Slog Blogging and Time Travel

I have been remiss about posting about my trip, but I'll get there. In the meantime,
I saw this in a bathroom in Manitou Springs, Colorado and felt like I had time traveled 
to about 30 years ago.

Rocky Mountain Hi!

I'm posting this from the hotel "Business Library." It's just a little room with two computers and one of them is out of order. I shouldn't complain though. Anything is better than My Sweetie's laptop. Everyone knows I hate laptops or notebooks or whatever people call them. Or are those different things? Who cares? Not me.
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Anyway it's not so bad. Fleetwood Mac is playing behind me in the lobby. No, the band is not in there. I mean on the hotel's "Muzak." But about the trip....
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First I have to say how very very different it is taking a road trip east and taking a road trip west. Going west, there are no trees, few bathrooms, and very little else. There is lots of nothing for long stretches of times. At least going east, there are trees. There are also many, many more towns. Going east I mean. West? Not so much.
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We got lucky at our first stop in Amarillo. Our hotel room actually had an outdoor space. And lots of restaurants to choose from to walk to. This one here in Colorado, nope. But, the room is much cooler (temperature wise, most certainly not the other) and it is so close to my daughter's house, it's crazy. I can't believe I hadn't seen her in almost 3 months. We had a great dinner together but we (My Sweetie mostly) were really tired and kept it short.
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Sunday should be great: Rested up, and also I told everyone I was having some mother/daughter time. I didn't come all this way for group activities. We are going to hang together for a few hours. I'm really looking forward to that. After being in such proximity with me for 48 hours, I bet My Sweetie is looking forward to the break also. It's late, but the adventure continues.....

So after a week of making lists and trying to get organized, we are about to head out on our road trip to Monument, Colorado. I can't believe I haven't seen my daughter since May. I'm really looking forward to the road trip with My Sweetie and celebrating my daughter's 28th birthday (a little early). I haven't been to Colorado since 1988. And the icing on the cake is going to be the 25° temperature drop.
I don't think I've ever been chilly in August in my entire life. I can't wait to see what that will feel like. I'll probably annoy everyone within hearing distance by strutting around and waving my arms while loudly proclaiming, "WOW! It's August and It's chilly!"
I'll take lots of pics and hopefully have lots of stories to tell. But be warned: I may just do a whole post about how I was chilly in August.

Salt? Is It Just Me?

It grosses me out to see people salt their food before they eat it. I may have posted about this before, but it still boggles my mind. I do not salt anything after it has been cooked except baked potatoes and boiled eggs. Why are people adding all that salt? I don't even own a salt shaker. My brother brought a salt shaker to our beach cottage this past May because he knew I wouldn't have one, and almost everyone, except us, used it. When I told my neighbor that I add fresh ground pepper to the mayo when I make a sandwich, she said she also adds salt. I don't get it. I have kosher salt that I use for cooking and that's it. I feel insulted when people salt the food I have prepared. It was salted already!  Is it just me? Does everyone salt everything?

Friday Odd

Wednesday night I discovered that Freddy likes fresh-cut pineapple and Thursday night I found that he also likes pesto-tossed three cheese tortellini. I'm thinking if he gets eaten by a bobcat, it will be the oddest tasting possum that bobcat ever ate.

An Olympics Wonderment

It seems weird to me that India, a country with maybe 52 trillion people, has only 4 Olympic medals so far. I guess they are really not into sports.

Again With The Stupid Wave Cycle

And this is why I have a blog: To keep up with stuff. I'm glad I posted about my bad hair wave cycle because it is back. I looked it up and I posted about it on March 27th. So now I know it takes 4 months for my hair to grow in a full circle. Ha! So that means those circles on the floor when I got my hair cut that time was four months of growth. Now I'm just thinking out loud. Thinking out loud? More like thinking with my two index fingers, which is how I type. So really all this means is that my hair is stupid again and now that I've kept up with it, I realize that I will have stupid hair 3 times a year. I think it usually is really bad for about two weeks each time. So that means I have stupid hair about six weeks a year. That kinda bites. I'm not great at math but I think it works out that when I die, I will have spent one ninth of my life with idiot hair. Oh well...I guess there are worse things.

Answering VioletSky

In the comment section a few posts back, VioletSky posted the above. First of all I didn't understand the question and second of all, there are three question marks. All I had said was that I was looking forward to planning the snacks for my road trip.
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Doesn't everyone do that? We will be in the car all day. You have to have snacks. Plus that will be our lunch as we will be leaving late morning. Road snacks require thought. You have to have food that does not have particles that adhere to the fingers and then transfer to the steering wheel. For example: Ruffles (greasy), Rice Krispie treats (sticky), Cheetos (orange powdery mess).
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I plan to make finger sandwiches of roast beef and horseradish cheddar. I will have grapes and strawberries and pretzels. All of these foods are relatively residue-free. Carrot sticks are also good. So yes, VioletSky, I do plan my road trip snacks. At least for the first day.

Deep Thoughts (geewits style)

~~I imagine that politicians running on the platform of "I will go to Washington and fight the president" would have been considered treasonous in many eras.
~~I wish Walter Cronkite was still around to set everyone straight.
~~I think the reason religious people (any religion) get so riled up if you are not with them is because your non-belief makes them doubt.
~~I think it is really weird to mix meats from different animals unless it is on a sandwich.
~~But not seafood.
~~What if all of our climate troubles have been caused by all the stuff we sent to space? Maybe when each rocket poked a hole through our layers of atmospheres, all the good stuff got sucked out into the vacuum of space.
~~That would suck.
~~The word "treasonous" up there doesn't look like it was spelled right.
~~I think the real hardest part of getting old is realizing how stupid most young people are.
~~I think it's sad that some old people have lived a very long time and are still stupid.
~~I think I just realized that people are stupid at every age.
~~I wish people would stop being stupid.
~~Some songs are better than others and people who prefer the other songs just have bad taste.
~~I think people who are "followers" don't realize that they are.
~~I think the greatest invention of all time was air conditioning, followed closely by youtube.
~~I wish Snoopy were real and would come over and have a beer with me.
~~I wish teletransportation were a possibility although I would always have a fear of getting a giant fly head.
~~I think I should wrap this up. 

