The English Language

I guess my energy or my creativity for writing has been zapped the past few weeks. I am doing a lot at work and I think it uses all of my energy and has left me with nothing to write about.

I am (almost) over the coughing. I still am caught off guard from time to time with a coughing fit. Like last evening we were in a burger joint. The thermometer on the wall said 82 º . Holy cow! The waitress said it was actually cooler in the kitchen.

Warmer temps have finally arrived in Ohio.

But that isn't what this post is about. Since I am slowly getting better, I am regaining one of my most important features. My sense of humor.

Working with the filter, I come across words that are flagged as p0rn. Here is a list of some that surprised me.

crest white strips
police car lights flashing

I finally figured out the offending words that were flagged must be "strips" and "flashing". I was like "really"? I questioned this with our representative. He said the list was very literal. Okay, but holy cow!

Then I came across:

Woody Hayes
Woody Harrelson
woody allen movies

and of course, Woody Woodpecker.

Clarinet fingering chart
Anaconda swallows man
nymph creature
water jugs

Bulimia nervosa ....wait, what? p0rn?
Right up above that search was anorexia nervosa and it properly appeared flagged as family health.
Okay, I just did a little research. (Bulimia is affiliated with food p0rn.)

Hmmmm. And, you know I've mentioned before that "To Kill a Mockingbird" comes up flagged as violence.

But the one that was flagged that made me laugh out loud. "Out loud"  was :

summa cum laude.

Take that, filter!

One tequila

This is a bottle of tequila. 110 proof the label said. My niece brought it to the family get together at Thanksgiving, I think. She did not open it and took it back home. Wait. Maybe it was March birthdays. Yeah, that was it. March birthdays.

One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, four. I don't sing that song anymore.

Had a relapse over the week end. Still coughing. But was sick to my stomach over the week end. Whatever this is, it has a hold of me good.

Work is crazy busy for me.

Finally, I may be starting to feel like doing things around the house again. Gah.

Way behind on yard work. I don't like it, but I am going to have to refuse family invites to do things. They get kind of grumpy when I do that. I get the guilt trip from some who say "No sense in going if you are not going."  That is such a sweet and nice compliment and I feel very honored to get it. But it also makes me feel pressured and I don't want to let anybody down.

I saw some pics of my sisters who were out this past week end. Let me just say this. I am so glad I quit the bar and drinking scene before the digital photo age and facebook. LOL! Good gawd!

That Oh, sh!t moment

Remember Wednesday when I was jacked up on all that prednis0ne and I worked all day on entering schools into the new filter? Well, it appears that I put them all ON the new filter thinking I had them entered correctly to be ignored. I wanted to have all their info typed in , so all I had to do was take their IP range out of the "Ignore" box and they would be ready to go. I guess it did not work that way.

I was attempting to prepare for next week when we were going to test them.

I drag myself into work yesterday and promptly get a phone call. The tech said a few things about the filter blocking this and that and I knew he was still on the old one. At one point he said the new filter's name and about it's blocking screen and I said "Wait...you are on the new filter?" He said "Yes."  I said
"Your district is not supposed to be switched over until next week!" Then it hit me. That "Oh sh!t" moment when I realized that something had gone wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong and I would be getting (see photo above) a flood of phone calls.

And this was me, if the tech could see through the telephone. Thankfully he could not, but I can imagine he figured how it looked because of the panic beginning to rise in my voice. At about the time I began to figure out that something was horribly wrong, a tech stuck his head around the corner and said "Did you block our e-mail?"  Oh, sh!t.

The Treasurer came into my office and asked me if I had blocked something because our grant writers had a dead line to get this grant in and they could not access the site. Oh, mega sh!t.

I spend the next hour in a total panic (actually I was pretty calm) and as quickly as I could began to repair my damage. I was prepared mentally for something like this to happen (as a big move or change like this always has the potential for unwanted chaos and alarm). Mentally I was prepared. I answered calls, I apologized and my fingers did their magic.

It took me about another hour to answer and explain everything in e-mails, all the while my manager calling me every twenty minutes or say saying "Instead of switching EVERYBODY over at once next week, why don't we do them in groups?"

I smiled. My error was a blessing in disguise. Every cloud has a silver lining. The schools can relax, now. We won't throw them all at the same time into the deep end and make them wait until we slowly pull them out one by one. We will be smarter about it, more organized.

It was a little far fetched thinking we could move them all at once, but I am like 'Hey...either way - somebody is going to have a painful experience out of it. That is inevitable."  Most of the time, it is me - but I have had many. I am a veteran. I just need to be prepared and carry the right attitude. That I can do.

There are many things happening "behind the curtain" that at 53 (gawd, almost 54) years old, I know that there is not much I have control over. For example, when my organization decided to perform this test, I began immediate plans. I wrote e-mails, I asked for this, I asked for that. Things I would need to make this switch over possible. I needed to be prepared. I needed to be ready.

Alas. The waiting game. I get my answers four days before we perform the switch over. The districts are scratching their heads saying "You guys are not very prepared."  Yeah, well. It may look that way but know this. Some things were just out of my control. To gripe and whine to them when they speak of it just makes myself look like I am making excuses. All I can tell them is I asked for information that I needed to make this change as easy as possible, and I only received the data at the last moment.

And then there is the issue of them being told what is to be expected of this change. I wrote my part up weeks ago. My manager was to send out the message. He did this yesterday. Yesterday. And the language was all new filter language and the techs did not understand what he (we) wanted from them so they did not answer him. 8 out of 40 answered him. When he re-messaged them, one tech gave him a nasty message berating him for his complicated questions that she had no idea even of what he was speaking.

Granted, she does not come to the monthly meetings (where we speak about this) but it is not OUR fault she is too busy. And round and round we go.

