Wacky Wednesday is gone

The Migraine Monkey was nice enough to wipe out a Wednesday of my life. I tried to get up and go to work. The headache said "This is not to be." Ugh. I slept most of the morning and when I finally was able to drag myself out of bed, I decided to rest and watch T.V. I caught the old movie "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" from 1947. I remember watching the T.V. version in the '60s with Hope Lange. The movie was in black and white. I also decided to clean my living room and re-arrange furniture for the tree while I watched the movie. I just feel so guilty not doing anything during the day. So much for rest. I took many breaks, but my leg muscles were sore from pushing heavy furniture around. Sigh.

Today was not much better. I finally caved in and took another migraine pill at 3:00 p.m. I was at work, but I don't know how much work I was actually able to do. This evening I felt much better. My daughter and I watched "The Fountain". Do yourself a favor and skip it.

Another tree ornament

A copper red tree was beautiful

Here is another tree from the museum display. There were so many trees and so much talent. The taller trees sold for over $800 and the smaller displays for around $400. They are out of my league, but I do like to look.

So. My apologies to Lois Gibson. For starters, it is difficult to make a sketch of a little girl with nothing to go on but a face bone. And next, I am thinking that if you are going into forensic science, art was not your major. Or, the other way around? She has been praised for her image she created and the little girl was recognized quickly.

I just thought it a little vulgar. But then again, so is the whole horrid story.

It is far beyond my comprehension and I hope that it always is. I don't say "What is the world coming to?" I believe this type of behavior has gone on forever and always. How can I wrap my mind around the fact that there is some little one being hurt right now? "There's no such things as monsters." Uh. Yes, there are. To be beaten and/or tortured by a stranger is one thing, but at the hands of your parent? My brain remains boggled. It refuses to accept that these things can happen. I cringe that I may know a child beater. That I might work with one or that my car repairman is one. They walk amongst us, these monsters. Oh, such a chilling thought.

My grand niece (with the golden hair) is only two years old. It turns my blood cold to think of anyone harming a hair on her beautiful head. Who is to say that little girl was to be born to that horrible monster of a mother and perish in such an awful ... words do not even enter my brain that can describe the incident. I have nothing in my mind that can fathom what words to use to describe such a horrible, horrible murder. I am beyond words. I am beyond sick.

The bird is in the oven!

The bird is in and the pets are just lovin' it! They sit in the kitchen in pure wide eyed amazement. Well, okay. I do not bake that often. They cannot believe that there are such aromatic odors coming from my kitchen. They look in their empty food bowls and look up at me. They don't understand.

About a year ago the Petz Place in our town moved to the southside of town. I did not follow them there. I purchase my kitty litter and food at Wal-Mart. Cringe. It isn't that I could not find them (I never looked) but the working guys there creeped me out. You just get a feel about something and I listen to my instincts.

The other day, I decided to drop in to see what their "bigger" store was like. Wow. The good thing is I didn't see the creepy guys who own the place. There were two female workers and two, young male workers. They were very polite and helpful and they didn't creep me out. The bad thing was they had 12 puppies for sale. I must never take my daughter there. Never, ever.

The second bad thing is their prices were about 20% higher than Wal-Mart. I still might switch to purchasing it there. I just want to stop my dependence on Wal-Mart. Target and K-Mart are over forty miles away from me.

And, on a completely unrelated topic, who in the hell drew the sketch of Baby Grace? Good grief!

Methinks I'll Bethink

Grand Nephew on Thanksgiving day

This little tyke is a hard one to pin down for a photograph. He tries to grab the camera out of your hand. He carries his parent's car keys around with him. And, he sets the alarm off many times. My sister (his grandmother) tells me he knows very well the difference between a toy (or dead) cell phone and the real deal. He wants nothing to do with fake imitations. This guy likes to push buttons. He is a gadget guy.

At dinner last evening my grand niece pulled my cell phone out of my purse and called my neighbor. She began jabbering away on the phone and when I got hold of it, I could hear an answering machine. I'll explain things to them the next time I see them. I am pretty sure they don't recognize my number.