I Have Name Dementia

I've gotten really really bad with names. I just finished watching "Design Star" on HGTV. I watched every show. The lady I wanted to win won. I was so happy, I shed a few happy tears with her. I know her show will start on August 4th and the name of the show will be "Shop This House," but I can't for the life of me think of her name. I can remember only one name of all the other contestants, and it is only because it was a weird name: Bex. I find it seriously disconcerting that I can't remember the winner's name. But I'm really glad she won. And I will watch her show. Maybe after a few episodes, her name will enter my brain. And stay there.

On Possums and My Latest "Hapnins"

Jeff Musial was on Jimmy Fallon tonight. He's the animal guy. The first animal he brought out was a possum. He was all "Most people only see these on the side of the road. People rarely see possums just going about their business." I was all, Really? I must live in Possum Kingdom! (ha ha! That's a funny local joke because we have a lake in the area called Possum Kingdom.) I am still feeding our possums every night as well as putting out fresh water. It's like a sideshow on our front porch that we watch while we are watching TV.

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My Sweetie finally picked some days he could take off so we can go see my daughter in August. Although he could not take off for her actual birthday, we will be there just a few days before. I'm looking forward to seeing her. I haven't been to Colorado since maybe 1989 or maybe 1990. I am also looking forward to roadtripping with My Sweetie and enjoying cooler temps. I 've already made all the hotel reservations and am looking forward to planning the road snacks.

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My brother's daughter, the "found " daughter that we all discovered in 1999 when she was almost 18, recently posted some pictures of her son. He's almost 11. Mom pointed out that he reminded her of me. I think she was talking about this picture.:

That was my fourth grade picture, so I was 9. I never noticed, until I had the picture on my computer tonight, that I have that whole Mona Lisa/ I have a secret thing going on. The reality was, my top second right incisor was coming in oddly and there was no way in hell I was going to show that. The photographer was doing everything he could to get me to grin. Well that's all he got and I like it. The picture was taken in 1970. Doesn't that sound like a million years ago?

True Confessions

When I was about 7, I found some pulp magazines in my parents' room. One of them was True Confessions. (I found out years later, the reason my parents had them was because one of their friends had had several stories published in them so, they were not true, nor were they actual confessions.)  Two things stand out to me about those magazines: One, I thought the word "body" meant torso. So when these bodies were dumped in a ditch or found in the woods, I thought the head, legs and arms had been chopped off. I wondered why murderers always took the time to do all that horrid work.
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Two, I learned the word "lesbian." The first line of one story was, "There is a sign above my jail cell with the word Lesbian spelled out in large letters." Then the woman making this "confession" went on to say that her only crime was that she loved women. So I read that and I'm thinking, Well I love my mother and my granny. Am I a lesbian? Will I go to jail? As I read on, I realized it was not that simple. She explained that she loved women in the place of men, and it was probably a little bit graphic.
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I remember thinking that was the craziest thing I had ever heard, so of course the next time I played with my barbies, I had two of the girl barbies be lesbians. Maybe I was quietly observed by Mom, because I finally got that Ken doll I had been asking for.

The Summer of Mice

I will always think of the summer of 2012 as "The Summer of Mice." Barney just brought in his third mouse so far. The first one was paralyzed from the waist down. (I guess mice have waists.) The second mouse was dead. This third mouse, the one he brought in about 45 minutes ago, was just playing possum. I was freaked out, but thought it was dead.  I yelled at Barney and he ran back outside. I went to get the mouse and it moved. I woke up my husband and when he tried to get the mouse, it darted away. So now we have an angry traumatized mouse loose somewhere in our house. Yuck. The good news is Barney has come back inside. I hope he finds it.

In Absentia de Posti

I don't know why I haven't been posting, but I have some ideas: 1) Blogger has been really wanky and it was taking me like five steps to get to "new post." 2) Summer here is so hot you kind of have to be really still for long amounts of time or you will die. 3) Going back to Wanky Blogger, it has changed the way it does your pictures and I haven't bothered to figure it out. You know, because it's so hot. But I have been actually doing stuff.
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We went to another Texas Rangers baseball game and the beer man set down his beer tray right next to me and walked off:

Apparently this guy was not born with good instincts, because I was so excited by the ice and the beer. I said "ice" first because it was about 1000 degrees hot. I accidentally captured my foot in the photograph and you can see my latest summer cute toesies. I have white asian flowers on my big toes.

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I was really proud of myself for not grabbing that stuff. I was also pretty proud of myself for my planning. I took a cute misting bottle. I bought a water, and filled my mister and used the rest to wet a small Texas Rangers towel. It really helped to keep us cool. A fellow fan saw me and said, "Wow! That was smart!"  Besides the tray of beer, I didn't take another pic until we were leaving and looking back:

I've developed a very good habit of going out to water my flowers FIRST THING AFTER WAKING.  In past summers, I always had good intentions with my flowers but.... well I was not very consistent. In my older age wiseage, I realized that the coolest I will be all day is when I first wake up. Yeah, you're thinking after dark but that's when the mosquitoes from hell come out and when you are just one big walking nerve-ending and mosquitoes love you, after dark is not such a good idea.

And my plan has worked for both myself and my flowers. Plus I imagine I am producing much more vitamin D for myself than in summers past. My last pic is a sidewalk shadow picture:

I have randomly taken ground shadow pictures over the years and I really love them, but I've never particularly sought them out. I really should pay more attention.

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We have a road trip planned for August. I'm looking forward to visiting my daughter in Colorado. Other than that I will be trying to stay cool and hopefully I will have something to say here. I do like to chabble (chat and babble). Oh and excuse my blatant abuse of pretend foreign languages in my title. Sí?