That is okay. SNAFU.  I am ready and prepared for the change. I am geared up. Thank goodness for this prednis0ne. (Another silver lining?) Who knows. Just back off and get out of my way. I am working here! With the over-worked management on one side of me, and the stressed and burned out techs on the other side - I am the bridge that will support them and bring them together. Yay. Go me!  LOL!

Meds

By the power of prednis0ne and Azithr0mycin, I am standing (sitting) strong. Sure, there is the coughing. Still the sputtering (it has to get out somehow) but the energy is outrageous. What is in this stuff? Reminds me when I dallied in speed in my 20's. Yes, I did. Loved them. Stopped them. I never took more than 1 at a time. Eh  - not what this post is about.

Anyway..I probably overdid it yesterday. I worked from home all day. Manager will change my sick day to a "work from home" day. I have a lot on my plate right now and am so very thankful I can do so much of it from home.

But, I kept jumping up and cleaning this and cleaning that. My mind was racing. I plowed through and actually worked about 12 hours on the computer yesterday for work. With several breaks in between to sweep the floor, washed all the pots and pans (the kids will do the dishwasher etc... but I don't put my pots and pans in the dishwasher so they were all dirty).

I was shaking. It was either the prednis0ne or the Azi - or both. I was able to eat (but not like before on the prednis0ne.). And I recall reading that somebody said they can't sleep when taking prednis0ne, so great. Now, I can't sleep. LOL!

I just read a page of side effects. LOL! Most of them I already had, but this one cracked me up. "shortness of height".  Wait, what?

Day two of the incident where I reported the p0rn. Not one word has been said. In fact, there is an enormous amount of work that I am doing regarding the filter, but my manager has not said one word that he even received my e-mail about the report. What would it hurt to say to me "I received your e-mail and report, we will look it over and decide what to do."  Who-ever "we" are. That would be the least I would expect. He could say "Let me know if you see anything else suspicious."  Or, he could say "This is not what we intended when we purchased this product, please mind your own business." (probably too scared to say THAT to me). But what? To ignore it completely? WTF?!

There is a big meeting on Friday and I am certain the filter will be the main topic because we are making a huge switch over on Sunday. I plan to be working 24/7 next week. And the prednis0ne will be gone by then. But that is okay - at least I might have the chance to sleep.

Since I can't sleep, I made my coffee and am drinking it. I pulled a dog hair out of my coffee and no lie, 1 minute later my phone dinged. I checked the message and it was a comment from "Dog Hair in My Coffee". LOL! And, hey - by the way 'welcome back!'  I thought she had done gone "off the social media grid".

Discreet

I may have mentioned a week or so ago about some techs having issue with a new feature our organization's filter has. It is a reporting feature. A school tech can run several reports to see what is going on in their network. At a school district you want to stay on top of things.

Here is my dilemma. I have to learn about the report features so that I can tell our techs that they have this, this and that available to them. So  I run plenty of reports to see what they are.

In doing so, there is one school district, the end user is logged in as an Administrator and several hundred hits are searches for p0rn.

Now, this is where I have to be discreet. The first thing I did was to run a report on just that end user for the past seven days and hand it over to my superior.

Remember - this could be an Admin user who is not logging off of their machine and a student is doing all the searching. Or, the student may have stolen the login credentials. The searches are very young-ish school age searches. The age of the girls searched for etc.

Now, what will be interesting to me is to see what my superiors instruct me to do. Of course, I am not the person to do anything as far as the school goes, but do they want me to continue to turn over this type of report or am I to turn a blind eye?

I mean - nobody was doing this for the dozen or so years before we purchased this feature. This feature was not purchased to do this. It was purchased to make the lives of our district techs easier. The tech should be the one pulling this type of report but this is all new - we are still in a testing phase.

Every end users signed an Acceptable use policy.

Here is my view. If the admin is viewing p0rn during school hours on a school owned computer - they need to stop and possibly be reprimanded. If a student is using the computer under the Admin's login - that needs to stop. Either way - to me - it needs to be addressed.

What I will really hate (and this is what I expect) is that it will be totally ignored. As if I did  not even send the message. Time will tell.

Insomnia

This is pretty much how I feel this morning. I have been awake since 2:30 a.m. I got up at 3:00 and started on the computer. Mostly work stuff. I had Thursday and Friday off. Thursday there were a few filter issues and I am responding to them today. Get out of my way.

I added some links to our Tech web page for the new filter and I am raring to go. Except for this cough. I have discovered that holding my stomach while coughing helps me a bit. At least the headaches seem to be gone for now.

My daughter has run the gamut on this one before. She said "You have this now? Okay, this stage is next." And she is spot on. Now comes the drainage. As if the dry hacking cough didn't do enough to rip out my throat and break my ribs, now the coughing and sputtering.

At least I can go into the office today with very few people working. Most have the day off. I will probably take my Clorox wipes with me and wipe down the phone, door knobs, the mouse, the keyboard, the microwave handle - all things I touch today.

I slept most of the day away yesterday. It was beautiful outside. I did manage to get a chair and let the sun beat down on me for about 15 minutes and get some fresh air into my lungs. It was quite heavenly. I had let the inside house temperature soar to 74º Fahrenheit. I immediately opened windows and doors and turned the fans on to cool it down and get the stale air out.

I am very short of breath with this cough. It is the kind where you start a slow panic when you can't get your breath. I would hate to suffocate. When I get short of breath I have to sit down and have a fan blowing directly into my face or I begin to get light headed and my limbs begin to turn to jell-o.

I don't know if you know what I mean by that feeling, but it is very unnerving. It makes me start to panic and I have to give myself a mental shake and remind myself to breath. Just breath. I can only imagine this is what it must feel like to be asthmatic.

There. I have regained some of my useless babble for the blog. Nonsensical stuff that gives me the chance to purge. Now that it is time to feed the critters and get into the shower, NOW is the time I would like to go back to sleep.

Ouch. One of my cats just nailed me a good one. She is impatient. She knows it is her feeding time and she stretched up and clawed my leg a good one. It hurt and I brushed her off. She got pissed and ran over under the table hissing at me. Hissing! I turned my chair around and glared at her. She glared back. Oh, she is a stinker that one.

