being dead and all) if she still peruses me blog? This was to be a book for her for Christmas but she died first. She never could wait long for anything. Still her and Pa were in my dreams last night and Pa remarked that my home-made soup was as good as his Grandma L's was. A great compliment...that coming from him. He was the Papa of the Papa and Daddy fiasco.
Bye Blog, JjB...
-30-
Hell-o my old girl. I know I haven't been here for a week or so...still I have had a busy week that was accented with a bout of sinus problems. My nose has grown and is raw and red. I don't care how soft the tissues may be they still cause pain with enough use on the delicate nose and then along with the sinuses acting up I ended with having a small fever blister (IE...cold sore or herpes of the mouth) every single dammed year I have two or three of them appear to hurt and make me look like crap. Nose and mouth area all red...like I'm that famous reindeer (Rudolph). Still, he is so much cuter with his red nose than I.
As it goes then, I had a rather miserable week. In between whining, napping, blowing and snuffling I worked on my daily house keeping routine and cooking and crocheting and reading. I even managed to look at a couple of recipes from a new magazine I bought recently. I thoroughly enjoyed the two children's picture books I have taken on borrow from the library and had a few moments daydreaming about writing one meself. If only I could be open enough to think with a fresh innocent mind. I listened (audio book) to an author who is new to me and now I am thinking and speaking as if I too came from my homeland...the old country of Ireland. I am so dammed impressionable when it comes to accents and dialects. I will be a true Irish woman for a week or two now. I must give myself a break in-between the reading or listening of his work least I become totally Irish and forget about the Scandinavian half of meself altogether. Notice how all together becomes altogether when linked together.
The author's name is "Adrian Mckinty" if you too would care to become Irish. Try the audio if you want the true effect. I imagined the main character to be a young Colin Farrell (ah yum) and I fell in love once again. The good looking, bad guy that all (well most all) good girls fall for. So today I am thinking Irish and what a bloody lot they are. Tough old bastards even when they are young. No innocence in their warring world. No John Wayne to soften the fighting or boozing and make it seem friendly, funny and romantic. They share a hard-knock love that allows them to kill on a Sunday morning before Mass and then go home to a meal of Mulligan stew served with huge slabs of potato or soda bread. This meal being serve by a quiet mother, wife or a spit-fighting grandmother. Irish Catholics being so very different that the Catholics I have met here in America. I'd give this authors work a "R" rating with a warning that it is very violent and if true I would not want to be among that group of the Irish. I am after all a true American with violence being mostly distant from me and my daily life.
So anyhow:
I'm thinking I may have developed and allergy to yarn...thus, this crud I have been dealing with may well be from all the crocheting I have been doing of late. I started out making pot holder and trivet sets for my kids as stocking stuffer's for Christmas and as I will sometimes do (okay...often will do) I decided the colors and pattern would make for a wonderful new afghan for the brown covered love seat that now sits in my new room. The room I'm not home to enjoy. I got the love seat from Libby, whose boyfriend (of the time) that lousy skunk Al, brought to her from a Minneapolis street corner. I cleaned it up, sprayed it with Lysol and Fabreeze. Next I had my old boy cut me a 1/4 inch piece of plywood to slip under the cushions to firm it up for sitting so we won't sink to the floor each time we sit down. I bought a wonderful dark cocoa brown slip-cover. The fabric is knit and it fits the love seat like a glove. Now it is oh so pretty. It will be even prettier with a new afghan and matching pillows...if I am ever home to see it.
Don't worry...the kids will still get something in their Christmas stockings. Still, I find that I am allergic to the yarn so maybe it is my due and I am paying for being greedy with the would be pot holders and trivets. Makes one go hum. Maybe it is simply the dye in the yarn that my body is fighting against. My hope is that once it is finished and washed with Woolite and rinsed with fabric softener and fluffed dry, set on the cool cycle in the dryer, it will no longer bother my sinuses. It would be a shame if I couldn't even take an occasional nap with it. All of this misery would be for naught. If I am to suffer I want it to be for a good cause.
Soon after we were given the street-corner love seat our neighbor Rick, who lives two doors up and across the street from us, put a perfectly good (very clean) beige colored wing-back chair out in his drive-way with a big cardboard sign with the word "Free". I had Kevin pop over and tell Rick we would take it and Rick tells Kevin that he and his wife were "out shopping at garage sales" that morning and found a chair that they liked so they were giving the wing-back away. I bought a slip-cover for it in a light sage green color. The cover doesn't fit right. Once I get home I plan to find some fabric I like and make a cover to fit. Maybe I should get some floral fabric and add a new splash of color to the room.
Is it just an American thing this leaving things on a street corner or a driveway with a "Take Me" or a "Free" sign on them?
What with the custom hutch...more of a low boy or buffet...that Kevin made and the large mirror that is hung above it I have a fine place to store my china. I found the mirror at a garage sale with a sign asking $10.00. I told Kevin to offer them $5.00. After a few words with me (arguing that they'd never sell it for $5.00) he finally (not so happy with me) did offer the fiver and they took it. Once the old wood frame was sanded and painted to match the hutch and the walls it all looks grand...like it is an old-time built-in. I so love it. All-n-all The cost was maybe (if I remember right) about $30.00 for the paint, hardware and all. The wood is oak and plywood which we had left-over from another project. The doors were oak and they were free from a cabinet shop where Kevin used to work. Any thing that had a dent, mark or scratch was free to the workers. That's one thing about being low on the money end of life...we learn how to be creative. I saw similar looking pieces in the catalogs that would be near $400.00-500.00. (SO) I say to the old boy..."Just look at the money I save you." Of course...I don't linger on the cost of labor which for me is free. One of these fine days (when we are back home) I'll have Richelle take some pictures and post them.
A few years ago the old boy built me a 4x4 square foot dining table made of oak and ceramic tile. He stained it (the legs & frame) that french redwood color and the tile I picked for it's top is a rustic deep maroon red. It looks like an old fashioned Tuscan table. It is huge and lovely and it weighs a ton. I then purchased 4 large parson chairs with the redwood stained legs and beige cushioned seats at $47.00 each...they were $250.00 chairs on sale for $80.00 each and I told the salesman that I would buy all four of them if he'd let me have them for $45.00 each. He came back with $50.00...I with $47.00... HE with (no delivery) and the deal was done. Now days what with driving these small cars that meant two trips. Short trips allowed it to still be a great deal. I think they charge at least $50.00 for delivery anyhow. No service these days from vendor's.
Thus, I bought the 4 chairs that would've originally sold for $1000.00 for $188.00+ TAX. Not bad, eh? That old boy of mine is a lucky man. The table materials were somewhere around $80.00-100.00. I'm sure it would have been at least $300.00+ tax and delivery charges if bought from a store . The thing weights a ton. I love that it is one of a kind. Other tables may be oak and tile (especially in places like Tuscany or New York City or Mexico) but they won't have my exact tile and stain color. I like one of a kind things. Mostly I am glad that between us we are able to make or buy things that we like and can afford. If not we'd be doing without at the cost of things these days. Big mark-ups and usually not made to last. This table will outlast both of us. I reckon it is (a good thing...as Martha Stewart would say) if I sew my own curtains, pillows, slipcovers and such with fabrics and colors that I choose. Plus, it gives he and I something creative to do and everyone needs creativity in their lives.