Typicality of Men

(Before I start my post, the fires are being contained near my daughter's house in Colorado. Although she was packed and prepared, she did not have to evacuate. I'm very proud of how well she held up.)
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As to the title of this post, I think it's funny that most Americans think they are unique. You know, it's the whole, Oh, I am not a stereotypical anything! But people generally are.
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I am friends with a bunch of guys my age on facebook and I have noticed a trend. And of course I should mention that these particular guys are all around the age of 51. Well, guess what pictures they are all posting? Yep, you guessed it: sports cars. Sports cars they are rebuilding, sports cars they just bought, sports cars they admire, sports cars they are thinking of buying.
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I bet money every single one of them, as youths, laughed at middle-aged men and their sports cars. And yet...and yet, here they are doing the same exact thing. I am so glad my husband is not like that. Of course he's got a few years to go to even reach 50. And come to think of it, I'd rather he trade in his car for a flashier model than trade in his wife. But I bet he'll do neither. Fortunately, he really isn't typical.

The Colorado Fires

My daughter was evacuated from work today. The fires have already consumed housing near the Air Force Academy. I'm worried sick about what is happening up there. I hope something can be done to control these fires.

Some Random Pictures

I made this for my new facebook profile. My stupid short hair is finally growing out just in time for 100° weather . Yay me. They say timing is everything.

I made this artsy picture of my brother, nephews and myself from the beach trip in May. I really like it, but I sort of wish I had put the horizon straight. It looks like the ocean is all pouring towards the equator.

Freddy the possum brings his sister around every once in a while. My Sweetie named her "Ginger." It's funny but when I named Freddy I wasn't thinking about Fred Astaire.

Basic Math

Sentimentality + Memory Like An Elephant = Bad Combination For Clearing Out Closet.
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I decided to really go for it in my closet and took out the entire row of shirts hanging on the short sleeve rack. I did a good job. I didn't put too many back. As I folded each shirt to place in the giveaway box, I visualized events of when I wore each one. I had many thoughts like this:
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Oh, I remember this from the beach.
I loved wearing this in Vegas.
Eww, I wore that on that horrible trip.
I can't believe I ever wore this.
I wish this still fit.
What was I thinking?
I wish this one wasn't so short.
I remember wearing this in New Orleans.
Oh, I loved this shirt!
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It seemed like every shirt had a story. I think the charity that I am giving them to should make a pretty penny. And I hope the new owners make some good memories in them.
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Fighting Sentimentality + Determination = Cleaner Closet

Best Tongue Twister Ever!

I just came up with my greatest tongue twister of all time:
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Brown Baboon, Black Baboon.
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I can't even say it twice slow.

YUK!

Friday was so horrible I can't even talk about it yet. I am busy working on getting my joy back. I've never wanted to shoot someone in the throat before. It was really horrible. Hopefully, I'll get back to feeling like myself and I'll be able to tell the story. I hope everyone I've ever liked had a far better Friday than I had. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

The Alternate Universe of My Life

I was in the shower yesterday and I was going over scenarios in my head, like what my life would have been like if Dad had not become unhappy with his job in Goldsboro. If he had never applied at the insurance company. If we had never moved when I was 12. I was trying to picture what the rest of junior high would have been like and then high school and where I may have gone to college. It was really weird. I think I would have been a cheerleader and high school president. And I would have been a big honking small town hick. Maybe once I got to college I would have started to turn into the person I became, but who knows?
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So then I asked myself, What's the point of these thoughts? What a waste of time. Then I laughed at myself and thought, Think of it as a form of Fan Fiction. Creative writing, if you will. It was all very strange. I'm just really really glad Dad became dissatisfied with his job. And I'm really really glad he applied for the insurance job and I'm SUPER glad they hired him and sent him to another town. It's fascinating how everyone's moments change the course of history. I don't think about these things too often, but just enough to be grateful for how they played out.

June Musings:2012 Version

 That's a pic of my brother doing some chalk art of a sea serpent on the beach cottage deck. We all go crazy with that chalk. And then when someone forgets and sits against one and wears it on their shirt, we all have a good laugh at them. I did one on purpose. I wrote: NO! backwards and then sat against it.
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The WW2 veteran and his wife who lived next door are gone. They have moved into an assisted living community. The house will go on the market next week. They were the ones that owned Barky Barkerson, the dog that could bark nonstop for 8 hours. They had found a new home for Barky about 6 months ago, so we've had 6 months of blissful peace. I've run through every possible bad scenario for new neighbors. I hope I am wrong on all of them.
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Speaking of neighbors: An orphaned baby possum has been hanging around my front porch. He's really cute:

I keep a water dish out there and put some cat food out sometimes, but the reality is, I'm probably just fattening him up for the bobcat to eat.
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There are so many projects I'd like to tackle, but with only one good arm, I haven't done anything. I know myself well enought to know that I would probably reinjure my shoulder. I wish I had a dollar for how many times I have already said, "Oops. I probably shouldn't have done that."
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So that's June so far. I will be keeping an eye on the house next door. I hope I get decent neighbors.

The Crocodile Slideshow

I had a spectacular vacation. As you can see, my sand sculpture was the best ever and that's because it was a group effort. It's about a 12 foot crocodile (although all the admirers called it an alligator) and we had a blast doing it and loved the responses from people walking on the beach. Our croc actually frightened a few small children. I have bunches of pictures and will probably post them later.
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We had a much larger cottage this year and had the most visitors ever. I think there were 12 people there on Sunday (the 20th). The very best thing about this cottage was the built-in bench on the deck which you can see behind me through the window in the top picture. You never had to think about having enough chairs for people.
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My friend Lo took a lot of pics of the bunch of us out on the deck on that Sunday but she hasn't sent them to me yet. I can't wait to see those. We had great weather and no neighbors on either side. Yeah, that's bad for the economy but it was great for us. And we were a rambunctious group.
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I had so much fun playing games. I learned a new drinking game and it was really funny. I actually laughed so much on several different days that my face hurt. Anyway, I'll have a lot more to say this week about the trip and about how weird and needy Barney has been since we got back. And as much fun as I had, it is always nice to be back home.