Now, she has jumped up on my computer tower under my desk and I reach down to pet her and we are fine again. She licks my hand as if saying "Sorry."  I re-assure her and say "I know, I will feed you soon." I pet her some more and she is soft and furry and ...OUCH!! The damn thing bit me.

Color me miserable

I know I've used this photo before. I am in agony. Each cough brings SO.MUCH.PAIN. My sides ache so bad and my head hurts when I take a coughing fit. And it is one of those gut-wrenching, rib-clutching, horse coughs. I am surprised I have not ripped out my vocal chords.

When I feel a cough coming on I groan and I want to cry. Attempting to stifle the cough only makes it that much worse and twice as painful as the body reacts violently to the attempt.

My breathing whistles and rattles. My daughter wants me to go to the doctor, now. She went.  That is when the doctor sent her over thinking she may have pneumonia.  She went and they told her it was not pneumonia and that  they could do nothing for her. She had to ride it out.

I can still walk around and do things. Although I quickly run out of breath and have to sit down. I find myself not being able to catch my breath. I get restless sitting in my TV chair all day. It drives me nuts.

There will be no dinner today. I am far too sick to place myself in any body's house in this condition and I have not been grocery shopping in ages. We have been surviving on hot dogs, mac & cheese and take out pizza. The two "kids" I live with could care less about ham and potatoes and deviled eggs and any other Easter dinner treat you can think of.

Me? Oats and scrambled eggs. And Popsicles. And Gatorade. I don't like Gatorade. I went back to plain water.

I have sinus pain and pressure on top of the cough and my lower back hurts along with my back where the lungs reside. I don't want the "P" word and I don't mean pneumonia. A guy at work had pleurisy last week. I remember this ailment all too well. I have had it so many times I know the symptoms and I don't feel them yet.

Well, it is off to find the acetaminophen for what good it does. Do you purchase name-brand or generic over the counter medication? I seem to have a mental issue where I feel the generic does not work as well. It irks me because of the monetary issue involved with buying name brand products.

Cranky

I've got the coughing, head achy, sides sore from coughing blues. Restless. Headache not responding to acetaminophen which is what I take now. I have been ibuprofen-free for a couple of weeks. Acetaminophen has the same results as Pez candy.

My doctor thinks ibuprofen may be the reason for my heartburn. Not. I still have a lot of heartburn. I am on a daily medication of  PPI (proton pump inhibitor),  too. The pink stuff was my best friend last night.

Anyway - the cough. My sister had it and my daughter still has it. The doctor sent my daughter to the hospital for chest x-rays etc... she thought she might have pneumonia. She didn't (doesn't). No medication for viral infection.  Just acetaminophen or ibuprofen. They both ran a temperature. I didn't. I never do. I cannot recall ever having a temperature higher than 98 or 99. This could be what the acetaminophen is doing for me.

How convenient that this malady should strike exactly on the four days I have off from work for a long week-end. I don't have to take any sick days off. That is contingent on the fact that this illness is gone by Monday.

Let's see. What did I watch? A movie? I can't recall. My day was a blur yesterday. Oh - I watched a bunch of documentaries. So easy to sleep to. I wake up, glance at the TV - learn me something then drift back into a fitful sleep. It was "Return of the Plague - TB", "The Elegant Universe - String Theory",  and "Photographing Africa".  String Theory is especially a good show to put you to sleep. Trust me on this one.

Rambling on

I have bits and pieces to post about today. Above is a photo of a vehicle of some sort I was following a month or so ago. It is stopped - see the tail lights. We were sitting in construction traffic.

The new study on marijuana smoking. Or is it new?  I always used to say "They should just legalize marijuana."  I don't smoke it. I figured it was not much worse than alcohol. Maybe better. Now that I am in my 50's I see older people who have smoked for great lengths of time and it ain't so pretty. I now personally believe the smoking has had a negative impact on their lives.

I was in a meeting on Monday. I had taken a survey of what various educational organizations around the state of Ohio used for filtering their school districts' networks. A tech was rambling on in his negative view of the product our educational organization uses. He is always negative. I feel he has a personal vendetta against me, but I could be right. (!)  He blabbed out that only 2 organizations in the state uses such and such. I corrected him and said 12 did. There are a total of 23 educational organizations in the state of Ohio.

He stopped and asked me "12?"  I nodded and confirmed "12." I had sent out e-mails asking the directors of the organizations what they used and 22 out of 23 places had responded to me.

And, the others in the meeting would have believed him had I not been there. He did not take a survey. He was just spouting off negative blabber.

This is only one incident. This guy "grandstands" at almost every meeting. What do you do with somebody like that? He is poison. He has a "posse" of other guy techs that gravitate around him. Four at least. I say they "drink the kool-aid" that he is dishing out. The sad part (for me) is the other 4 techs - two at least - are very good in their own right. They are strong techs that work well with me at other times. I guess they just gravitate to him. I may not ever understand why. Maybe if they sit next to him, he will do all the talking and they won't have to.

When he does have a network problem, I approach each incident as fresh and new. I do not keep the negativity on my back when I deal with him. I am polite to him and cordial. He gets the same attentive response I give every other tech that asks for my help. I make sure of that. I won't sink to his level or let him get me down.

But, each new incident where he thrashes my work or my organization's work knocks me back a bit. Some of the female techs are beginning to ask me "What is his problem?" 

Sigh. He is just one of those experiences in life, I guess. The human psyche. Unbelievable.

I see a T-Rex

One morning I sat in my car waiting for it to warm up and I saw a T-Rex trying to eat my red garbage can. So I aimed my phone in just the right position and caught the dinosaur in the act.

A party for my eyes

I am in need of some color in my life. The outside is so drab with all the browns, yellows and grays. Yuck! I have no flowers blooming. I will have to use artificial color, I guess.