Now...if I'd come up with something creative to eat it'd make my belly happy and I could swallow a chunk of my morning pills and get back to the crocheting. Now that the afghan is becoming something I will work like the dickens to get it done. Good thing too since I will be all stuffed up with allergies till I finish the last few ounces of trim and put it through the wash and rinse cycle a couple of times. This may well be the last of my crocheting unless I can find some yarn that doesn't cause all of these problems.
Later then. I am starving...you can read between the lines. I re-read this and I know it sounds like a lot of bragging...still I did start this blog as a way to communicate with my mother and let her follow along with our lives and she always though me and he to be so clever what with making and building things and who doesn't want to be thought of as clever and creative? Who doesn't want Mom's approval? I wonder (what with her being dead and all) if she still peruses me blog? This was to be a book for her for Christmas but she died first. She never could wait long for anything. Still her and Pa were in my dreams last night and Pa remarked that my home-made soup was as good as his Grandma L's was. A great compliment...that coming from him. He was the Papa of the Papa and Daddy fiasco.
Bye Blog, JjB...
-30-
Friday, November 06, 2009
more pictures for you mom...
Aren't the kittens adorable? When Tiger and Monkey aren't fighting, they love to snuggle up for a nap...
Tiger has even taken to sleeping with the old, mean Cozy...seeing is believing...
And, the "just because" roses...
Tiger has even taken to sleeping with the old, mean Cozy...seeing is believing...
And, the "just because" roses...
"The .77 cent a pound pears are ripe"...OR..."Where does time go when it runs away?"
Dear Blog,
Now that the pears are ripe I'll be eating them until I get the scoots. They were hard as rocks and looked like pear shaped green apples when I forked over the .77 cents per pound for them. Outrageous price, I know, but they were the cheapest fresh fruit on sale at the beginning of the week. Maybe I should make a pear tart with some of them, me thinks. Quickly memory comes into play to remind me that my pie/tart crust is not the greatest.
Yet:
I know from many of my past experiences that fresh fruit can go from green to ripe to rot in a very short manner. From hard as a rock to just the right squeeze to soft and mushy.
I think back to when when my kids were young and still living at home. Fruit was such a treat in our house that it would be long eaten before it could ripen...much less go to rot. What with me trying to stretch the food dollars that I had for the entire month (when it really wasn't enough for a healthy 2 weeks) I couldn't afford to buy very much fruit...if any. To this day I am thankful for Catholic Charities and the many food pantry stores that provided us with the fruit we did get...along with so much more.
My old grandma's and even my dead Aunts would roll over...nay they would do somersaults in their collective graves if they had to pay .77 per pound for fruit and especially so with that being the least expensive piece of fruit in the store.
I'm in total agreement with the dead women who came before me...and I'm doing somersaults which, is just as hard for me to do as it is for the dead. Believe you me...I shit you not. Okay don't believe me...you're right, I haven't been able to do a real somersault for some forty years.
But:
In my mind I am still a young healthy athletic girl. What I really am is more proof that things ripen way too quick when exposed to the world and then we rot. Sometimes I wonder if I was ever that girl...running, jumping rope, tumbling, skipping, walking for miles with my best friend Karen, riding bike, skating, playing ball and for ever and ever dancing. That's when I ache all over and the memories let me know they are real. I so miss those young healthy days and at the same time I know that I have much to be thankful for. Just being born healthy is a gift that not everyone has. Anything after that is the frosting on the cake. Sweet, gooey but not so good for one if they over-indulge.
Fine...I will not over eat the pears. I will not give myself the scoots from too many pears. I will peel and cook the pears into a fine pear-butter. I will add a smidgen of cinnamon and maybe a dash of vanilla and let it simmer. Then I will tuck it into a covered jar to store in the fridge. I'm sure that I have an empty jar I've recycled from spaghetti sauce or mayonnaise around here someplace. Later we will have french toast from those huge chunks of sourdough bread that are fast becoming stale and we will top the cooked (egg-soaked bread) with pear butter. Later in the week we will call our pear butter (sauce) and have a small serving for desert. I may even put a sprig of mint in the bowl to add a new flavor and pretty up the treat. We will heat the sauce one last time and pour it over the hot pork chops that are now waiting if the freezer to be cooked and eaten by the King and me. When the pears are all eaten and have been a part of several meals the .77 cents per pound will not seem so great a price and another fruit will come on sale next week.
I tell myself that when people are starving to death all around the world each and every day I simply cannot allow us to waste food and in that same moment I become Scarlett here in my own little "Tara" as I say, out loud to the sky, that I will never go hungry again.
And:
They wrote beneath the stamps...we are starving. Many of them did not make it home.
And:
I am ever so grateful for dreams. Many times in my dreams I am running and I am still winning the race and I never tire and I never ache. I simply feel the joy and euphoria that comes with a good fast run that finds me lying in the sweet smelling grass gulping for air so that I can get up and run again. Ain't life Grand?
I love it when I come up with a solution that works for us. Especially if it saves a buck or two. Talking about saving a buck or two...remind me to tell you about the wonderful thrift shop(s) and Goodwill stores I have found. Bismarck is like a gigantic treasure cove of the (gently used). Or as the King would say...other people's crap. Sometime he and I do not see eye to eye.
Bye Blog, JjB...
-30-
Now that the pears are ripe I'll be eating them until I get the scoots. They were hard as rocks and looked like pear shaped green apples when I forked over the .77 cents per pound for them. Outrageous price, I know, but they were the cheapest fresh fruit on sale at the beginning of the week. Maybe I should make a pear tart with some of them, me thinks. Quickly memory comes into play to remind me that my pie/tart crust is not the greatest.
Yet:
I know from many of my past experiences that fresh fruit can go from green to ripe to rot in a very short manner. From hard as a rock to just the right squeeze to soft and mushy.
I think back to when when my kids were young and still living at home. Fruit was such a treat in our house that it would be long eaten before it could ripen...much less go to rot. What with me trying to stretch the food dollars that I had for the entire month (when it really wasn't enough for a healthy 2 weeks) I couldn't afford to buy very much fruit...if any. To this day I am thankful for Catholic Charities and the many food pantry stores that provided us with the fruit we did get...along with so much more.
My old grandma's and even my dead Aunts would roll over...nay they would do somersaults in their collective graves if they had to pay .77 per pound for fruit and especially so with that being the least expensive piece of fruit in the store.
I'm in total agreement with the dead women who came before me...and I'm doing somersaults which, is just as hard for me to do as it is for the dead. Believe you me...I shit you not. Okay don't believe me...you're right, I haven't been able to do a real somersault for some forty years.
But:
In my mind I am still a young healthy athletic girl. What I really am is more proof that things ripen way too quick when exposed to the world and then we rot. Sometimes I wonder if I was ever that girl...running, jumping rope, tumbling, skipping, walking for miles with my best friend Karen, riding bike, skating, playing ball and for ever and ever dancing. That's when I ache all over and the memories let me know they are real. I so miss those young healthy days and at the same time I know that I have much to be thankful for. Just being born healthy is a gift that not everyone has. Anything after that is the frosting on the cake. Sweet, gooey but not so good for one if they over-indulge.