Extremes

So today I hugged my daughter and watched her drive off to take up residence in Colorado. And my plane leaves in just under 12 hours to take me to our beach vacation. My moods have been all over the place. Up down up down. But I'm going to the beach! Yay!

Praying to the Tiger?

Every night when I go to bed, I get all comfy and then I say my "Thank you" prayers. I always start with "Dear God....." So last night I was getting all cozy and I realized my little white tiger wasn't positioned right in my hand. It's the little white tiger My Sweetie got for me when I had my shoulder surgery in February. I was trying to get it in the right position and I smiled thinking that just recently I had told My Sweetie that I had not named it (I name everything). So he said, "His name is Al." I was smiling and thinking about that and trying to get my arm positioned correctly. When everything was just right, I settled down, relaxed, and started my prayer. Except I said, "Dear Al...."

Not In The Moment

There's a great saying about not living in the past or the future but in the NOW. I can't think just now what it is, because I am not living in the now. Maybe if I went into the past, I could find it. All I'm doing now, is thinking about what I will be doing a week from now. And I will be doing that all week. I'm doing it right now. A week from now I will be asleep with the window raised just a bit so the sounds of the ocean can wash over my soul.

Oh Well....

I'm terribly disappointed in my home state of North Carolina for passing amendment 1. But now I'm glad I don't live there anymore. What a bunch of rednecks.

Transitions

So my daughter and her husband dropped all their furniture and most other belongings as well as one of their cars off at their place in Colorado and are back here for the month being nomads. They are staying with friends for short stints and so Leaper is staying with me for the month. He's a funny friendly cat and he is highly addicted to catnip. Which no one knew, so now he thinks I'm the cat's pajamas, so to speak.
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I've had a pretty lazy afternoon which I spent most of on the phone with Mom. My brother called us "The Girls' Club" last Friday because A) He had no idea what was going on with my daughter except for what he saw on facebook and B) Mom had not told him that she got an all clear at her last bladder screen (she has bladder cancer). So at the end of today's phone call with Mom, I said, "And this concludes this meeting of The Girls' Club." Mom laughed. Maybe I should have recorded the minutes of the meeting to send to my brother.

Life Changes

My Daughter is moving to Colorado. Her move starts tomorrow. She will be back again Saturday night or early Sunday for more stuff and expects to be at the beach cottage with us in just over three weeks, but it all starts tomorrow.
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If you are wondering why I hadn't mentioned it before, it's because it all happened rather suddenly. I mean not like yesterday, but maybe just two or three weeks ago. An opportunity came up and she took it.
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I am happy for her and think she (they) will be much happier there, but you know....  Well it's going to be weird not having my daughter just 2 or 3 miles away. Oddly, every year when we are melting here, I tell My Sweetie: we should go to Colorado for the weekend just to cool off. But we never did. I guess we will now.

Beware Cats Bearing Gifts

I apparently walked right by that huge lizard a few times before I noticed it. It was in the hallway near my bedroom door. I didn't see it until I was walking out with the sheets to wash. Then I shrieked and ran back into the room. I was panicky and called my husband and told him I was trapped in the bedroom. He laughed.
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I got the golf club and the cat gate and used those to shore myself up to get by the lizard and then I went outside and called my neighbor. I was really freaking out. You would think I had a velociraptor in my house. I felt like I had a velociraptor in my house.
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Carole came over, cool as a cucumber. I handed her a large plastic storage bin and a broom and she swept that creepy thing into the bin. I shakily handed her the lid and she popped it on. She could tell it was injured and felt sorry for it and I was just: GET. IT. OUT.
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It's pretty obvious that the only way it could have gotten in the house was through the pet door in Barney's mouth. I guess he brought it to me as a gift. No thank you, Barney.
But thank you Carole. A lot!

Happy Birthday to ME!

Wow. I had way too much fun this weekend and probably killed half a million brain cells. We did the furniture shopping on Sunday but delivery will take 4 to 8 weeks. I hate delayed gratification. But I guess I'll have to live with it. I hope my brain heals.

A Woman's Prerogative......

My Sweetie was in Seattle earlier this week on business. He called me and gave me a budget number and asked if I could get the living room furniture I want with that and if I would be happy with that as a birthday present. Well, yeah! So I immediately thought: Forget Scarborough Fair, I want to go furniture shopping on Saturday! Then every time I watched the weather forecast all week, it would drop a few degrees for Saturday. It magically dwindled from 77° to 74° to 72° to 69° and always sunny.
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And of course I would think: But that sounds like such nice weather to be outside at Scarborough Fair. On the other hand, since I had decided to ditch that, I had added the $100 we would spend there to the furniture budget. Because that's how I roll.
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Then Wednesday afternoon I went to the grocery store after my physical therapy and as I'm walking around, that creepy saleslady voice came on the sound system. She freaks me out because she always starts out with, "Hi ya'll, it's Kathy Yates and...." And she always says it like we are all old friends and she's being really really helpful. She usually says stuff like, "Hi ya'll, it's Kathy Yates. Are you ready for Easter/Christmas/Superbowl Sunday/The Fourth? Right now we have ham/turkey/party platters/hot dogs on special!" But this time when she came on she talked about Scarborough Fair and said they had discount tickets.
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Synchronicity! My brain was all: Is this a message from the universe that I should go to Scarborough Fair instead of furniture shopping? Logic interceded and I realized that the saleslady voice in the grocery store was not the universe speaking to me. I have obviously watched too many goofy romantic comedies.
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Oh yeah, so what I was going to say was that I changed my mind about the renaissance festival and am going furniture shopping instead. It's my birthday and I can change my mind. I really really want new furnure.