It was a difficult work week. I had some setbacks. I am trying not to panic because I have some serious deadlines coming up and I have been running around trying to fix emergencies so I have not had proper time to prepare for the upcoming events.

Sigh. I am missing my sister who is staying with my brother these days. She is trying to start working but still be close to her granddaughter. I can understand that. She and her son are looking at renting a house almost next door to her little granddaughter.

I had some family time Tuesday. My S-I-L has to give herself (or my brother does) two shots in the gut a day for blood thinners. This is to prevent blood clots. The next step in the cancer phase is for them to go back in and look at the liver.

The one doctor that removed the tumor from her stomach said she did peek at the liver while she was in there and the side that she could see looked good and healthy.

Life is kind of getting me down right now.

Strange

It is my daughter's 23rd birthday today. This was one of her gifts. Yeah, my family is strange.

Couch potatoes

We are minus 2 step great-grand children and one great grand baby girl, and there is one little boy still in the oven.  The rest of my family's baby boom are shown here on the couch.

Soon to be released out into the wild world, come what may. No, it won't be long at all until they are working, learning, driving, voting and running the world. God help us all.

The "smoking" road not taken

I found this picture on the Internet and I thought it funny. Of course, smoking is not funny. Neither is high sodium content soup.

I don't think about smoking very much. I was one of the fortunate ones and did not begin in my teens or my twenties. I have no desire to start. I did smoke a cig or two at a bar but I don't think I ever inhaled. I know that sounds funny given the comment from Clinton, but I imagine if I ever inhaled I would have coughed my lungs up.

I think a lot about smoking now that my sister is with us. I think back in the day she and her husband smoked Belair or something like that. Today it is the cheapest she can find - Sonoma Light 100s or something.

My Mom and Dad rolled their own. They purchased Bugler tobacco and my Mom had a cigarette rolling machine. My Dad rolled by hand. When she would go out to a store or restaurant she would smoke Pall Mall.

My brother smoked Camel, I think. He has since stopped. He had a nodule removed from his throat and he switched to cherry cigars and it took a little while but he was able to stop altogether. His companion (who is 17 years his senior) still smokes a lot.

My daughter told her boyfriend he was going to smoke an E-cig and she purchased one for him for Christmas. She told him if she caught him smoking cigarettes it was a relationship breaker. She and I both despise tobacco smoke. It gives us headaches. My sister smokes outside.


This year I have been lucky. Knock on wood. I did not get that awful flu bug that a lot of family got and I did not get strep throat and I did not get that nasty cough. I am in the bout of a misery of headaches because of certain triggers (that I cannot control) but other than that - I am feeling great.

Well, not great. As great as can be expected for my self-inflicted lifestyle.

My brother and his wife have been dealt a serious life threatening situation and I am sharply reminded that life is a fragile blessed thing that I sometimes take for granted.  They found a tumor in my SIL's stomach and removed it. It is cancerous and she is developing blood clots and it is all so awful and scary. They think there is more in there and at first they wanted to go back in as soon as she heals from this surgery, now with the clots they decide to wait six months maybe longer.

They have a long road ahead of them and the incident has all of us sitting up and taking notice of how precious our health and life really are.

Is there a doctor in the family?

As most of you know sister 1956 has been staying with me on and off since January. She does travel back to our home town so she can help watch her granddaughter and then she stays with my brother if she needs to.

She is a heavy smoker and of course being in the middle of a life crisis her immune system is run down. She has had one of the worst coughing bouts for over two weeks. It seriously sounds like she is going to cough up a lung. It is brutal.

My Sister-in-law (married to brother 1953) is in the hospital currently for some medical issues that I may talk about in another post. His son became a doctor last summer. He was visiting also - he works at two different hospitals and this one happened to be one of them. We all settled into the small hospital room and we chatted about things. Listened to each other tell stories - you know - regular family visits.

Sister 1956 left for a while, not sure if she went to the bathroom or just needed to walk around (it was much too far to walk to have a smoke). I was telling my brother about my sister and her cough. I was trying to get her into stat care to get medicine, but she didn't have money. She recently signed up for Obamacare but her doctor visit ended up being $182 and she is to pay $92 out of pocket. She was a bit dismayed about that. We may look for another doctor.

We were not paying much attention to my nephew as he was on his cell phone texting or reading etc...When my sister came back in we chatted some more.

My nephew sat up, asked my sister a couple of questions about her cough and proceeded to phone her in a prescription. His half sister is a Pharmacist in my town. (His sister is a mortician. Not a practicing one but she graduated from the school).

Lickety split. Just like that. My sister had her medicine. A z-pak, cough medicine and a steroid.  She has no regular doctor. She recently started a new one in my town so she could continue her high blood pressure medicine. I did remind my nephew about her high blood pressure. Before this she was getting prescriptions at a free clinic and it was a hit and miss episode as she is not well known for keeping up with taking care of herself. Letting her prescription run out etc...

She has the family curse. Take care of everybody else and some strangers before even thinking about ourselves. Hopefully now she will get well and nip this horrible cough in the bud.

Did I mention that my daughter has a severe case of strep throat and laryngitis? Yeah. She said the doctor is probably going to say they need to come out on Thursday. Wha..?

Mama needs to sit down.

Sake

I had my first "intentional" sake last evening. When a group of us went a couple of years ago, the performing chefs squirted some in our wide open mouths with a squeeze bottle. Hell, could have been water they were squirting at us for all I know.

I liked the immediate "punch" feeling that it gave me. The atmosphere was right. I was with other women from work. I had an empty stomach. The air was full of friendship, laughter and gossip. The first little tiny cup of sake went down quickly and "bang", I was buzzed.

As with all alcohol, after you eat a meal - that same little cup of sake has no effect. Or not near as much. I long remember the days where I had to keep that buzz going and food was forfeited and in return I was blessed with a long, painful hangover the next morning. Ah, those were the days. (NOT!)