Fine...I will not over eat the pears. I will not give myself the scoots from too many pears. I will peel and cook the pears into a fine pear-butter. I will add a smidgen of cinnamon and maybe a dash of vanilla and let it simmer. Then I will tuck it into a covered jar to store in the fridge. I'm sure that I have an empty jar I've recycled from spaghetti sauce or mayonnaise around here someplace. Later we will have french toast from those huge chunks of sourdough bread that are fast becoming stale and we will top the cooked (egg-soaked bread) with pear butter. Later in the week we will call our pear butter (sauce) and have a small serving for desert. I may even put a sprig of mint in the bowl to add a new flavor and pretty up the treat. We will heat the sauce one last time and pour it over the hot pork chops that are now waiting if the freezer to be cooked and eaten by the King and me. When the pears are all eaten and have been a part of several meals the .77 cents per pound will not seem so great a price and another fruit will come on sale next week.
I tell myself that when people are starving to death all around the world each and every day I simply cannot allow us to waste food and in that same moment I become Scarlett here in my own little "Tara" as I say, out loud to the sky, that I will never go hungry again.
And:
They wrote beneath the stamps...we are starving. Many of them did not make it home.
And:
I am ever so grateful for dreams. Many times in my dreams I am running and I am still winning the race and I never tire and I never ache. I simply feel the joy and euphoria that comes with a good fast run that finds me lying in the sweet smelling grass gulping for air so that I can get up and run again. Ain't life Grand?
I love it when I come up with a solution that works for us. Especially if it saves a buck or two. Talking about saving a buck or two...remind me to tell you about the wonderful thrift shop(s) and Goodwill stores I have found. Bismarck is like a gigantic treasure cove of the (gently used). Or as the King would say...other people's crap. Sometime he and I do not see eye to eye.
Bye Blog, JjB...
-30-
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Pictures from pumpkin carving (Richelle)
Mom, here are some pictures from last Saturday. The pictures don't indicate how wild they were...but they were...wild that is...
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
"Such Joy"...
Dear Blog,
I was right about being in the "Minute Clinic" for over an hour. When I first arrived I was the only person in the reception area. It was a total cultural shock...all that emptiness. Back home I haven't been alone in a medical reception area ever. Somewhere in my adult years of urban living I've forgotten things about other ways of life. I've let the memories of life in small communities escape me and I have become a city woman thru and thru. Each day that I am here i see many little reminders. One thing is a pet peeve for me and that is no-one uses their signals when driving. They simply make a turn with no notice.
This lovely mini city in the mid-belly of North Dakota still holds a grip onto it's remembrance of small town life. Kind of like Mayberry all grown up but not forgotten. It seems foreign and quaint at the same time. The old, old Governor's Mansion that proudly boosts it's proud standing, on a huge plaque in the front yard, simply looks like a large house to me. It's painted an off-colored green (more of a teal) and has been well maintained. Still, it doesn't bring to mind a mansion. The mansions I'm familiar with make this one look like an outhouse. Albeit a very pretty outhouse.
Yesterday, as I was driving around I heard the radio announcer from he public radio station say that it's ND's 120th Birthday as a State. "What?", I say to myself and to the car radio, 120 years is not very old. Still, I cheerfully went around greeting everyone I met with a Happy Birthday. Per the norm most of them didn't know it was their State's Birthday. That's like saying France or England or any one of those tiny countries that are smaller then many of our American States are only 120 years old...which we know they are much, much older. I forget sometimes how young our Nation is when compared to the rest of the known World. Ah...the World at large..is large indeed and we are merely a speck.
So while waiting out my hour to get my 2 minutes in the lab...I have plenty of time to let my mind wander with thoughts and to answer questions that the receptionists...both of them...ask. They seemed very confused with the fax that I gave them that ordered the tests I needed. They eyeballed and clucked at my out-of-state medical card and had several mini conferences with people in the lab and the back office. I sighed to myself thinking about the numbers of mini-minds at work on this gigantic puzzle I had presented them with. I think to myself..."Let's get real here folks...it's Blue Cross/Blue Shield and it's nation-wide." Meanwhile they ask me to sign my life and all of our personal fortune away while I'm reading a framed notice stating that those without medical insurance must pay at least $70.00 before being seen. My mouth puked out a question before I allowed my brain to think, "What happens to the people whom don't have medical insurance and or the money to pay to be seen...do they get sent away to die?" I receive startled looks as if I am a hunter and they are the foxes that I have trapped. Me with my long gun loaded and them with the I've been caught look splattered across their bewildered faces. They have no answers and I'm not surprised. It's not for them to worry over...they simply work at the desk behind the sign. They simply send the people away so the doctors and nurses that have taken an oath (of sorts) to care for the sick do not openly break the oath and send the sick away.
With this we all become embarassed and are at a loss for words.
With peevish glances at each other and a shrug from their fashionable shoulders they quickly changed the subject by asking me what I think of ND. They were pleased when I tell them that I like it and especially so Bismarck. Everyone wants someone to like their home town and they would have been hurt and angry had I not expressed my delight at having a chance to explore their home state and enjoy it so. I was back in their good graces with those few kind words. And it's not that my words were fake. I do like it here.
This is not to say that my thoughts of the poor and uninsured and their plight had been wiped from my mind. I still wonder what happens to these unfortunates when they are sick? Now that I had let them off the hook and I did so without lying we all are smiling and at ease with each other again. I truly like ND and I am aware that ND is not alone with the sending away of the sick. We are in a National crisis. We are medically defunct and a very long way from being humane.
Soon other people started to come in and I was mostly forgotten. With their wheezing, sneezing and coughing I wince as I hear them sharing their symptoms to the receptionist, I am, at once, reminded that I have not been able to get a flu shot. Not the regular yearly vaccine nor the N1H1 either. ND has been out of both types of vaccines almost as quickly as the State had them to offer. Medical personal, young kids and pregnant women were the first served (like we are on the Titanic or something) us other so called high-risk people are being turned away unless we have a specialist who is hoarding vaccine for us. We are left in a modern day game of Russian Roulette with this dreaded killer flu that is discussed every night on the TV News Programs. Be sure to go get your shots the smiling heads reinterate night after night as I ask the TV where the ef am I to get them from. Does it really matter which flu gets us?...I say no.
I don't have a regular doctor or a specialist in ND so I've been told I am not allowed any of the hoarded juice. I have come to the conclusion that I have no need of these angels of life and death who decide who will get a chance to live and who will be left behind at the clinic doors reading the sign that says "No Flu shots...sorry for the inconvenience." Death...an inconvenience...ya think?
When push comes to shove I am a nobody. If I should die from the flu I'll simply be another case of collateral damage. A statistic. One more name etched into some hard cold stone.
So then:
For a few short moments I allow myself to become a dreamer of reincarnation and in doing so I plot a mighty revenge for those who so callously throw me to the wolves of disease. I say to the hoarders...look out, I will come back as a flu bug to visit with you. I will bring the deadly virus that killed me back to life and it will have mutated to a strength that will make the one that killed me look like a whimp. I will share. The sharing will begin with the doctors whom are still swinging their golf clubs in the sunshine or drinking their malt liquor while dining on fine food. I'll join up with the returning eboli gangs. Ah I admit that my revenge sounds sweet for about two minutes until I am reminded that revenge hurts not only those who deserve to have their Karma come back to bite their ass but revenge leaves it's own collateral damage in it's wake. I know that I shall not be re-born as an angel of death. Still, it was a nice reminder that I am oh so human.