Long Time No See

I finally decided on something to do for my birthday. We're going to Scarborough Faire. We haven't been in years, and I used to go all the time. And now that I think about, I remember why we haven't been back: It was insanely hot. And muggy with no breeze at all. We felt horrible. It must have been in the 90's.
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The extended forecast is guessing that this Saturday will be sunny and 77°, so it should be a lot more fun. Also that's the same weekend as Fort Worth's Main Street Arts Festival so I'm hoping that might put a dent in the Scarborough Faire crowd.
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I have so many fun memories from there. I'll try to dig out some old pictures this week. I even dressed up a few times. And one year my friend had a booth (shoppe) there with a private upstairs room. That was really cool. Anyway, so that's what I decided to do and I'm really looking forward to it. It's not often you get to drink a cold beer surrounded by Renaissance whimsy and watch a lady in costume playing a hammered dulcimer. Hear, hear!

This Post Is Not About Baseball

Yes it looks like this post is about baseball, but I am just creating a diversion. It's about photography. I am not, nor have ever considered myself to be any type of a photographer. I took one great picture in the early 90's of my daughter and second husband in a park with the St. Louis Arch in the background. It was a really good. I had an 11" by 18" print made and it was in our living room. I gave it to him.
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I believe this is my second best picture. Or maybe it ties with that other one. I think the definition of a good photograph is how much time you spend looking at it. I love a picture that makes you feel or think. When I look at this one I see all the tension. This photo is of a highly publicized BIG MONEY PITCHER throwing his first pitch of the season. I love the implied action, the tension, the colors. I think I did pretty well.

Nobody Dies Anymore

Have you noticed people stopped saying "died?" What's with that? Now people pass away like some ship in the distance or worse, they just "pass." Really? Fred passed yesterday? What? Did the grim reaper show up and ask Fred, "Do you want to keep living?" And Fred responded, "I'll pass."
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I've noticed when I say something like: '98? My dad died in '98, people sort of grimace or jump. And it's not because Dad died, it's because I said "died." I've said it before, but I think it bears repeating: People die. Everybody dies. It's such a basic fact of life, I don't understand why everyone feels the need to tiptoe around it. And changing the wording doesn't change anything.
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Another goofy one is "no longer with us." Really? Your grandmother is no longer with you? So now she's against you? Because everyone knows, If you're not with us, you're against us. No thanks. I'll pass.

Getting It Down

Since I haven't been posting much, I realized that I need to put some stuff on here since I consider my post to be a sort of life journal so here goes:
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I started back with Meals on Wheels two Fridays ago and they had almost doubled my route and had some really stupid instructions on a few of them and so my two Fridays so far were both unpleasantly eventful. I'm glad I have this next one off (Good Friday).
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I really like my new physical therapist. I like the people and the location.
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I spent 10 or 15 minutes trembling in abject terror in a closet on Tuesday while the center of a rotating storm - that had already produced a few tornadoes - moved over my house. It was so loud and there was so much banging and shaking it felt (and sounded) like I was inside a closet inside a moving freight train rail car that was next to an airplane. The good news is that no skylights were broken. The picture at the top is hailstones all over my deck. There by the hose, it looked like someone had dumped out an ice chest.
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I discovered a cool secret bar today in the back of a cigar store. Nothing outside of the cigar store or inside the cigar store gives even the slightest hint that there is a bar back there. I'm not even going to tell my daughter about it.
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Today is my husband's 45th birthday. He won't be home until almost 9pm, but I hope it's going to be fun.

How To Turn 51

I think this will be my first birthday in my entire life that I haven't made a plan for what to do. I think the birthday in that picture may have been the last one I didn't plan, or maybe I planned that one too. Mom was telling me the other day how odd (and easy) it was for her that she would come home from work one day and I would tell her that I was going to need potato chips and onion dip and a birthday cake. Of course she would always suggest ice cream, because she was old school and thought cake should be served with ice cream, but I never got that. Cake and ice cream together always seemed sort of redundant to me.
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I always gave her at least a week's notice. And there was nothing she could do to stop this train because by the time I gave her my list, I had already invited everyone. To me, my birthday was A BIG DEAL. Always a big deal. It was like Christmas, but all about me. And with cake (but not ice cream).
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I have many, many great memories of my birthdays past and I imagine that's because I always did make it a big deal. Heck, I think I spent about 18 months planning my last birthday. That's why it's so weird that I have nothing planned for this year. I was in Dominican Republic one year, on the local news (in Greensboro, N.C.) one year, at the beach with three girlfriends one year, camping with friends and family one year, watching the U.S. Olympic beach volleyball players in a tournament one year....and so much more.
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So why have I run out of things to do? Was I born with a 50 birthday limit? Am I just too preoccupied with going to the beach in May? Have I lost my creative spark? Did I just become dull and boring? Maybe I just can't figure out how to turn 51.

Friday Goofy

When the bartender first set that salad down, I thought I was falling over. I'm sure that pomegranate margarita was partially to blame.
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This next picture is for Jazz, because she wanted to know:

The Bad Wave Cycle + A Fun Road Trip

I clearly wasn't thinking clearly when I got all my hair whacked off. Which makes sense because when I become too hot, my brain does not work at peak capacity. When I met with the new physical therapist, he said I should be able to touch the top of my head soon. I was all, "Damn! If I had just waited a few more weeks, I'd still have my hair." But that's not the main issue. The main issue is I am going to go this afternoon to get a new driver's license. With this hair. A new driver's license with a new picture with this hair and not only that but I will probably have it for TEN years. The driver's license, I mean. Not the hair. And the very worst part is I am on a bad hair wave cycle.

I made a very rudimentary graph to show how curly hair grows. (I should have deleted the amplitude and displacement words but I guess I wasn't really paying attention.) The vertical green lines represent the hairline at the top of my forehead as viewed in profile. The red lines represent my hair growth cycle. My nose would be pointing out of my head in the same direction as the distance arrow.

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Line 1 represents where I am now. My hair is growing straight down my face and curling back upward. Line 2 is my good wave cycle where my hair is growing upwards and curling down. I have accepted the fact that I will have a bad driver's license photo, but I still want to whine about it.