Just a "J"

I am on a tech list serve and today the entire list received a message with just the letter "J" in it. Well, most of them did, anyway.

Do folks who use Outlook (Express) even realize that their smiley icons show up as just the letter "J" if the receiver does not use their brand of e-mail application?

I have received several "J"s in my e-mails.  ☺

Enuresis

So there I am working on the network equipment in a little elementary building. I am sitting in the nurses' office because that is where the equipment is. There is a little desk with a telephone that the teachers use to call parents, etc..

While working along I hear an irate teacher. She is screaming and she is dragging a little boy into the nurses office and dialing the telephone. I don't give it much notice but with being only a couple of  feet away I can hear everything.

The first thing that catches my attention is the teacher screaming at the little boy (my best guess is 8 years old) that she is going to call Mrs. Somebody and tell her what he did. She never did say "his mother" so I don't know what was up with that.

She proceeded to dial a number and scream into the phone "Johnny did 'you-know-what' in his pants again today!" And on and on she went. She tried to force the kid to speak into the phone himself , I guess because I heard her say "Well, he doesn't want to say what he did on the machine.."  So I am thinking she got an answering machine.

I did hear her say that "Johnny was too busy playing to take the time to go to the bathroom, again!"

She sure did a lot of yelling and she sure wasn't shy about it. Here I am - a complete stranger to her and she was quite brutal in my opinion. The principal was not at her office, but the teacher sure did try to drag him in there. The regular secretary was at lunch, so there was a teacher from another classroom covering for her.

She made the boy sit in the office for the rest of the recess and screamed at him that he was to sit in the office for the rest of the week during recess.

Well, I at least hope they let the poor boy go to the bathroom during his time out.

I managed a peek at the boy later and he did not seem to be the least disturbed by the event. He was squirming in his chair and when I caught his eye, there was no shame. Just a little boy who wanted to be somewhere else.

I brought the subject up with some of the women I work with and some thought perhaps the boy may be on the edge of the spectrum, which is referring to Asbrgr's syndrome or Aut!sm. The other teacher heard this teacher and later this teacher told the regular secretary why the boy was there. Nobody questioned the boy or the teacher. The principal didn't even seem to notice.

We wonder.

Crush

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. Heck, I may as well make this my family photo album blog. I have been negligent lately. I have stories, but just have not put them into the blog.

The boy is the son of my nephew's wife from another relationship. He has Asbrgr syndrome. (Vowels omitted on purpose).  I need to be careful when teasing him (I like to tease children in good fun). He is so wonderful and special.

And, he is clearly smitten with this girl in the photo. She seems to know he is following her and is playing the flirt card very well.

Minion Me

The theme this year was Despicable Me 2. My great nephew turned four this week. My camera was in the car when he made his grand entrance to his birthday party in full Minion garb and goggles. The goggles did not say on long at all. So cute.

Little Girls

My family's cup runneth over. We are in the midst of a baby boom. To me this is a good thing. I love babies and small children. I do very well with school-age children but to me - the pre-schoolers are the most fun.

The above wee one? Sometimes she lets me hold her and sometimes she won't let me within 3 feet of her before she begins to pucker up. She is probably afraid I will try to hold her. I back away quickly and give her the space she needs. I can't stand those adults who grab the baby anyway and act like it is the baby's fault they are crying.

"What's wrong with you?!" 

"Nothing is wrong with me lady, I just don't know you very well and you are kind of freaking me out!"

Oh, but when they smile. Sweet sunshine!

This and That

Saturday we had two birthday parties to attend. The above little girl turned one, is my sister 1956's only grandchild. My sister is staying with me, now.

The other birthday was for a four year old boy - sister 1944's second grandchild. She has three boy grandchildren. They dressed him as a minion from Despicable Me 2. I did not get a photo of him in full costume (goggles) and all. To get an idea you only need to search for the word "minion" in Google, and then click images. He was adorable. We watched the movie while waiting for another nephew from out of town to arrive with his family. They showed me all the little extra things that go on in the background that are just as funny as the movie. Things only somebody who has had to watch a show dozens of times would see.

Twisted my neck (slept wrong, I guess) on Saturday night and still feeling the after effects.

I hate changing time - my inside clock gets all messed up. Was up at 2:30 yesterday and 2:00 a.m. today. Starting to feel groggy. After two cups of coffee I will crash in my TV chair until the alarm rings (cell phone) and probably re-twist my neck.

Work is going to get crazy.

Been reading. Missing planes, shooting through bathroom doors, quakes in CA, quakes in OH, airplane hitting a skydiver, mamas driving into the ocean, and landmines. My head spins.

I have to sign off now because soon I won't be making any sense at all. Must sleep.

Road trip!

My little road trip yesterday. Same thing today. Sa!t F0rk lodge.

Pink decorations

I took this photo while working at a school a week or so ago. The secretary told me that they had already taken down a lot of the decorations. I just think it is amazing that somebody can do this and actually get the decorations to stay attached.

I've never had much luck with decorating.

Note: I am NOT a creepy little school kid creeper. Well, not much. I do get the urge to cuddle, pinch, hug some little ones from time to time but I must resist the urge as I am a stranger.

A while back I was working at a school with the door to the tech room open when a line of little ones marched by. I smiled and waved. I heard one say to the other "Is that your grandmother?"

Wha...?!!!

Dejected

When I asked the other worker at the pizza shop for a photo of his hair, I noticed the other worker duck back into the kitchen looking dejected.

Before I left, I told him "Come on, I want a picture of your hair, too."  He was so pleased. He said "Did you get the curls?"  I said,   "I got those beautiful curls!"

Neon

This is what I do. I ask total strangers if I can get a picture of their hair. Yep. This is the second time I have done this. They don't mind a bit.

Not much

Not much posting going on around here. I am sharing the computer with my sister and since I bring my laptop  home from work, I use it - so she can have her time. She does a lot on facebook. I don't.