I trot back up to the counter and squeeze a gob of the germ fighting, skin drying hand sanitizer on my hands for the third time. I grab a mask...lest these coughing fools aim at me...to put on my face. I look good in blue...brings my eyes out. I tuck a few extras (and some kid sized ones too) into my bag. Soon our whole world may look like we only have eyes. We'll look like those mid-eastern women who cover their faces. Only our eyes may be blue or green or gray and our skin mostly will be white...here in Mid-America.
Finally I calm myself long enough to remember that we all die...it's more certain than life. It doesn't matter that we fear death. Death will still knock on our door. It could come head on through the front door or slither in like a thief with the dark of night in the back door. One way or the other death will come to get us thus, I am reminded that it would behoove me to leave the thinking of death behind and concentrate on living.
So the vampire (who was disguised as a petite blond in her early thirties) brings me to her lab for the big poke. She asks me if I am doing okay and in my mind I think...lady, I donated plasma twice a week all through my college years...where the needle was the size of a large ten penny nail. This is gravy. This is nothing. But, I smile and say..."I'm fine, thanks." I need not share everything with her. She tidies me up with a cotton ball and presses it tightly on the gapping hole then she wraps it with a bright Kelly green stretchy wrap...lest I might bleed to death. My elbow is stiff from the stretchy gauze. She leaves the room and I jump on the scale and am very pleased that all of this eating out during this, our nomadic phase, has not caused a weight gain and I say a silent prayer and vow to stop at the grocery store to buy fresh fruit and veggies no matter what they cost. I need a new dish-scrubber too.
Soon...I am heading out the door with the knowledge of where the pretty blond vampire lives, where her husband works, how far she drives to work each day (50 miles), the price comparison of homes in her town as compared to Bismarck and how wonderful it is to live in a pretty little town right by the Missouri River and rolling hills. I suggested she pick up some audio books for the commute. Told her before long she could learn a new language or hear the bible in it's entirety or how to plan the perfect murder from Jesse Fletcher...my favorite murder sleuth. She claims to like that idea though I peg her as a radio type of gal.
As pleasant as the hour plus in the "Minute Clinic" was I happily left with one last squirt from the sanitizer bottle. I pushed the germ ladened door open with the sleeve of my elbow, clicked the open button to unlock my car and after I lit up and got my first hit of nicotine I felt calm enough to drive. I stopped by Arby's for a Passion Fruit Iced Tea (pure heaven to me) and I promptly went to the grocery market in search of veggies. I came home long enough to unload my packages and put together a cold macaroni seafood salad for dinner. With the salad tucked into the fridge to get cold I quickly wrote out a few of Libby's bills and a couple of ours to pop in the mail.
I was out the door again to drop off the mail in the big blue box in front of the Federal building and scoot off to the Library. My other treasured home. I brought 3 books back and stayed long enough to find 8 new one's to bring home. Five mystery/espionage books and one cookbook (recipes for root veggies) and two large children's books with wonderful pictures and illustrations. I generally love children's books. They are usually written very well. It's a special gift, I think, this being able to let one's mind become a vat for childlike thoughts. In order to write with wisdom about the magic and the wonders of childhood and project a story in a pure way that will keep the story interesting and alive one must recapture that innocence and joy of the child mind. Not hardly an easy task in this mad, mad grown up world we dwell in.
I love so many of the pictures and drawing that grace children's books. Often they are exaggerated in color and size. Some are lifelike and cartoonish at the same time. They are super human as are the minds of children that look at the world with eyes from their small scale. Even the most minute' happenings are like a gift of gold to children. A child's life is so enriched by looking at these books and hearing the words that they speak. The voices that read books to children are those that become imprinted and enter dreams throughout their lives. Of this, I am certain. One of my most treasured gifts is being read to and I still read small articles and tidbits, out loud, to Kevin and Libby. The little guys come to attention every time any of us reads to them and they often ask to have the stories read over and over again.
To frost the cake of my day a moment I didn't think would come my way again was so sweet. While at the checkout counter this most gorgeous man came up behind me. I think he is the most handsome man I have ever seen close-up and in person. He looked as if he had sauntered off the cover of a GQ Magazine to stand, with much ease, right behind me. I think I may have gazed too long. He seemed a bit ill-at-ease. Finally I smiled at him and asked him if he is a model. He gifted me with a shy grin that showed me his perfect (and I do mean perfect) white teeth and answered "No, I'm not a model." I assured him that with his wonderful good looks he certainly could be and he could make very good money at it. He just smiled again with one of those (Ah shucks Ma'am, smiles). Still, I could tell that my comment pleased him. A few minutes later he smiled and told me that he hoped I'd have a nice evening. You too...I said and I meant it. Guess that proves I'm still alive and well, eh? LMAO
Damn, I love me a good looking man with a great smile and super white teeth. He may well be a mega asshole or a serial killer but for those few minutes he was the perfect eye candy for me. I thought to myself, as I was walking out the door, that sometimes it is truly fun to be a white haired old lady because it is okay to give a young man in his mid-twenties a compliment. Grandma ladies are no threat and want nothing from you but a moment in time to enjoy that wonderful infectious smile. A moment to bring back memories of her youth and other good looking men that have served as great eye candy.
Yesterday was a busy day...Just thought I'd share it with you. I think today I will be content to stay home. It'll be fried chicken and corn with leftover seafood salad for dinner and maybe a small dish of vanilla ice cream with some of my strawberry/rhubarb sauce poured over it. Oh...yum.
Later then...
Bye Blog, JjB...
-30-
I was right about being in the "Minute Clinic" for over an hour. When I first arrived I was the only person in the reception area. It was a total cultural shock...all that emptiness. Back home I haven't been alone in a medical reception area ever. Somewhere in my adult years of urban living I've forgotten things about other ways of life. I've let the memories of life in small communities escape me and I have become a city woman thru and thru. Each day that I am here i see many little reminders. One thing is a pet peeve for me and that is no-one uses their signals when driving. They simply make a turn with no notice.
This lovely mini city in the mid-belly of North Dakota still holds a grip onto it's remembrance of small town life. Kind of like Mayberry all grown up but not forgotten. It seems foreign and quaint at the same time. The old, old Governor's Mansion that proudly boosts it's proud standing, on a huge plaque in the front yard, simply looks like a large house to me. It's painted an off-colored green (more of a teal) and has been well maintained. Still, it doesn't bring to mind a mansion. The mansions I'm familiar with make this one look like an outhouse. Albeit a very pretty outhouse.
Yesterday, as I was driving around I heard the radio announcer from he public radio station say that it's ND's 120th Birthday as a State. "What?", I say to myself and to the car radio, 120 years is not very old. Still, I cheerfully went around greeting everyone I met with a Happy Birthday. Per the norm most of them didn't know it was their State's Birthday. That's like saying France or England or any one of those tiny countries that are smaller then many of our American States are only 120 years old...which we know they are much, much older. I forget sometimes how young our Nation is when compared to the rest of the known World. Ah...the World at large..is large indeed and we are merely a speck.
