Ger has this week off from chemo. He was due for his LAST treatment today but last week when we went to see Doctor V she decided Ger looked really beat up so she gave him and extra week to recover. Next Tuesday will be the last treatment but for the time being we are enjoying his almost good health.
Actually Ger started feeling better right after our good friends from NY arrived. Jeanne and Frank arrived in town for a month of R&R at their condo just up the road from us. When we first saw them Ger had just finished a chemo session and was feeling pretty lousy. This was cause for concern for J&F as they had never seen Ger less than 100%. Jeanne confessed that it was a shock to see Ger looking so old and sickly. But that was three weeks ago and since then Ger has been coming back more and more each day. It is often said that laughter is the best medicine and if these past 3 weeks are any indication it's easy to see why Ger is doing so well. He still has chemo brain but he and Frank are the perfect match. Frank had brain surgery several years ago so he and Ger can sit for hours telling each other stories that neither of them will remember hearing 24 hours from now. It's GREAT! Jeanne and I have been shopping, gardening and just hanging out almost every day while the men folk laugh and laugh at the same things they laughed at yesterday. This of course is cause for Jeanne and I to crack up so it is a win win for all! I told Jeanne today that they should just move in with us for the month. It would save on gas for all. WE have know J&F for over 30 years and probably haven't ever spent this much time together. The two of them have been a GOD SEND in all the help they have given us and all the laughs they have provided. Frank has been working here every other day doing little chores for us and all we have to do is feed him every now and then. Today's payment was a cheese ball and crackers. Not bad for a day's worth of gardening ! Jeanne has been cleaning the pool and doing dishes every time I leave her alone. I think she muttered something about drawing the line at ironing and washing windows but maybe I can entice her with some pizza and chocolate cake.
This past weekend brought Kent, Kristen and Smith up to see Jeanne and Frank. NOT to see grandma and grandpa but to see our friends. Smith was a huge hit as usual and entertained everyone. Now that J&F have a six month old grand daughter up in NY we will start some match making. It's a toss up as to whether we should match Emma up with Finley or Smith. Jeanne and I always thought to match our daughter Keri with Jeanne's son Mark but since that didn't work we'll start on the next generation. Since Jeanne and I feel like sisters we thought making it official might be nice.
Tomorrow we all have plans to pack up our Christmas decorations and drive them over to our storage unit where we will stash them for another year. Ger and I took the tree over last week and it exhausted him. This way Jeanne, Frank and I can get the stuff loaded and stored without Ger having to do anything and then we can all go out to eat. (Any excuse to go out to eat is good with me!)
And I know we will be laughing up until these two awesome friends get on the plane next week to return to cold New York. They have to go home to rest!
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Thursday, January 17, 2013
NEED TO WRITE
It is "THE BLOGGING HOUR" . After 9 or 10 at night I start to relax and that is when the need to blog starts to appear. There is nothing on TV these days, (that is a direct quote from my father from about 20 years ago. At the time I thought he was crazy because there were all sorts of mindless sitcoms on that we would watch nightly without fail. I would try to get my dad to watch things like "SOAP" or "THIRD ROCK FROM THE SUN" or my favorite, "HOT L BALTIMORE" . He couldn't stand any of those and now I get it. TV basically is CRAP.) So here I am each night, turn off the TV, clean the kitchen for the umteenth time and then . . . what to do, what to do. By 9:15 Ger is not only IN bed but just about snoring. HE says he is saying the rosary but he is awfully quiet and the snores I don't think are part of any rosary that I know.
There is NO WAY IN HELL that I can fall asleep at 9:30 at night. Two in the afternoon is not a problem, even 5 in the afternoon is quite possible but 9:30? YOU have got to be kidding. Now since Ger is in bed ASLEEP I can't, in good conscience, play or surf on the computer because the computer is in the bed room. WHO'S DUMB IDEA WAS THAT? Actually that is the best room in the house for it and during the day it affords me some "alone" time. All I have to say is, "I'm going to pay some bills" and husband leaves me alone for hours. How the man can possibly think I am paying bills for two and a half hours is beyond me but it works! I DO NOT have my usual urge to blog during the day because there are way too many other things going on. My creative juices don't start to perk until the sun goes down and everyone else in the world goes to sleep. No phone calls, meals to prepare or laundry to do to interrupt me. Night is quiet and I LOVE LOVE LOVE the solitude of me and my computer. But wait, back to "The computer is in the bedroom". I Love my MAC but I just cannot bring myself to have that big bright screen shining across the room in Ger's face. I very much doubt it would bother him at all but I can't do that to the man. ( I can threaten to murder him but I can't shine a light in his face? Go figure!)