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Fun News: On Saturday past, we did our goofy little road trip to Louisiana to buy Covington Strawberry Ale. It was a beautiful sunny 80° day. We left around 11:45. On one of My Sweetie's satellite radio stations they were playing Kasey Kasem's top 100 countdown from 1974. After about the first hour, it didn't even look like the Texas we know. East Texas is far greener and lusher and has pine trees, very similar to North Carolina.

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We went straight to the liquor store in Shreveport and when we walked in, there was a little dolly with three cases with my name on them. Literally. Just a mile or so down that same road on the way back we stopped at another liquor store that the distributor had mentioned and got another case. I hadn't even called those people so it was a nice surprise that they had a whole case.

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The whole trip took exactly 7 hours. We didn't even have to stop for lunch because I had packed roast beef sliders and strawberries and pretzels. It was a fun trip. Good company, nice scenery, good music and best of all, it was a unique experience. Oh, and now I have lots of strawberry ale. I'm drinking one right now and it is delicious.

Physical Therapy News

I wish I had run my hands through my hair before that picture was taken. I'm not crazy about the super short hair but I've been able to make it look decent. I was in a good mood, though.
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I haven't posted about my physical therapy because I hated it. There were many aspects that irked me to bits. It's a long grouchy story and I was full of salt and vinegar (and all the grouchy stories) when I went to my doctor today (Tuesday). But he nipped it in the bud. I told him one little thing and he said, "You should go to a different physical therapist, perhaps one closer to your home." I told him I already had an appointment for an hour later and he said, "Just cancel it."
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So that was it. I was all fired up with all my contained ire just dying to burst out and just like that, it was over. I felt oddly unfinished and yet quite relieved. I'm hoping I can get into one particular one. It would be ideal. I'll find out soon. That one is right by where I eat lunch on Fridays after Meals on Wheels and it would be nice to do all of that in one day.
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If I can't get into the Friday one, there's another one closer to my house that I can try. I'm looking forward to going to a new physical therapist. I just dread filling out new paperwork. I hate paperwork. I mean I really hate paperwork. That right there should tell you just how much I did not care for the physical therapist I had. To him I say, "...Oh wait. I don't want to say that here. It was a bit crude.

Aww, Hair No!

I mentioned before that I can't put my hair up. And neither can my husband:
Well, the weather has gotten warmer and warmer and so I had to forsake vanity for comfort and have most of my hair whacked off:

It had gotten pretty bad. I usually do quite a bit of trimming of my bangs and the hair around my face between haircuts and I had not been able to do that. I remember about a week or so ago thinking the top of my head looked like it had been possessed by Donald Trump. I was all "Aww, Hell No!" So I did what I had to do.

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I will try to get someone to take a pic of me soon. I have been bad about pictures lately. But at least I am not so hot anymore and thank god I don't look like Donald Trump in drag anymore.

Friday Puzzle: OGA

I do puzzle books all the time. I love word puzzles and cryptograms and other various ones. Today I had a really hard puzzle. I'm usually very competitive and never give up, but this one was too hard for me.
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The challenge was to form as many words as possible with OGA in them. The letters had to be in that order and together as shown, but anywhere in the word, i.e. beginning, middle, end. The puzzle writers had come up with 10. I was able to only come up with 4 before I gave up and looked up their answers. I felt pretty bad having only managed 4 words until I looked up their answers. I had written down a word that they had not! Go me! It made me feel a little better.
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Give it a try. (No plurals, foreign words or proper nouns.)

Pretty Food & Family Pictures

I really love it when food turns out pretty. My Home Ec teacher was Mrs. Tippett and she stressed color and color variety on a dinner plate. To this day when I make a bland plate where most of the food is the same color, I'll say, "Mrs. Tippett would not approve of this meal." I think she would have loved my tamales and avocado salad.
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Speaking of Mrs. Tippett, when I was a junior in high school, my friends got word of a big New Year's eve party at a house in town. I'm sure it was one of those parties that got out of hand and I'm sure the girl didn't mean for everyone in the world to show up. None of us knew her. The streets were jammed with cars and we had to park a few blocks away. I think there were seven or eight of us in our car. The house was jam packed and I remember finding an uncrowded room to escape to. It was one of those formal front living rooms that no one uses and I guess all the southern people there had been raised that way, because no one was in this room. Since my family never had the unused formal front room, I didn't have that ingrained aversion of such rooms. I was happy to be out of the throng.
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One wall had a batch of large family photos. I saw the girl whose party it was, because I recognized her from seeing her earlier in the kitchen. And then there she was in another picture with Mrs. Tippett! I realized she was Mrs. Tippett's little sister and for some reason it freaked me out. I was in Mrs. Tippett's parents' house partying like I was in the Delta Tau Chi house from Animal House! Suddenly I felt like I was committing some gross violation like I was robbing a bank or something. I spent the rest of my time there trying to round up my friends to GET OUT of THAT HOUSE.
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On the road very close to my house was a "slippery when wet" sign - it's a picture showing a car swerving - and in my foolish drunken state, I said, "Hey Tim! Didn't you see that sign? You're supposed to swerve." Well he did, we all laughed, he turned into my street and then we saw the blue lights. He pulled over and said, "You get out and say you were driving, since it's your fault I swerved." I was in the middle of the backseat! How would that be believable? Instead, I got out, walked back to the cop car and told the cops the stupid sign story, told them who my father was, dropped about five names of cops we knew, and told them where I lived and said that we were all going there to sleep for the rest of the night. Since we were now on what was basically a dead end road with my apartments at the end, the cops let us go. If they had known I had been partying at Mrs. Tippett's parents house I'm sure I would have gone to prison for six years. Just for that. But I try to make colorful meals, and maybe that's because I'm trying to make it up to Mrs. Tippett.