I sit here this morning (my daughter and I have the day off, yeah!) and heave a big sigh at how quickly the long week-end went. It just zoomed by. The little dog arrived yesterday for us to dogsit. She is as big as our cats. The new kittens are really curious about her.

The baby (I call her Marmalade) is getting much better in the litter box area. She does miss once in a while, but it is close to the box. I check twice a day for her mistakes, but lately that has been nil.

I am cooking the bird today. As it turns out, I'll be freezing most of it. People came and went. I ran here and there. The huge bird was frozen solid and I messed up on a visiting day and so the bird awaits me. That is okay by me. I have all day. A sister and her husband may drive up for a bite. He just retired and she does not work today. I baked the pies yesterday and one is gone. I sent half of it home with a sister ( we didn't eat it all! LOL!).

I was hoping to get down to Oglebay to see the lights this year. I am going to try, but time and money do have a habit of getting in the way of plans.

Well, I am being pawed and clawed to death (cats and little visitor dog), so I am off to the kitchen to feed and water them and make myself some coffee. Oh, and drag that huge carcass out of the refrigerator, pull it's guts out and begin to prepare it. If I get adventurous, I'll charge my camera battery and take some pictures. Good grief. I need a life. Oops. The last time I sad that (out loud) I got pregnant. LOL!

Golden locks of hair

My Grand Niece

No curlers. No hair dye. This is just plain natural. This is just plain unfair. Two years old. This coming from someone who grew up with stringy, brown hair. Fine hair, they called it. I called it thin. Here is my Grand Niece at two years old. Already with hair that you might only find on Malibu Barbie.

Her Mother wanted to play the games I brought. We started with Tripoly. Nobody brought dimes and nickels so we played with chips. They all said they would bring their change on Christmas day. Same place. We moved on to electronic Catch Phrase. My head felt as though it would explode from laughing so hard.

Ten of us would plays games. Ten sat around and talked. I ate a piece of pecan pie. My first ever. When I was young somebody bought me a butter pecan flavored ice cream cone. I hated it. For forty years I've told myself I hate pecans. The pie was good, but I can live without it. I guess I am a Yankee.

Ack!

Silvery Pink Tree

Another tree from the museum. Ho Hum.

It is getting to be the time of year when the grocery store is packed, malls are packed and most of all my calendar is getting packed. Okay, not really. But, packed by my standards. I like my free time. I like a clean calendar. No doctor appointments, no animal appointments, no this, no that.

Every week-end is taken between now and Christmas. Ugh. A party here, a dinner there. I know. I should embrace it and really I do (deep down inside) but I need my breathing space. I feel like I am climbing that big, steep hill up to the holidays. Where you shop til you drop, eat til you puke and run, run, run. Sigh.

Bake, clean, clean, bake. Visitors here, company there. Clean sheets on the beds, scoop the litter boxes, wash the towels. Move, move, move!

Just unloading the groceries out of the car today sent my back into a numb tingle. Pack the refrigerator, empty the old Popsicles out of the freezer and the year old sherbet. Make room, make room!

I am getting so nervous! I work tomorrow, but then I am off until Tuesday. (Off from my paying job, that is!) Heh, heh. I'll be working aplenty. And, tell me why is it that I purchased a 20lb turkey? Why!? What was I thinking? And, a ham. The ham isn't very big. Potatoes, noodles (bag), sweet potatoes (can), stuffing (homemade), cranberry sauce (jellied and whole), pumpkin pies (store shells and Libby's canned), frozen green beans and corn.

That is just for my house (I am expecting my nephew and niece). I suppose I'll make that meal Friday or Saturday. For Thursday I go to my eldest sister's house. All the family does. I am taking a cheese ball/tray with crackers and cupcakes. I'll make and arrange that stuff Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

The nice thing is, I have all the groceries purchased. I can stay home tomorrow evening and bake cupcakes, whip up a cheese ball and cut cheese! Woot! My nephew will be here. He is coming in from Boston/Buffalo. I have not seen him since his heart catheterization in early October.

Friends, Krishna and a theme tree

I think this was a Children's themed tree

I believe that is a pink pacifier near the top of the photo. If I recall, this tree was decorated in a child's theme. I have to be careful that I don't get so involved in getting photos and actually stop, take a look around me and actually enjoy the trees (or the scenery) I am taking pictures of. Warther's museum in Dover, Ohio.