So while waiting out my hour to get my 2 minutes in the lab...I have plenty of time to let my mind wander with thoughts and to answer questions that the receptionists...both of them...ask. They seemed very confused with the fax that I gave them that ordered the tests I needed. They eyeballed and clucked at my out-of-state medical card and had several mini conferences with people in the lab and the back office. I sighed to myself thinking about the numbers of mini-minds at work on this gigantic puzzle I had presented them with. I think to myself..."Let's get real here folks...it's Blue Cross/Blue Shield and it's nation-wide." Meanwhile they ask me to sign my life and all of our personal fortune away while I'm reading a framed notice stating that those without medical insurance must pay at least $70.00 before being seen. My mouth puked out a question before I allowed my brain to think, "What happens to the people whom don't have medical insurance and or the money to pay to be seen...do they get sent away to die?" I receive startled looks as if I am a hunter and they are the foxes that I have trapped. Me with my long gun loaded and them with the I've been caught look splattered across their bewildered faces. They have no answers and I'm not surprised. It's not for them to worry over...they simply work at the desk behind the sign. They simply send the people away so the doctors and nurses that have taken an oath (of sorts) to care for the sick do not openly break the oath and send the sick away.
With this we all become embarassed and are at a loss for words.
With peevish glances at each other and a shrug from their fashionable shoulders they quickly changed the subject by asking me what I think of ND. They were pleased when I tell them that I like it and especially so Bismarck. Everyone wants someone to like their home town and they would have been hurt and angry had I not expressed my delight at having a chance to explore their home state and enjoy it so. I was back in their good graces with those few kind words. And it's not that my words were fake. I do like it here.
This is not to say that my thoughts of the poor and uninsured and their plight had been wiped from my mind. I still wonder what happens to these unfortunates when they are sick? Now that I had let them off the hook and I did so without lying we all are smiling and at ease with each other again. I truly like ND and I am aware that ND is not alone with the sending away of the sick. We are in a National crisis. We are medically defunct and a very long way from being humane.
Soon other people started to come in and I was mostly forgotten. With their wheezing, sneezing and coughing I wince as I hear them sharing their symptoms to the receptionist, I am, at once, reminded that I have not been able to get a flu shot. Not the regular yearly vaccine nor the N1H1 either. ND has been out of both types of vaccines almost as quickly as the State had them to offer. Medical personal, young kids and pregnant women were the first served (like we are on the Titanic or something) us other so called high-risk people are being turned away unless we have a specialist who is hoarding vaccine for us. We are left in a modern day game of Russian Roulette with this dreaded killer flu that is discussed every night on the TV News Programs. Be sure to go get your shots the smiling heads reinterate night after night as I ask the TV where the ef am I to get them from. Does it really matter which flu gets us?...I say no.
I don't have a regular doctor or a specialist in ND so I've been told I am not allowed any of the hoarded juice. I have come to the conclusion that I have no need of these angels of life and death who decide who will get a chance to live and who will be left behind at the clinic doors reading the sign that says "No Flu shots...sorry for the inconvenience." Death...an inconvenience...ya think?
When push comes to shove I am a nobody. If I should die from the flu I'll simply be another case of collateral damage. A statistic. One more name etched into some hard cold stone.
So then:
For a few short moments I allow myself to become a dreamer of reincarnation and in doing so I plot a mighty revenge for those who so callously throw me to the wolves of disease. I say to the hoarders...look out, I will come back as a flu bug to visit with you. I will bring the deadly virus that killed me back to life and it will have mutated to a strength that will make the one that killed me look like a whimp. I will share. The sharing will begin with the doctors whom are still swinging their golf clubs in the sunshine or drinking their malt liquor while dining on fine food. I'll join up with the returning eboli gangs. Ah I admit that my revenge sounds sweet for about two minutes until I am reminded that revenge hurts not only those who deserve to have their Karma come back to bite their ass but revenge leaves it's own collateral damage in it's wake. I know that I shall not be re-born as an angel of death. Still, it was a nice reminder that I am oh so human.
I trot back up to the counter and squeeze a gob of the germ fighting, skin drying hand sanitizer on my hands for the third time. I grab a mask...lest these coughing fools aim at me...to put on my face. I look good in blue...brings my eyes out. I tuck a few extras (and some kid sized ones too) into my bag. Soon our whole world may look like we only have eyes. We'll look like those mid-eastern women who cover their faces. Only our eyes may be blue or green or gray and our skin mostly will be white...here in Mid-America.
Finally I calm myself long enough to remember that we all die...it's more certain than life. It doesn't matter that we fear death. Death will still knock on our door. It could come head on through the front door or slither in like a thief with the dark of night in the back door. One way or the other death will come to get us thus, I am reminded that it would behoove me to leave the thinking of death behind and concentrate on living.
So the vampire (who was disguised as a petite blond in her early thirties) brings me to her lab for the big poke. She asks me if I am doing okay and in my mind I think...lady, I donated plasma twice a week all through my college years...where the needle was the size of a large ten penny nail. This is gravy. This is nothing. But, I smile and say..."I'm fine, thanks." I need not share everything with her. She tidies me up with a cotton ball and presses it tightly on the gapping hole then she wraps it with a bright Kelly green stretchy wrap...lest I might bleed to death. My elbow is stiff from the stretchy gauze. She leaves the room and I jump on the scale and am very pleased that all of this eating out during this, our nomadic phase, has not caused a weight gain and I say a silent prayer and vow to stop at the grocery store to buy fresh fruit and veggies no matter what they cost. I need a new dish-scrubber too.
Soon...I am heading out the door with the knowledge of where the pretty blond vampire lives, where her husband works, how far she drives to work each day (50 miles), the price comparison of homes in her town as compared to Bismarck and how wonderful it is to live in a pretty little town right by the Missouri River and rolling hills. I suggested she pick up some audio books for the commute. Told her before long she could learn a new language or hear the bible in it's entirety or how to plan the perfect murder from Jesse Fletcher...my favorite murder sleuth. She claims to like that idea though I peg her as a radio type of gal.
As pleasant as the hour plus in the "Minute Clinic" was I happily left with one last squirt from the sanitizer bottle. I pushed the germ ladened door open with the sleeve of my elbow, clicked the open button to unlock my car and after I lit up and got my first hit of nicotine I felt calm enough to drive. I stopped by Arby's for a Passion Fruit Iced Tea (pure heaven to me) and I promptly went to the grocery market in search of veggies. I came home long enough to unload my packages and put together a cold macaroni seafood salad for dinner. With the salad tucked into the fridge to get cold I quickly wrote out a few of Libby's bills and a couple of ours to pop in the mail.
I was out the door again to drop off the mail in the big blue box in front of the Federal building and scoot off to the Library. My other treasured home. I brought 3 books back and stayed long enough to find 8 new one's to bring home. Five mystery/espionage books and one cookbook (recipes for root veggies) and two large children's books with wonderful pictures and illustrations. I generally love children's books. They are usually written very well. It's a special gift, I think, this being able to let one's mind become a vat for childlike thoughts. In order to write with wisdom about the magic and the wonders of childhood and project a story in a pure way that will keep the story interesting and alive one must recapture that innocence and joy of the child mind. Not hardly an easy task in this mad, mad grown up world we dwell in.