My neighbor told my daughter that a renter down the alley called the dog warden on his dog and ours. His neighbor told him that. But, they moved out - so all is well.

Something does not sound right to me. I will have to wait until I get the chance to talk to my neighbor myself to see his facial expression as he talks.

He said his neighbor (Heather) told him the renters had asked her for his phone number. The warden went to his house. He does not purchase dog licenses. He had to for his dog after that.

The warden called me. I always purchase dog licenses. I suppose that is how they got my telephone number, but the warden asked me if I had licenses for my dog. If she got my number from that record, she would already know that.

I may never know the entire story but something is not adding up in my book.

Just thinkin'

Just a pose of a little one. Yet another great niece.

All four

This is a photo of what it looks like when I take my dogs outside. I stand on the back porch (as does my daughter, her boyfriend and now my sister when they take them out).

Once in a while they wander around the side of the house and out of site. I call them back. If they do not come back straight away, I go after them.

They scurry back.

Somebody called the dog warden on us. I got the call yesterday and I am unclear what day or date the caller was upset with my "menace to the neighborhood" dogs.

I spoke with my sister/daughter/her beau - they cannot recall an incident where the dogs wandered into a neighbor's yard, let alone "menaced" anyone.

My neighbors to the left have a dog. Two elderly ladies to the right never walk out of their apartments (the back faces us).

Almost all of my neighbors have dogs.

There are two fairly new neighbors but I have spoken and introduced myself to both and asked them to please let me know if my dogs ever bothered them.

Four is a lot of dogs to have without a fence. I did not want an ugly fence in my yard.

I have had Sable for over 10 years. The others I have had for five years. Never once has there been a complaint lodged against them and I basically use the same technique.

The dog warden had my cell phone number, also. I disconnected my land line years ago.

Now, are they able to get the cell phone number or did the caller give them my cell phone number? If the caller gave them my number then that sort of narrows it down to who I gave my cell phone number to.

It matters to me WHO called because I want to take extra special care that my dogs do not go near their property again. The yards just blend into each other.

If it is a pooping issue, give me time to be able to get through the ice and snow to get it all picked up. I don't think that is the issue because the two older ladies never come outside to the back of their apartments.

All others who have a dog have been great friends over the years.

Sigh. Whatever.

Happy you know what

My grand/great nephew posing with a Mylar heart balloon.

I am still here. I am sharing my computer with my sister (1956) who is living with me at this time. You may see a lot of deleted comments on your posts. Well, that is me forgetting that my sister is logged into Google and it comments under her name. LOL!

Adjustment.  Heh.

Been super busy at work, too.

Been running almost every evening after work. Came down with a migraine last night. My body just quit. It said "Enough!"

I am going to try to sleep all day Sunday.

Have to work on Monday because so many schools are using this as a make-up day. I can work from  home, though.

Lots of happenings in family this month and next. SO many birthdays. So many dinners and cakes.

A big seven-oh for my oldest sister (1944) the other night. She held up well with the crazy get together of fifteen people.

Here she is with her husband and one of their three grandsons this past summer. He is the little tyke in the Mylar heart pictured above.

What's in your grocery cart?

The only experience I have with food stamps are listening to others.  I won't go into much detail about how they come about being eligible for food stamps.

I do, however, feel that the people I know who received them, misused them. I would hear things like, "I just buy what I want."  Most of the time they had high priced name brand products that I would not normally purchase. And it was one of those situations where they really missed them when they were gone. "I used to just throw things in the buggy and didn't care about how much it cost because I was using food stamps."

I can calculate to the dollar how much my groceries are going to come to at the check out counter and that is without a calculator or pen and paper. I want NO surprises.

In one circumstance one purchased a huge meat and cheese tray for a baby shower with food stamps. And I had NO idea you could purchase pop, candy, chips, donuts, cakes and pies with food stamps.

When visiting their house (no children, mind you) they had all kinds of snacks and goodies sitting around. Sitting in hog heaven, I'd say. At the time both adults were unemployed but staying with his in-laws who were very well to do. And getting $300 a month in food stamps.

I have never received one dollar in food stamps. I have at one point in my lifetime been able to put items in my grocery cart without thought of cost. Not these days; and I find myself resenting those remarks made by some folks who receive food stamps and their nonchalant attitude of just buying any old thing they want.

And (sigh) one more thing. I love this person but I cannot stand this act. Purchasing groceries with food stamps, using cash to buy beer, cigarettes, weed and lottery tickets. They are the ones who give all of this a really bad name. But alas, the situation has changed and this person receives nothing in aid from the government any longer. But that does not stop them from talking about how much they miss them while they scratch off yet another losing lottery ticket and smokes a cigarette.

On the other side of the coin, they did live a very fruitful life of working and paying taxes. Thirty years in a steel mill and never needing a hand out in all that time. I guess in some way they feel they deserve the handouts. They say they paid into it for years and years, now it is time to get some of it back. Is this the way it is supposed to work? I don't think so. They got their steel mill pension in one lump some and paid off their child's student loans. Now they only have social security to live on but for two years they did not have any income.

Sigh.  I went there.

My organization's modus operandi

So, you are the Manager of five people. Or, you are the Director of 22 people. You get an e-mail from a client (or in this case a Treasurer at a School district) praising an employee of yours.

Do you:

a. ignore it
b. send the employee a "good job!" message
c. share the "good job" message with all employees

There I was working my usual day. I got a call from a Treasurer I had not heard from in a while. I talked her through some issues over the telephone, got her working and we had a good chat.

The next day she sent me an e-mail which included a message she sent to my Manager and Director about what a wonderful job I had done and she really gave me a wonderful compliment. I thanked her profusely and it made me feel good inside.

That is the only "feel good" I am going to get. Knowing that the client "treasured" my work. Because my Manager and Director chose to totally ignore the e-mail. They have not said one word to me about it.