30 Days

As I write this very, very late on Sunday night (although many would call this Monday morning), it has been 30 days since my surgery. I have often bemoaned the ridiculously quick passage of time that happens after one reaches a certain age, but when it comes to post-surgery, I'm all for it.
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There are stages that you go through in post-surgery and that worst one was horrible but, it too, passed after a decent night's sleep. That very worst stage is a feeling of deep depression, but because my whole system is anti-THAT, it lasted just a few hours before I fell asleep. Plus I think I had some mild insanity from stopping the heavy pain killers, which I did pretty early. I remember one night, mashed into my pillow, on my back, of course, and feeling like my hair was attacking my head and was going to swallow my face. It was so overwhelming I was thinking I should get a buzz cut.
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Last Tuesday, I tied my shoes and was so proud like a four-year-old and was telling everyone, "I tied my shoes today!" Speaking of Tuesdays, that's when I do my physical therapy. The girl was working on turning my arm out and I told her my arm didn't do that much turning out to begin with and that I was far more interested in turning my arm in. I will never be fully independent again until I can hook my bra. My neighbor hooks my bra for me on Tuesdays (Thanks Carole!). And My Sweetie does it on the weekend when we go out.
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And we have gone out the last two weekends and it was nice to get out. I even got new shoes. It felt good to do normal stuff. I still have a long way to go to get full function in my left arm, but I can aways do a little bit more every day and I like that. Life is good and time passes and right now, time passing is not a bad thing.

I Made A Time Lapse Movie

I have a lot of time on my hands (or "hand" in my case) and was looking for something fun to do. It's hard to be very creative with only one working arm, but I came up with something:

Thought Points for This Day

Things I am thinking:

• When things take two to three times longer to do, time passes quickly.
  



• I do not think it is possible to put a pillowcase on a pillow with one arm.
  



• The site coordinator where I pick up my food on Fridays sent me a get well card. How can someone with whom I chat 10 to 15 minutes once a week, pick out a card so perfect for me that you would have thought it came from my Mom, daughter, or best friend?
  



• I was given 5 more exercises to do by the physical therapists and I like one of them so much I will probably do it for the rest of my life.
  



• I can drive just fine with one arm.
  



• Although My Sweetie can barely crack an egg or make a ponytail, he has been extraordinarily helpful.
  



• I no longer sleep wearing my sling and I can't begin to say how much I enjoy sleeping without that strap on my neck.
  



• I feel I am progressing very well and for that I am grateful.

first physical therapy today

my thumb has been achy so i'm not going to stretch my hand out doing shifting for caps. I just realized I can hit "caps lock" each time. Anyway, I discovered that i do not care for typing with one hand. my first physical therapy will be at 3:00 this afternoon. i have stopped taking all the pain meds excepy for my regular anti-inflammatory i was already taking for my thumb.
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i wanted my hair up on sunday so my sweetie did it for me and it was hilarious. i can't wait to show a picture. we laughed so hard our ribs hurt. also he has been doing most the of cooking with my instructions/supervision and that has been fun.
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i'm looking forward to finding out what the PT has to say. i hope i'm in good shape. i should be out of this sling on March 2nd. yay! more later.

A Fantastic Day!

Tuesday was a really great day and I can tell you: I certainly needed one. I got up and got as ready as I could and then My Sweetie came home and helped me finished getting dressed. There are a lot of things you can't do with one hand such as: hook your bra, tie your shoes, button your jeans. Also he brought me beautiful flowers because it also happened to be Valentine's Day. It felt good just to have on real clothes.

After we got in to see the doctor, a nurse pulled off the remaining bandages from my shoulder and snipped out the stitches. The doctor was pleased with my arm and told me I could remove the cushion part of my sling. That was great! The cushion part is the big bulky thing that also has the horrid waist strap. Taking that part off made me feel like a crazy FreeBird. I was so happy.

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We left the doctor's office and went for lunch at one of our favorite TexMex places. We had a terrific lunch and of course I had a Dos Equis. As we walked out, the gloom had broken and the sun was shining and it was mild and pleasant and I was so overjoyed, I looked up at the sky and beamed a "Thank you God for lifting my spirit!"

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I should back up a bit here and tell you that the weather has been HORRIBLE since my surgery. My mother has the weather data of everyone she knows on her home page and she told me that one of the last few days it was colder here than in Alaska (my niece lives there.) And cold is way worse when it's always dark and gloomy.

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Speaking of Mom, when My Sweetie brought me home, he went back to work, and after talking to my neighbor for a while, I called Mom. We had a long pleasant chat and I helped her with her crossword puzzle. I really enjoy things like that. It's tough seeing Mom only once or twice a year.

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My Sweetie came home and we had a nice simple dinner and watched our Detroit Red Wings make NHL history. After My Sweetie had gone to bed, and just before midnight, I had one last great thing: The Cranberries performed a new song from their first album in 10 years. I will have to get that CD when it comes out.

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So anyway, after 11 days of pain, gloom, irritation and sometimes exasperation, I had a really great day. And I will savor it for quite some time.

another post surgery update

I love that illustration that came on the sheet regarding my exercises. It looks like a Leaning Demon from "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" or something. I mean, I'm not bald and do my exercises topless while wearing white jazz shoes. Nor is my left arm as long as my legs. I don't know why, but I'm sort of fascinated by that picture.

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I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before how I do not like being "bound" in any way: How I remove my bra and shoes once I enter my house. And my jeans. I wear T-shirts and loose cotton house pants or shorts at home. So try to imagine my extreme discomfort of having this sling on for 223 and 1/2 hours. Not only is the thing on my neck and back, there is also a waist belt. And I still have 2 weeks and 2 and 1/2 days to go.

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And I'm tired of sleeping propped up. So, basically, I'm going through a phase of just trying to be cool about the little things that are starting to drive me insane. Other than that and the creepy black bruises, everything is good. I have my post-op appointment Tuesday morning. Yes, that is Valentine's Day. We are going to go out for lunch afterwards and that will be my first day out since the surgery. I'll let you know how all of that works out. Meanwhile, I will work on trying to ignore all these straps.