Watching a movie last night "Mind the Gap" I heard this haunting song that I fell in love with. I got busy afterwards and tracked it down. It was not easy. It appears that there may be a British band titled "Mind the Gap" and when you try to look up the soundtrack for the movie, it became tedious.

I did find a You Tube with the song. Just Google "You Tube Mere Gurudev" and you should get a couple videos. I actually like the song (chant). I believe the videos lean more to those who smoke some wacky tobaccy.

And, no. You are not about to see me at an airport near you, wearing a long robe and selling paper flowers. I have listened to other chants by Krishna Das and I don't care for them.

If you have seen both the movies "Crash" and "Mind the Gap" do you see a similarity? Although, I liked both movies "Mind the Gap" was a bit grittier. It used real-looking people instead of pretty actors. No offense to the cast of MTG. I just related better to MTG. I know parts were a bit odd and out there, but they had a much tighter budget.

I'm off today to visit a very dear friend. My sister will be joining us later, also. My friend's health is not very good. She cared for her Mother for six years. Her Mother was wheel-chair bound. My friend became very ill and was admitted to the hospital. While there her Mother died. My friend was not able to make it to the funeral. It has been hard on her. She is still very ill.

Tropical Christmas Tree

Palm Holidays

This one was my daughter's favorite tree display at the museum. They had real sand and I am not sure what is in the cooler shown there. It was a very festive contrast to the warm and cozy displays of the other trees.

I received my new hard drive today. It is a Western Digital and a 500 gig (instead of 400). I ran Intel's Application Accelerator and after about 2 hours, I had my system back. Hopefully, I won't get the "Ati2diag stuck in an infinite loop" error any more. I think they may be two separate problems, but who knows? I also ran a quick fix for the diag that I found online (go Google!).

2007 Trees

Splashy orange display

We went to visit the Warther's museum trees decorated this evening. Since it is only available for a small amount of time, I wanted to make sure we got there this year. I remembered to take my camera.

I got bored so I began moving the camera as it took the photo. I was able to record some colorful (albeit blurry) shots using this technique. If you can call it a technique. Most people try NOT to move the camera.

One of my hard drives has failed and since I have RAID 1 setup, my computer crashes every once in a while, so I am typing quickly. Heh, heh. I re-boot and it comes back, but I never know when it is just going to go completely dark on me, and give me the BSOD. (Blue Screen of Death). RAID 1 is where I have two 400 gig hard drives and one mirrors the other exactly, so when one drives fails, I can still have my system - just no safety net. The tech guy said this really does not work if it is Windows that fails.

I have had my Dell since May 2004 and this is the second time a hard drive has failed. Windows has not failed once - except that time I blew it out of the water. My own fault. Stupid hacker book!

I had not backed up anything since the end of September. I didn't have much. I quickly copied it to my external hard drive. I'll receive the new hard drive in the mail in a few days and pop it in.

Whoops. The system died on me before I could post. I let it rest, and rebooted. I hate this not knowing when it is going to crap out on me again.

Keep the obey in the vows

I love her, but I never wanted to marry her

So, did you hear about the guy in India who married a dog? Yeah. Seems he stoned a couple of dogs 15 years ago and has bad luck ever since. So, he heard that if he marries a dog his luck will change. Honor and obey, hey? Nothing like a good loyal dog.

Well, if that is the case, I can't wait to see what happens to M Vick.

Both my new kittens are home. All fixed and quiet. I was able to pick up Mr. Tibbs yesterday and he walked around the house with a mournful meow most all of the night. Could have been from missing Titten, could have been pain and/or trauma. I picked up Titten today. The ordeal has barely slowed her down. She is still pretty frisky. They are both sleeping peacefully, this evening.

Veterans Day

11:11:11 To those of you lost, to those of you here, to those of you there. We salute you.

No more toys from China

The above photo was sent to me in an e-mail, that said "Another recall for a toy sent from China". It was meant to be funny. However,it is getting close to being a little bit too real if you ask me. It was before I read this:

Aqua dot beads are being recalled because it has been discovered that they are coated with a poisonous chemical coating. I am stunned.