I love so many of the pictures and drawing that grace children's books. Often they are exaggerated in color and size. Some are lifelike and cartoonish at the same time. They are super human as are the minds of children that look at the world with eyes from their small scale. Even the most minute' happenings are like a gift of gold to children. A child's life is so enriched by looking at these books and hearing the words that they speak. The voices that read books to children are those that become imprinted and enter dreams throughout their lives. Of this, I am certain. One of my most treasured gifts is being read to and I still read small articles and tidbits, out loud, to Kevin and Libby. The little guys come to attention every time any of us reads to them and they often ask to have the stories read over and over again.
To frost the cake of my day a moment I didn't think would come my way again was so sweet. While at the checkout counter this most gorgeous man came up behind me. I think he is the most handsome man I have ever seen close-up and in person. He looked as if he had sauntered off the cover of a GQ Magazine to stand, with much ease, right behind me. I think I may have gazed too long. He seemed a bit ill-at-ease. Finally I smiled at him and asked him if he is a model. He gifted me with a shy grin that showed me his perfect (and I do mean perfect) white teeth and answered "No, I'm not a model." I assured him that with his wonderful good looks he certainly could be and he could make very good money at it. He just smiled again with one of those (Ah shucks Ma'am, smiles). Still, I could tell that my comment pleased him. A few minutes later he smiled and told me that he hoped I'd have a nice evening. You too...I said and I meant it. Guess that proves I'm still alive and well, eh? LMAO
Damn, I love me a good looking man with a great smile and super white teeth. He may well be a mega asshole or a serial killer but for those few minutes he was the perfect eye candy for me. I thought to myself, as I was walking out the door, that sometimes it is truly fun to be a white haired old lady because it is okay to give a young man in his mid-twenties a compliment. Grandma ladies are no threat and want nothing from you but a moment in time to enjoy that wonderful infectious smile. A moment to bring back memories of her youth and other good looking men that have served as great eye candy.
Yesterday was a busy day...Just thought I'd share it with you. I think today I will be content to stay home. It'll be fried chicken and corn with leftover seafood salad for dinner and maybe a small dish of vanilla ice cream with some of my strawberry/rhubarb sauce poured over it. Oh...yum.
Later then...
Bye Blog, JjB...
-30-
Monday, November 02, 2009
"Wild...Wicked"...and that's just my hair
Dear Blog,
Did I tell you that my hair...since the great hair-cut by the snipper who doesn't speak to her daughter-in-law and grandsons...is wild-wicked looking. It is a short, short cut like the pixie cuts of childhood days. Only now we use gel so we can spike it up and look wicked and wild.
This morning I am off to the "Minute Clinic" where I will wait an hour or two to see a new doctor and get blood tests (that should have been taken 6 weeks ago). These pills they have me on are a blood thinner and make me think that I (in some past life) had doctors tamper with my blood with leaches. I can not ponder any other reason for my unusual fear of these meds. Yet...maybe it's that when my Dad was having his fatal stroke he was bleeding in the brain and they (the doctors) could not stop it because his blood had been thinned by these same drugs. These drugs are meant to stop strokes...not bleed out your brain. If one takes blood thinning drugs pain becomes a daily mainstay since one can no longer take drugs such as aspirin or ibuprofen or Maalox...just to name a few...that might help ease old age pains. I think of it as a lose-lose choice. The cuminden nurse sees it as a life saver. I wish I could haul her (back in time) to my Dad's deathbed room and let her see his bleeding brain.
My plan is to discuss (with this new doctor) having a total re-evaluation of all of the drugs that I am on. I don't think it would be too far fetched to find that my doctor (back home) is having his wallet padded by pushing extra drugs that are not needed. He could cushion his wallet on trusting idiots like me and guarantee a fine education for his children in the process.
I just hope that when this new doc gets a look see at me...as round as I am tall with my mostly white hair spiked up like a punk rocker and my dark brown schoolmarm eye glasses...he doesn't tip over from fright or maybe from having a giggle spasm.
Hell with him...I say. I'll just let them leach out a few vials of my watery blood and go to the zoo with my takeout lunch...where I can fit in with other wild-wicked round primates.
Later then...I have the car and I am free and I must put the pedal to the medal...wheeee...old wicked-wild me. I should stop in to embrace the snipper...maybe I should abscond with all of her scissors. After all she did this to me. LMAO...
Bye Blog, JjB...
-30-
Did I tell you that my hair...since the great hair-cut by the snipper who doesn't speak to her daughter-in-law and grandsons...is wild-wicked looking. It is a short, short cut like the pixie cuts of childhood days. Only now we use gel so we can spike it up and look wicked and wild.
This morning I am off to the "Minute Clinic" where I will wait an hour or two to see a new doctor and get blood tests (that should have been taken 6 weeks ago). These pills they have me on are a blood thinner and make me think that I (in some past life) had doctors tamper with my blood with leaches. I can not ponder any other reason for my unusual fear of these meds. Yet...maybe it's that when my Dad was having his fatal stroke he was bleeding in the brain and they (the doctors) could not stop it because his blood had been thinned by these same drugs. These drugs are meant to stop strokes...not bleed out your brain. If one takes blood thinning drugs pain becomes a daily mainstay since one can no longer take drugs such as aspirin or ibuprofen or Maalox...just to name a few...that might help ease old age pains. I think of it as a lose-lose choice. The cuminden nurse sees it as a life saver. I wish I could haul her (back in time) to my Dad's deathbed room and let her see his bleeding brain.
My plan is to discuss (with this new doctor) having a total re-evaluation of all of the drugs that I am on. I don't think it would be too far fetched to find that my doctor (back home) is having his wallet padded by pushing extra drugs that are not needed. He could cushion his wallet on trusting idiots like me and guarantee a fine education for his children in the process.
I just hope that when this new doc gets a look see at me...as round as I am tall with my mostly white hair spiked up like a punk rocker and my dark brown schoolmarm eye glasses...he doesn't tip over from fright or maybe from having a giggle spasm.
Hell with him...I say. I'll just let them leach out a few vials of my watery blood and go to the zoo with my takeout lunch...where I can fit in with other wild-wicked round primates.
Later then...I have the car and I am free and I must put the pedal to the medal...wheeee...old wicked-wild me. I should stop in to embrace the snipper...maybe I should abscond with all of her scissors. After all she did this to me. LMAO...
Bye Blog, JjB...
-30-
Sunday, November 01, 2009
"Falling Back"...
Dear Blog,
It's that time of year again. Time to turn our clocks back. The TV News Casters always tell us to turn our clocks (back in the Fall and forward in the Spring) before we go to bed as if waking up to the new time will fool us. Ha ha ha...as if we can fool our bodies. These same bodies that run on their own clocks no matter what a dial on a clock says. It always takes me at least a week to morph into the new time. It gets darker outside much earlier at night and the days get colder. By Christmas I am well into the new time and do fine until Spring and I lose that hour again. In the Fall we fall back but gain an hour. In the Spring we spring forward but we lose an hour. I wonder if we would live longer and if our bodies would fair better if no one messed with our time?