It just kind of makes you wonder if you received any other nice compliments from other school districts who just didn't tell you directly, but sent it on to the Manager/Director and they ignored those, too.

I will tell you this. If my Manager/Director gets an angry e-mail, I hear about that one plenty.

Crap

This acronym is all the buzzword around the education meetings these days. In Ohio, at least. Backwards is pretty much how I see it.

Technology is in an uproar because of all the demands the state is making on schools to be able to support the testing that is going to be coming our way. The idea is for thousands of students to take an on-line test at the same time and I know - school networks are unprepared to handle the load.

It is a serious sh!t-storm. The arguing back and forth is depressing to hear. The demands on school networks will be intense. I've read where one panel discussion at a PBS station almost needed to call security.

A statement from one state that has already tried it:  Thousands of students experienced slow loading times of test questions, students were closed out of testing in mid-answer, and some were unable to log in to the tests.

It can't be easy for education departments to make the rules and standards but 'wow'. This one seems to take the cake.

Little blockhead

It took me three tries, but I finally was able to get this picture to post.

My nephew tortures his little girl with pictures that will come back to haunt her in the future.

In my mind

When I was in my twenties, I thought it was pretty cut and dry. Decisions. How you chose to live your life, etc... I was confused and angry at women who remained in a violent environment.

As I grew older, became wiser (I hope) and read more, I came to understand a bit more about how the human mind works. About strength. I used to think that women who remained in this situation were weak until one day I thought "Maybe they are really, really strong!?"

I am so fortunate to have instilled inside my brain (as puny as it may be) the audacity to be independent and to stand up for my rights. Maybe not in everything all the time - but enough to matter.

My sister is a victim of verbal abuse. Fortunately, there is no physical (except one time many years ago). Verbal abuse is just as ugly and it tears away at your psyche on a daily basis until you don't know who you are any longer and you don't know up from down, night from day.

I believe it is a form of brain washing and victims are left so confused they no longer can make decisions for themselves. Especially when your genetic make-up was one where that was a weak area, anyway.

So, the above photo is lifted from the Internets, but it depicts pretty much how I feel when it comes to physical violence or verbal abuse in a relationship. I do not believe I know anyone (man or woman) who is the abuser (physical) in a relationship. I know they are out there, I am just glad I am not aware of it. I probably know plenty of verbal abusers and those who play mind games with their spouse. The subject seems to be taboo, whispered only with closest friends and trusted family members.

Don't even get me started on child or animal abuse. It will ruin my day for sure.

Barely here

I'm here. I'm just not posting, much. This little tyke above was surrounded by Christmas lights when his Mom snapped a photo. I added the dinosaur frame from picjoke.com - fun site.

I have a sister visiting and we are busy chatting, playing Words with Friends, watching movies and running around.

Stay warm out there.I may not post until February. I have a conference next week in Columbus (ugh). I hate staying away from home unless it is with my family.

Funny gag gift

First, let me apologize for the blurry photo. Taken with my cell phone at a work party and my hand was not very steady. (no alcohol involved, we ARE an education institution after all) but plenty of laughter and just plain jitters.

We were to purchase a "gag" gift for five dollars and take to the party. I thought this one was particularly creative. The gal opened her gift and it was a pack of batteries and as she moved the tissue paper aside on the bottom of the box it says "Gift not included."  Loved it!

I do not have any excuse for not posting very much. I guess I just have hit another dry spell. My posting is motivated by my need to put something down, so I guess I'll just have to wait for inspiration or until my feelings prompt me to write.

Wake me when it's over

Or when it's dinner time. Whichever comes first.  My cat seems to be  hiding from the cold spell. I would too, but duty calls. Yes, a lot of schools closed but most of them in my area released early on Monday, closed Tuesday and are starting late today.

We have a balmy 8º Fahrenheit this morning. That is outside. Hell, I remember when the kitchen in my house was a balmy 8º.  Not a lie. I was using the refrigerator thermometer on the kitchen counter. January 1983, I believe.

I have been reading books I received for Christmas and was shocked to find that I have not read my blog list in days! Yikes. So many are writing such thought-provoking posts, too. I don't have time to go over all of them this morning and I want to research what they are saying and reply but time has run out.

Even though the schools are on a delay this morning, I need to get into the office a.s.a.p. I have  a tech set up to call me at exactly 10 o'clock (our time).

One tech came to work on equipment at 2:30 Monday afternoon and did not leave until 6 p.m. That was the day the temperature dropped all day and it was 13º outside. I wanted to go home and stay there. I don't know what took him so long (he didn't say). Usually they only take an hour to do this job. Ugh!

No fanfare

Just a nice smooth transition into the new year. No fuss, no mess. No big expectations, just another new year. A few new faces this year. Nobody in dire straits. I have a few days off and am enjoying them. Being lazy but getting a bit antsy today. I have the hammer but cannot find the nail size I want. Will venture out to the garage to see if I can find some there. Watch out. May be some hammering going on.

All the men folk in the house run! Lady of the house has a hammer. This can't be good. They escape to the gym. 

No drooping

Well, you can't really droop and climb these steps. That is what I had to do yesterday. I met the tech at the Admin office which is a building across the street to this school. The wiring closet in this school had the tech equipment I needed to work on.

Sigh. And, they were not as bad as I thought. The tech was a slim lady. Older than me (maybe, I can't tell any more) but very slim. She had trouble unlocking the doors so that gave me a chance to catch my breath.

Once inside I had to squeeze past a desk area that was about seven inches wide. Fortunately just my legs had to do the squeezing. And at the same time try not to snag any cables on my body and unplug something. (I got stuck in this closet area once before and did not want a repeat.)

I got the job done - so glad. A lot of techs like to perform upgrades and changes when there are no students and staff in the building.

My back hurt me all during the night and this morning. Not certain if the steps were the reason or not. I did no heavy lifting that I can think of. Usually I have to carry very heavy technology equipment into the building and doing that with those steps would have really done me in. I had nothing yesterday except for pen and paper and my car keys. Didn't even take my cell phone in.