And so we go to back up plan #2. Plan #1 would be to use his iPad but I really don't like typing on the flat screen. I can't type nearly as fast on the Pad as I can on a regular key board. Plan #2 is to head to the original COMMAND CENTRAL! The huge old desk made of solid wood that is ages old was left here by the original owner of this house. I love this desk but it is so big and really does not have a place in the house so it was left in the garage. All our "important papers" are filed in its large file size drawers and the swivel chair is so comfy I could live out here. Tonight it is a little warm in the garage but not uncomfortable. I have my little compact note book computer that I use when we travel AND a wireless key board and mouse so I don't have to type on those tiny keys. Now I am all set to sit and let my brain wander. OOPS, I don't have the thingy that I need to plug into the computer so the wireless mouse and key board will work. "Where the heck could that be? Oh Yea, I brought it in to the bedroom a couple of weeks back because I was doing something on the Mac that needed a 'right' click and the Mac mouse doesn't have that and . . . . . . . . ."
I "creep" into the bedroom, wake up Ger by clunking around searching for the connector, trip over the chair and drop the flashlight. I get back to the garage and the batteries are dead in the mouse. I return to the kitchen for new batteries and proceed to drop the entire open package of batteries all over the kitchen floor. Returning to the garage I have now worked up a sweat and will probably need another shower after this which will wake Ger up for sure. As I FINALLY sit down to write my mind has gone totally blank on what I was planning on writing and I am left to writing this nonsense.
BUT . . . I FEEL GOOD ! I have gotten some words on "paper" and it feels good to just be talking. Sorry to bore you and waste your time but I think I'm ready for bed.
There is NO WAY IN HELL that I can fall asleep at 9:30 at night. Two in the afternoon is not a problem, even 5 in the afternoon is quite possible but 9:30? YOU have got to be kidding. Now since Ger is in bed ASLEEP I can't, in good conscience, play or surf on the computer because the computer is in the bed room. WHO'S DUMB IDEA WAS THAT? Actually that is the best room in the house for it and during the day it affords me some "alone" time. All I have to say is, "I'm going to pay some bills" and husband leaves me alone for hours. How the man can possibly think I am paying bills for two and a half hours is beyond me but it works! I DO NOT have my usual urge to blog during the day because there are way too many other things going on. My creative juices don't start to perk until the sun goes down and everyone else in the world goes to sleep. No phone calls, meals to prepare or laundry to do to interrupt me. Night is quiet and I LOVE LOVE LOVE the solitude of me and my computer. But wait, back to "The computer is in the bedroom". I Love my MAC but I just cannot bring myself to have that big bright screen shining across the room in Ger's face. I very much doubt it would bother him at all but I can't do that to the man. ( I can threaten to murder him but I can't shine a light in his face? Go figure!)
And so we go to back up plan #2. Plan #1 would be to use his iPad but I really don't like typing on the flat screen. I can't type nearly as fast on the Pad as I can on a regular key board. Plan #2 is to head to the original COMMAND CENTRAL! The huge old desk made of solid wood that is ages old was left here by the original owner of this house. I love this desk but it is so big and really does not have a place in the house so it was left in the garage. All our "important papers" are filed in its large file size drawers and the swivel chair is so comfy I could live out here. Tonight it is a little warm in the garage but not uncomfortable. I have my little compact note book computer that I use when we travel AND a wireless key board and mouse so I don't have to type on those tiny keys. Now I am all set to sit and let my brain wander. OOPS, I don't have the thingy that I need to plug into the computer so the wireless mouse and key board will work. "Where the heck could that be? Oh Yea, I brought it in to the bedroom a couple of weeks back because I was doing something on the Mac that needed a 'right' click and the Mac mouse doesn't have that and . . . . . . . . ."
I "creep" into the bedroom, wake up Ger by clunking around searching for the connector, trip over the chair and drop the flashlight. I get back to the garage and the batteries are dead in the mouse. I return to the kitchen for new batteries and proceed to drop the entire open package of batteries all over the kitchen floor. Returning to the garage I have now worked up a sweat and will probably need another shower after this which will wake Ger up for sure. As I FINALLY sit down to write my mind has gone totally blank on what I was planning on writing and I am left to writing this nonsense.
BUT . . . I FEEL GOOD ! I have gotten some words on "paper" and it feels good to just be talking. Sorry to bore you and waste your time but I think I'm ready for bed.