Things are getting messy

Raging rain storm in a small town

As the holidays approach I find myself upset. Not only am I facing a drought in the financial area, it is determined that my daughter is in need of having four more moles removed. In a delicate area of her body. She was upset to say the least.

The financial drought is temporary. I was (am) very good at saving money and had a very nice sum set aside for rainy days or (heaven forbid) a loss of work. That stash has been dented. One thing after another.

Of course insurance is going to pay for the surgeries, but it is the mental burden here. Does she really need them removed? She has had about 8 removed from her back and each one has come back with the results of benign and mild. Not malignant and not melanoma. The dermatologist says "Oh!" when she sees the moles in the private areas. She said they need to come off and the sooner the better. My daughter was in tears when we left the office. (She was laughing by the time we got home - forty-five minutes later).

I can tell she is upset. I am making an appointment with our family physician and asking her opinion as to if we should keep up this body mutilation or do we take the chance of taking a break for a year or so, or do we just chuck this mole removal altogether? My Mom had a mole in her private area (I never saw it of course) but she had no problems. Is it better safe than sorry? My daughter does NOT want to be cut down there.

What is a Mother to do? I understand her frustration because I am frustrated and exasperated that each time we think "This is the last one!" more need to be removed and each time the results of the lab work are "It was a mild and benign one." Don't other people just live with their moles?

But, on the other hand Mother does NOT want her daughter to get melanoma. Or anything else for that matter! I just want to scream! Stop, Stop, Stop! This madness! This has been going on for over 2 years, now. Another one, cut, cut, cut. Snip, snip, snip! More scars.

We try to look at things in a more positive light. We are not dealing with cancer, we are not dealing with the loss of a limb, we are not dealing with burns over half of her body, etc... we do try to be thankful that we don't have anything more serious to deal with. I don't say this in front of her, I keep those thoughts to myself. In her world this is disastrous enough. She did mention that she is thankful it isn't anything worse, but she is devastated by it all. Tired of it all.

And, then there is my nephew. Is he going to have his open-heart surgery? Is it going to be this year? I am going to corner him next week while he is off on vacation. When, when, when? So I can plan. His Mother is back in prison so that leaves me to be the Maternal one. I don't care to go into detail about her, believe me it does not deserve the blog space. She is a lost cause, we sort of wrote her off years ago. She can't handle pressure so she kind of drops out of society and this is her way of doing it. As close as I can guess.

Now, what will I take for Thanksgiving dinner? Where will the money come from for Christmas shopping? Back to the little things. The daily grind. Things are indeed messy. Gray sky and stormy weather. We'll ride out the storm. We have been here before.

Just to clarify, I do not qualify for Share-A-Christmas or anything like that. I have plenty of money to pay the bills and buy groceries and get Christmas gifts. I don't mean to sound pathetic. I am just saying the savings account ain't what it used to be. Financial woes are a big stress factor and that is one of two or three I am facing this holiday season. I like to have the money before I spend it, you know what I mean? I am able to pay my charge cards off each and every month, that is how careful I am. I know that some folks are in debt up to their eyeballs, and I am thankful that I am not. I'm just not used to having such a thin safety net.

The Galoot

Sable relaxing in the grass

This photo shows the side of my dog (the big galoot) that has hair loss. The veterinarians were never concerned with it. The first one said it was hard to say what may have happened to her. She has some allergies where her skin gets dry, but this isn't spreading. It is completely contained. We always tell people we cleaned our paintbrushes off on her after painting our white fence.

Sable has been playing with the kittens. Our Casper plays with the kittens, too. They get fixed next week. The male can come home the same day, but they will keep the female overnight. I hope it isn't too hard on them. I just can't imagine having a family pet for 20 years and having to let them go like my sister and her daughter went through yesterday. 20 years has to earn some sort of family member status. I think my bird has turned 10 years old. I can't remember exactly what year we got her. It was in November, though. She had been born in late August, I believe. I think it was 1997.