Alas...this year we forgot to set the clocks back last night before bed so I am forced to do it cold turkey today. OMGosh...this will be a challenge. Teeheehee
Kevin who trotted off at 6:30 AM with a couple of baskets of dirty laundry will be in a jolly mood when he finds the Laundromat opens at the new 8 AM and he must sit in the car for an extra hour waiting for them to open the doors. Thus...proving that the early bird does not always get the worm. Sometimes the "old bird" waits it out in the car. He was heading for the "Donut Shop" as his first stop for morning coffee and a look at the Sunday Newspaper and an open ear for local gossip. Poor guy misses his time with the boys (for morning coffee) back home more than he misses anything else. He is such the snoop and always wants to get his two bits in. He fears someone might have taken over his stool at the counter.
I wonder if the rest of the world changes their time? I know that there is at least one state here in America that does not. They say be dammed to the farmers. I really think the changing of time these days has much more to do with energy use then with crops getting in. There are a lot less kids getting out of school to help dad with the crops then in the past also. Still...there are many that get hunting days off. When exactly was it that parents gave up control of their kids to the government and the schools?
Remember that this is the time when we not only change our clocks but we are reminded to change our fire alarm detectors or their batteries and Arm & Hammer reminds us via TV commercials to change our box of baking soda in the fridge. As if twice a year would be enough.
So cold turkey it is for me which, reminds me to say Happy November 1st. Yes the month of Thanksgiving. The week long turkey eating event comes soon. The cranberries, stuffing, turkey bird, smashed potatoes and gravy, baked yams and yes even the fighting for the giblets. Let's not forget the chance to indulge in the delights of pumpkin pie. I can hardly wait. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. I hope that darned Marmie doesn't put another photo of a gruesome yucky bird on her post. I'm still reeling over last years eyeballs.
This year I will once again reprint that recipe for "Kentucky Hot" sandwiches that Robin gave me a couple of years ago. A great sandwich needs to be touted out every year. There's a recipe for sweet potato hash browns that I copied from Rebecca Koll of weather girl and Garden & Home Show fame. I've gotten many good garden, craft and recipe tips from her. I'll dig that recipe up too. It would go so good with the Kentucky Hot sandwich or even with the Holiday meal. Oh yum. I love me some seasonal food and I anticipate the next two months on the Food Cooking Network channel to be filled with all sorts of wonderful holiday menus. No wonder this is one of my favorite times of year. I anxiously await the Tree day on Robin's blog and yes the photo's (except for the turkey with eyeballs inside it's gullet) of Marmie's Old fashioned English Christmas...fireplace and all. Does it seem odd that I enjoy their Holiday traditions as much as our own?
Years ago in 1983 when Kevin and I had our first holidays together (as a brand new family) one of those yours, mine and an ours in the belly families I painted a huge set of the Nativity characters including many animals (ceramics). The only mistake I made on them...which didn't occur to me until a few years later...was that I painted all three of the wise men white. I forgot that one was supposed to be black. For all I know...thinking about the part of the world that they lived in they may all have been black people including the holy family. Anyhow, a few years ago Richelle inherited the set (and she dammed well better put it on display) it was a real labor of love and by real labor I mean I painted several hours each day for some six weeks to get it ready in time for our first Christmas together. It turned out to be a very lovely nativity set. I am quite good at ceramics and I am a stickler for detail. Well, except for that black magi thingy. It was a lovely first Christmas and that nativity set came out every year at our house and now Richelle has it. I'll ask her to get it all dusted off and set up and have her take a photo of the set for my blog.
Me, always being the show-off.
As life will have it, for me...I now have a hair up my butt to paint a new set. I wonder if Bismarck has what I need? Of course it may be for naught to even think of such a thing if we aren't going to be home. Maybe I should simply paint a black magi and call that enough. I've been doing a lot of crocheting and hand sewing since we've been here. Lets face it it only takes a half hour or so to make our bed and spiff this small kitchenette up for the day and some afternoon time spent in meal preparation the rest of the day is freed up for other activities and reading. It has been terrific. Probably the most restful and peaceful time of my life.
I read, do crossword puzzles, write ideas down, play computer Scrabble, watch TV, sew, crochet and go for short walks in the hotel yard. I almost always talk to at least one of the kids or grand kids every day on the phone and best of all I get a nap. Tomorrow (when I have the car) I am going to go to a matinee movie. I want to see that new Jamie Foxx movie. I think the title is "Ordinary Citizen". I'm so excited. I haven't done that for years. I'm making a cold seafood salad in the morning that we can eat for our sup so that I don't need to rush home to cook. If it's warm enough I may even get some take-out low mien and eat on the State Capital Lawns while I watch the people and their dogs and kids at play. I love to people watch...maybe I'll go to the Zoo and watch the people watch the animals. I love (having the car) week.
The old boy is going to the dam to fish for walleye pike. It is such a great day for it. I can almost smell it frying. I hope he gets some. Last time he got a huge ugly catfish and a sturgeon which he threw back. Fishing for Kevin is what a good book is for me. The actual fish are just a bonus. Maybe we will have a bonus meal of fresh fish tonight.
Libby called and said both of the little guys...Jordan and Henry...had a great time trick or treating. The both wore "Army Man" costumes. They weren't allowed to go together though since they were both pretty naughty at Auntie Richelle's in the morning when she was hosting the pumpkin carving at her house. Tia gave them both time-outs and finally told them they could not trick or treat together and when Tia puts the law down she sticks to it (much like her father before her did). Her, Richelle and Daniel's father is the man walking Richelle down the aisle in her wedding photos below. The man that looks like a Jewish Rabbi. The kids listened when he spoke too.
So it Seems Henry was very upset that he couldn't tag along with Tia and Jordan. Too bad...maybe the little shit will behave better next time. He can be such a little devilment at times and is a fighter. Jordan gets right in the thick of it too.
Mama Libby & Uncle Shayne took Henry and now he says he wants to go everyday. I felt that same way as a kid. It's the only time of year we allow the kids to take candy from a stranger and then we have to inspect each piece and hope someone doesn't poison them. Assholes in the world today, eh? Well as history has proven there have been assholes forever.
AND THEN:
Once the kid gets the candy home they have to guard it from the parents. I reminded Mama Libby and Uncle to stay out of Henry's candy bag. Hell...save some for Grammy. LMAO...poor kids.
So today Henry goes with Jeremy...his Papa...for the day and over night and Mama Libby will spend the day with Tia and Jordan for some one-on-one time. It's a good thing for all of them.
I'm off now for a long soak in the tub. My cleaning lady gave me some apricot bath wash that smells real good. She's always so good to me...always slipping me something. I give her my old magazines, extra apples, tomatoes and spuds if I have too many. She gets my over ripe bananas too. Her mother raises...or should I say breeds labadoodles. They are a mix of standard sized Poodle and Labrador. My gosh are they ever cute. Who would've thunk it.
Later then...Happy Sunday and Happy November to all of you.
Bye Blog, JjB...
-30-
It's that time of year again. Time to turn our clocks back. The TV News Casters always tell us to turn our clocks (back in the Fall and forward in the Spring) before we go to bed as if waking up to the new time will fool us. Ha ha ha...as if we can fool our bodies. These same bodies that run on their own clocks no matter what a dial on a clock says. It always takes me at least a week to morph into the new time. It gets darker outside much earlier at night and the days get colder. By Christmas I am well into the new time and do fine until Spring and I lose that hour again. In the Fall we fall back but gain an hour. In the Spring we spring forward but we lose an hour. I wonder if we would live longer and if our bodies would fair better if no one messed with our time?