Dragging

It is off to work for me this morning. Dragging.

My dry erase board

My daughter drew the red part months ago and I drew the green picture right afterwards. It has remained on the dry erase board but does not look as fresh.

It will help me on days like then when I have to go in to work. I will probably be alone in there as the office I work out of - they are closed. I also work on Friday. Grumble, grumble.

There are no schools in session - well, one vocational school that I am traveling to today to switch them over to an upgrade. I hope it goes smoothly.

It just works out like this sometimes.

A sunset

This one was taken in October. When we went to the winery for the pumpkin chunkin and the T-Rex that ate cars. People kind of look like zombies just walking around the big field carrying their small children.

On my way out to another busy day today.

What the heck?

So there I am last Saturday after the family party. I plug my phone into my computer (as I have for a couple of years) to pull the pictures off of the SD card. What? The computer no longer recognizes my phone. Kaput. Nothing. I mess with it for a while and then I just open the phone, pull out that tiny SD card and plug it into a multi-port card reader that I had purchased a while back. I got the pictures that way.

The next day, I am thinking - I am going to fix my phone. I work with it. I fiddle with this, with that. I google the problem. I followed one post's advice. Something about changing the phone Settings from Mass storage to Media Sync.

It didn't happen right away. In fact I think it took 12  hours. But lo and behold, I started getting e-mail messages from 2012. A slew of them. There were old 2012 messages that went to co-workers, friends and family. What the hell?

A few who did not read the date were confused. They contacted me and said "What is going on?" I sent a mass e-mail to all my contacts explaining what had happened and to "ignore" any old messages they may get from me.

But, what I got was another story. I can recall a time when I would take pictures with my phone and share (send) it to my e-mail account. I have one in gmail and my regular roadrunner accounts. I never received them so I would send them different ways. Nothing. I finally was able to share some through facebook, others I had to wait until I got home to my PC and pull them off my phone that way.

I must have received twenty old images. It made me smile. The above photo is one such image. Remember a while back when I did the hot sauce episode (for about a month?). I looked it up, it was March 2012. If you click on the "hotsauce" label you can read all my posts about hotsauce.

 At one point I went back to the same store and snagged more photos. The one posted above is from that trip.

Some interesting reading on hot sauces:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoville_scale

http://www.chilliworld.com/factfile/scoville_scale.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_sauce

A warm holiday glow

The restaurant knows how to decorate, I'll give it that. We had our annual family dinner last evening. The weather caused a few concerns, but all showed plus two extra. Wow. I had called the restaurant earlier stating that we may have some cancellations so they cut our table size down to twenty. I then had 23 adults, 5 children and 3 tiny babies show up. It got crowded - again.

The games were kind of sloppy. I was not organized at all. There were fewer gifts (lack of funds). The kids wanted more, more, more and I felt inadequate. 

And the chicken was rubber. I should have ordered the steak.

But I got to see all the little tiny ones. From 7 down to one month old. Two brothers did not show. They spent the evening with their fire department/town hall Christmas parties.

The roads were a mess. I had put two brand new tires on my car that morning. I had been to that restaurant last week (just to check it out) and driving home was quite a feat with two bald, front tires. I was  more prepared yesterday. Much better. My pocket book did not need the extra expense this close before the holiday but when does a car care about that? Never.

A little warmth

Picking a photo with some heat in it today. Naturally, this photo is from this past summer. This is my grand nephew. (or, great nephew - depending on which you prefer to use).  As his daddy says "Keep him out of the sun, his skin is translucent."

I have the family Christmas dinner this evening. Only 26 are coming. About ten fewer than last year. I can't find my games. I think they are on my computer at work. I saw my work desk this week for five minutes maybe.

Wednesday and Thursday I spent with a tech from California. Ugh. Every minute together almost (for the work day). My head was ready to explode with a migraine by Thursday afternoon. It took me all of Friday (a vacation day) to recover. I call this having to stay "turned on" - as in my brain. Riding in the car together, having lunch together both days - with no other co-worker to help me keep up the conversation. I know a ton of stuff about his family and friends.

He is a tech trying to sell me on this new appliance for our network. I just don't like to spend that much time with a "stranger". Trying not to offend in my conversations, etc... It was a serious drain on my brain. Fortunately, I kissed the blarney stone at one point in my life (not literally, I have not been to Ireland). But all that chatter and thinking give me a fitful headache.

Edit:  YAY! I just remembered my "older" laptop is in the trunk of my car and I think my Christmas games are on it. :)

Well, heck.

I guess I've been too busy to post. Ah, wait. I know what it is.Work is busy, my brain is drained and by the time I get home I have lost any sense of making any sense to put anything into words. I have been off now for three days and I am starting to climb back up and out of that dark hole.

Here is a photo of my nephew's little baby. Almost six months old. And the apple of his eye by far.

Somali Piracy

I watched the movie "Captain Phillips".  T Hanks comes through as usual. Wonderful actor, just wonderful. I was crying at the end (or teared up anyway).

Of course I had to research the real story.

Spoiler Alert! Not a lot, but a bit.

Two things. Captain Phillips (to me) neglected to heed the warning of keeping his ship 600 miles from the coast of Somalia. He was 240 miles when they were overtaken by the pirates. All ships were advised to stay 600 miles away. Perhaps the pirate ships were not capable of going that far out to sea. Hence - some crew members are suing.

Second - me thinks that the pirate (Muse) has a much better life in a federal prison in the United States than he would have - had he stayed and lived in Somalia. Photo above is lifted from the Internets - typical family conditions in Somalia.

I guess I'll add another tidbit of information. It appears to have escalated (the piracy) when big tankers dumped waste into the waters killing the fish and the local fishermen had no way to make a living so they turned to piracy. As usual, things got out of hand quickly when greed takes over.