The sky has turned gray in Ohio, now. My daughter and I saw spitting snow today. We are not close enough to Lake Erie to get any lake effect snow. My daughter went to the doctor for her knee. She has been complaining about it for some time. She thought the doctor would prescribe her a brace of some sort. I knew better. I figured the doctor would tell her how to exercise the knee. That is exactly what she did. I'll nag my daughter about it, but chances are that she won't do not even one set of exercises. She wants an easy and instant fix. She gets her stitches out tomorrow from the mole removal. I have been using a tooth pick to scratch under the stitches every night. The doctor leaves some long stiff points sticking out from the stitches that poke my daughter's skin and it itches like crazy.

I just realized something. Our veterinarian is female. Our general family physician is female and my daughter's skin doctor is female. Interesting.

Long, dark road

The Hollies had a song out, about 1972 called "The Long Dark Road". It was somebodies 45 in my household. It was played a lot. It haunts me sometimes.

My sister's cat died today. They had the cat since February 1988. When she sent me the photo, which I put on my web page, I was thinking "Where was I in February of 1988? Another lifetime ago. Long, dark roads.

I finished the book "Don't Leave Me This Way". It appears that the cold medicine she took a few moments before her stroke, may have been the culprit. That was 1997. They FDA didn't pull the drug off the shelves until 2000. (I think). Phenylpropanolamine.

Last month

My nephew's computer room

A month ago I was staying at my nephew's house. This is one of his rooms where he keeps his computer, stereo. The room has french sliding glass doors that open outside onto a deck. Definitely a bachelor pad. The rich browns are very nice, I think.

No word on his heart operation. He did tell me that he is planning a vacation from work in a week. Last week-end he drove to Tennessee. Just got in his car and drove. That is what he used to do about a dozen years ago. He has been all over.

The time is flying by. Thanksgiving is planned and Christmas is lurking around the corner. Have I started my shopping, yet? Hell, no. Well, yes. I did purchase one gift so far. Ugh.

Some early thanks giving

Front yard clover from the summer

I sit here this morning looking at the day ahead. I have a list of things I would like to accomplish today. First on the list is paying bills and getting insurance papers turned in for reimbursement. I look at the bills and I look at my checkbook. Yes, I can swing the bills - but it gets harder each month in 2007. I read the word recession in the newspaper the other day.

Sigh. I sit and think. I signed out more books yesterday at the library. I like biographies. I began reading one called "Don't Leave Me This Way" by Julia Fox Garrison. And I begin to realize that I am rolling in clover compared to the struggles that some people may be facing today. I don't have to learn to walk all over again. I don't have to have somebody wipe my rear end when I use the toilet.

So, I will pay my bills, clean my house and mow my grass. Grateful in the fact that this is the most challenging my day will get today. With luck on my side, that is. Because we never know what lurks around the next turn or what tomorrow will bring. Do we?

New digs for Earl

Earl got a new house, not a friend

I've mentioned Earl before in my blog. He is a little beagle that lives with a family in a house on a back alley behind my office building. Sometimes I drive past or walk past to see how he is doing. He got some new digs. It looks like a new friend moved in, but no. I am not real sure the reason the owner kept Earl's old house there. Maybe so Earl could adjust, or maybe it is attached to the house and would leave an ugly spot if he removed it.

I am kind of excited about tomorrow. I have a free Saturday for the first time in six weeks. I plan to get some work done around the house. Maybe. I went to the library and got a fresh batch of books. Oh, boy. I must stay motivated. Heh.

Wee bit of color

County back road

I took a little drive after work today. Mostly because I have not had the chance to drive around this past month very much. I did most of my work from my desktop computer. Ugh.

I found a wee bit of color on the hills of a back road. The sun was shining and the sky was a glorious blue. There were a lot of yellow leaves and brown. Sing with me "All the leaves are brown..." But the sky was not gray. Not yet.

I watched Mr. Brooks last week-end. It was pretty good. I fell in love with Kevin Costner back in the day when he was in Fandango, Silverado and American Flyers. Until I saw him on a talk show and I about threw up. He was so full of himself and fake I could barely stand to watch. There were some movies I didn't care for that he was in, especially those made from 1993 to 2005. He seems to be getting his grove back, though.