Alas...this year we forgot to set the clocks back last night before bed so I am forced to do it cold turkey today. OMGosh...this will be a challenge. Teeheehee
Kevin who trotted off at 6:30 AM with a couple of baskets of dirty laundry will be in a jolly mood when he finds the Laundromat opens at the new 8 AM and he must sit in the car for an extra hour waiting for them to open the doors. Thus...proving that the early bird does not always get the worm. Sometimes the "old bird" waits it out in the car. He was heading for the "Donut Shop" as his first stop for morning coffee and a look at the Sunday Newspaper and an open ear for local gossip. Poor guy misses his time with the boys (for morning coffee) back home more than he misses anything else. He is such the snoop and always wants to get his two bits in. He fears someone might have taken over his stool at the counter.
I wonder if the rest of the world changes their time? I know that there is at least one state here in America that does not. They say be dammed to the farmers. I really think the changing of time these days has much more to do with energy use then with crops getting in. There are a lot less kids getting out of school to help dad with the crops then in the past also. Still...there are many that get hunting days off. When exactly was it that parents gave up control of their kids to the government and the schools?
Remember that this is the time when we not only change our clocks but we are reminded to change our fire alarm detectors or their batteries and Arm & Hammer reminds us via TV commercials to change our box of baking soda in the fridge. As if twice a year would be enough.
So cold turkey it is for me which, reminds me to say Happy November 1st. Yes the month of Thanksgiving. The week long turkey eating event comes soon. The cranberries, stuffing, turkey bird, smashed potatoes and gravy, baked yams and yes even the fighting for the giblets. Let's not forget the chance to indulge in the delights of pumpkin pie. I can hardly wait. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. I hope that darned Marmie doesn't put another photo of a gruesome yucky bird on her post. I'm still reeling over last years eyeballs.
This year I will once again reprint that recipe for "Kentucky Hot" sandwiches that Robin gave me a couple of years ago. A great sandwich needs to be touted out every year. There's a recipe for sweet potato hash browns that I copied from Rebecca Koll of weather girl and Garden & Home Show fame. I've gotten many good garden, craft and recipe tips from her. I'll dig that recipe up too. It would go so good with the Kentucky Hot sandwich or even with the Holiday meal. Oh yum. I love me some seasonal food and I anticipate the next two months on the Food Cooking Network channel to be filled with all sorts of wonderful holiday menus. No wonder this is one of my favorite times of year. I anxiously await the Tree day on Robin's blog and yes the photo's (except for the turkey with eyeballs inside it's gullet) of Marmie's Old fashioned English Christmas...fireplace and all. Does it seem odd that I enjoy their Holiday traditions as much as our own?
Years ago in 1983 when Kevin and I had our first holidays together (as a brand new family) one of those yours, mine and an ours in the belly families I painted a huge set of the Nativity characters including many animals (ceramics). The only mistake I made on them...which didn't occur to me until a few years later...was that I painted all three of the wise men white. I forgot that one was supposed to be black. For all I know...thinking about the part of the world that they lived in they may all have been black people including the holy family. Anyhow, a few years ago Richelle inherited the set (and she dammed well better put it on display) it was a real labor of love and by real labor I mean I painted several hours each day for some six weeks to get it ready in time for our first Christmas together. It turned out to be a very lovely nativity set. I am quite good at ceramics and I am a stickler for detail. Well, except for that black magi thingy. It was a lovely first Christmas and that nativity set came out every year at our house and now Richelle has it. I'll ask her to get it all dusted off and set up and have her take a photo of the set for my blog.
Me, always being the show-off.
As life will have it, for me...I now have a hair up my butt to paint a new set. I wonder if Bismarck has what I need? Of course it may be for naught to even think of such a thing if we aren't going to be home. Maybe I should simply paint a black magi and call that enough. I've been doing a lot of crocheting and hand sewing since we've been here. Lets face it it only takes a half hour or so to make our bed and spiff this small kitchenette up for the day and some afternoon time spent in meal preparation the rest of the day is freed up for other activities and reading. It has been terrific. Probably the most restful and peaceful time of my life.
I read, do crossword puzzles, write ideas down, play computer Scrabble, watch TV, sew, crochet and go for short walks in the hotel yard. I almost always talk to at least one of the kids or grand kids every day on the phone and best of all I get a nap. Tomorrow (when I have the car) I am going to go to a matinee movie. I want to see that new Jamie Foxx movie. I think the title is "Ordinary Citizen". I'm so excited. I haven't done that for years. I'm making a cold seafood salad in the morning that we can eat for our sup so that I don't need to rush home to cook. If it's warm enough I may even get some take-out low mien and eat on the State Capital Lawns while I watch the people and their dogs and kids at play. I love to people watch...maybe I'll go to the Zoo and watch the people watch the animals. I love (having the car) week.
The old boy is going to the dam to fish for walleye pike. It is such a great day for it. I can almost smell it frying. I hope he gets some. Last time he got a huge ugly catfish and a sturgeon which he threw back. Fishing for Kevin is what a good book is for me. The actual fish are just a bonus. Maybe we will have a bonus meal of fresh fish tonight.
Libby called and said both of the little guys...Jordan and Henry...had a great time trick or treating. The both wore "Army Man" costumes. They weren't allowed to go together though since they were both pretty naughty at Auntie Richelle's in the morning when she was hosting the pumpkin carving at her house. Tia gave them both time-outs and finally told them they could not trick or treat together and when Tia puts the law down she sticks to it (much like her father before her did). Her, Richelle and Daniel's father is the man walking Richelle down the aisle in her wedding photos below. The man that looks like a Jewish Rabbi. The kids listened when he spoke too.
So it Seems Henry was very upset that he couldn't tag along with Tia and Jordan. Too bad...maybe the little shit will behave better next time. He can be such a little devilment at times and is a fighter. Jordan gets right in the thick of it too.
Mama Libby & Uncle Shayne took Henry and now he says he wants to go everyday. I felt that same way as a kid. It's the only time of year we allow the kids to take candy from a stranger and then we have to inspect each piece and hope someone doesn't poison them. Assholes in the world today, eh? Well as history has proven there have been assholes forever.
AND THEN:
Once the kid gets the candy home they have to guard it from the parents. I reminded Mama Libby and Uncle to stay out of Henry's candy bag. Hell...save some for Grammy. LMAO...poor kids.
So today Henry goes with Jeremy...his Papa...for the day and over night and Mama Libby will spend the day with Tia and Jordan for some one-on-one time. It's a good thing for all of them.
I'm off now for a long soak in the tub. My cleaning lady gave me some apricot bath wash that smells real good. She's always so good to me...always slipping me something. I give her my old magazines, extra apples, tomatoes and spuds if I have too many. She gets my over ripe bananas too. Her mother raises...or should I say breeds labadoodles. They are a mix of standard sized Poodle and Labrador. My gosh are they ever cute. Who would've thunk it.
Later then...Happy Sunday and Happy November to all of you.
Bye Blog, JjB...
-30-
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