Post Surgery

I was in a pain/drug fog until Tuesday. That was the first day I felt like myself again. The surgery went well. They did three things: reattaching the one muscle that's the main rotator cuff thing, the distal clavicle excision and moving and reattaching my bicep.
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I have adapted pretty well. I have these little exercises that I have to do three times a day. I appreciate those because I understand the importance of them. I am able to take a careful shower. My Sweetie, as well as my daughter, has been very very helpful.
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For the last two days the shoulder blade behind the surgery has been very sore. I get
My Sweetie to massage it and I moan so much it is making our cat uncomfortable. I don't know why, but that amuses me a lot. And sleeping has not been an issue. So that's good.
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Anyway, I'm chugging along. Everything's okay.

Today They Cut Me

I guess we'll be leaving in about 30 minutes to go to the hospital.
How odd, but I can't think of anything at all to say.

Just Days Away...

Later this afternoon is my pre-op at the hospital. The surgery is Friday morning. I spend most of my time doing preparedness things for my four weeks with one working arm. I did get a wonderful early Valentine's gift from My Sweetie. It's the gift basket pictured above featuring Covington Strawberry Ale. Yum. I am having my second one as I type.
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My daughter is coming over Thursday to help me do all my last minute things for the surgery. I really can't wait to get this fixed. I just hope nothing weird happens like I get a flesh eating bacteria or something. Hospitals are creepy places. But my procedure is being done in an outpatient part of the hospital so hopefully everything will go fine. The surgery is supposed to last two hours and then after I wake from the anesthesia, I can come home. I expect to be home by eleven or noon on Friday. I'll probably not post for several days after that, but I expect I will be reading and commenting (with one hand). Wish me luck!

Farewell to the Chief

The guy on the left, "Chief" died last Thursday morning. That's my dad on the right. I knew Chief before he was called that. I don't want to use his real name here. We first got to know each other in 9th grade.
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In 9th grade my junior high school started an experimental science program with Duke University called Q.P.S. That stands for Quantative Physical Science. The room had the two-seater desks in three rows. I ended up front and center with Chief as my partner. It was a strange class. I've often wondered if there were not more to it than trying to teach us science. First of all, the teacher never smiled and owned 5 outfits. Yes, 5 outfits: one for each day of the week. Second, Chief and I were very smart and the whole rest of the class were dumber than rocks.
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Chief's and my test grades were typically 98 to 106 while the rest of the class averaged about 62. It was very strange. Chief and I made a great team because he did the math stuff and I did the word stuff. We moved onto high school after that, so I don't know if they kept up the Q.P.S. experiment or not, but I'm sure our classroom confused whoever was keeping the data.
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In the middle of 10th grade I collected a high school boyfriend. He had a best friend and the three of us hung out and I guess word got out that our apartment was a cool place to hang out. (Dad smoked pot and we always had booze. Also there was a basketball court just steps away from my front door.) So by the time we all graduated, there was a pretty solid twelve of us. They were all guys except me.
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I'm not sure when Chief joined the group, but I think it was pretty early on. There was a running argument about how Chief got his nickname. My high school boyfriend claimed that Chief walked in the door one day and he said, "CHEEEEEEEEEE." And I think he meant it as an insult as in "Cheap." But with everybody being stoned or whatever, people heard "Chief" and then called him that all night. And then pretty much the rest of his life.
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Back when we were 18 or 19 we were joking around about who would be the first one to die and everyone simultaneously yelled, "Chieeeeeeef!" Of course at the time we all imagined it would be just a few years away in a car wrapped around a tree. Well, he was the first one to die, but he lived to be 50 and quite frankly we were not really as surprised by his death so much as that he lived this long.
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I've mentioned Chief before on a post way back in 2005, before I really even had any readers. It's my jail story. I have another goofy story with Chief about a stupid road trip, and then another Chief story about another road trip and a few more but they are stories more suitable for bars. He really was a character. I last saw him when Dad died. I imagine they are having a beer and some laughs together in the great beyond. If I could say something to him I would say, "May your spirit soar and be peaceful and for God's sake, stop saying 'Like I said' before every sentence!!"

My Apologies

First I want to apologize to VioletSky because I was going to post some New Orleans cemetery picures for her. What happened was, I think my three favorite pics are the ones I have in a three picture frame hanging in my my hallway and it overwhelms me to think about taking them out of the frame and scanning them and all that because of my shoulder. However I googled "New Orleans cemetery" and clicked "images" and a bunch of the pictures looked just like my pictures.
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Second, it may seem like I may use my shoulder for an excuse for everything but it hurts like a bitch. Except for little things, I am pretty much a one-armed bandit over here.
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Third, having an extreme injury makes your body produce some sort of natural opiate and it has made me really stupid. For instance, I will read a blog and formulate a comment in my head and think I posted it and when I check back it's not there. Or maybe it was wanky and they deleted it. I have no idea. On the opposite end of that, I've read a post and got all excited and went to comment to find I had already commented the day before. I'm glad I do not have to take any sort of I.Q. test right now.
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I am spending a lot of time getting ready for my post-surgery existence. I have finally figured out how to get my washcloth good and soapy in the shower with one hand. And how to towel off with one hand. I haven't gotten that perfected yet, but have figured out that I can use my blow-dryer to finish off the spots I couldn't reach. I'm really ready to get this surgery over with and get my arm back. And typing hurts. And only being able to sleep in just two different positions is exceptionally tiresome. But now I am good and sleepy so I will go try position #1 (right side).

10 Things I'll Never Understand

1. Why people cover themselves with tattoos
2. Why women do that 70's frosting to their hair thinking it looks more natural that way

3. Why people order spaghetti at Italian restaurants
4. Why women think Johnny Depp is attractive
5. Why poor Americans vote Republican
6. Why network TV executives are so clueless

7. Why some women dress like cheap tricks for Halloween
8. Why any man would wear a tank top
9. Why any overweight woman would wear a tank top
10. The popularity of country music