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
IDENTIFYING ROAD KILL
There is a lot of road kill in Florida. Is it because we have more wild life than other places or is it because Florida has some of the world's worst drivers? Either way you can be sure you will see at least one dead "body" a day resting in the middle of the road. These poor creatures don't even have a chance to get to the other side of the road. They are just flattened right in the middle of three lanes of either highway or local road.
A couple of weeks ago I was going out some place and came out of my community and right on to the entrance ramp of Rt. 95. Right there in the center of the entrance ramp was a dead(?) alligator. Just a little guy, maybe 4 feet long. It took me a second to register ALLIGATOR before I went around it and then checked my rear view mirror to see if the poor thing was moving. It did appear to be dead but it was gone when I returned later that day. I bet there is some local with new alligator boots!
Most of the road kill does not disappear quite that fast. In fact there are times when there is a major pile up of road kill. It all starts when one poor creature, usually a possum or raccoon, tries to cross the road. They get nailed by a passing car and the remains are left for the turkey vultures. I think the turkey vulture is the Florida national bird as there are THOUSANDS of them. There are times when we have to check our pulse to make sure we are alive because there are 20 or so vultures circling our house. These birds are large and to say they are UGLY would be a compliment. Anyway, the vultures immediately show up when there is a dead animal in the road. The vulture is not only ugly but it is STUPID because they swoop down to have dinner on the road kill and within minutes they have become a second course for the next vulture that arrives. By the end of the day there is a dead raccoon and 12 vultures laying in the road, feathers and fur flying every where. (I did exaggerate there, the vultures will land and then do their hop-skip-fly thing to try to get out of the way of the passing cars. Most times folks do NOT want road kill stuck to their tires and will do almost anything to avoid the already dead creatures so the vultures are fairly safe.)
The reason I got writing about this today was that G and I were coming home from the doctor today and got stopped by a traffic light near our house. I had been stopped at this same light last Thursday and saw that a raccoon had been hit and killed just at the stop light. (Guess he didn't wait for the green :-) ) At the time he was still fairly fresh and you could easily identify him/her as a raccoon. Today, 6 days later, Mr. Raccoon was not looking too good. He was more of a large lump with sort of a tail sticking out and a lot of other nasty brown mess. As we sat at the light I pointed the road kill out to Ger and teased him about stopping to pick it up for lunch. Ger's comment was, "I don't want SNAKE for lunch". HA HA, funny guy but if that was a snake it had to be a 30 foot Burmese Python because it was a LARGE lump. Now maybe because I had seen the poor deceased animal last week and KNEW that it was raccoon it did not look anything like a snake to me. That was the start of the discussion for the next 10 minutes. What specie is the road kill? It's actually a good game and one that only ends when one of you gets out of the car and pokes at the remains, much to the irritation of the other drivers.
And speaking of crossing the road . . . . Why did the boy cross the play ground?
TO GET TO THE OTHER SLIDE ! Thanks to Kaelin for that one!
A couple of weeks ago I was going out some place and came out of my community and right on to the entrance ramp of Rt. 95. Right there in the center of the entrance ramp was a dead(?) alligator. Just a little guy, maybe 4 feet long. It took me a second to register ALLIGATOR before I went around it and then checked my rear view mirror to see if the poor thing was moving. It did appear to be dead but it was gone when I returned later that day. I bet there is some local with new alligator boots!
Most of the road kill does not disappear quite that fast. In fact there are times when there is a major pile up of road kill. It all starts when one poor creature, usually a possum or raccoon, tries to cross the road. They get nailed by a passing car and the remains are left for the turkey vultures. I think the turkey vulture is the Florida national bird as there are THOUSANDS of them. There are times when we have to check our pulse to make sure we are alive because there are 20 or so vultures circling our house. These birds are large and to say they are UGLY would be a compliment. Anyway, the vultures immediately show up when there is a dead animal in the road. The vulture is not only ugly but it is STUPID because they swoop down to have dinner on the road kill and within minutes they have become a second course for the next vulture that arrives. By the end of the day there is a dead raccoon and 12 vultures laying in the road, feathers and fur flying every where. (I did exaggerate there, the vultures will land and then do their hop-skip-fly thing to try to get out of the way of the passing cars. Most times folks do NOT want road kill stuck to their tires and will do almost anything to avoid the already dead creatures so the vultures are fairly safe.)
The reason I got writing about this today was that G and I were coming home from the doctor today and got stopped by a traffic light near our house. I had been stopped at this same light last Thursday and saw that a raccoon had been hit and killed just at the stop light. (Guess he didn't wait for the green :-) ) At the time he was still fairly fresh and you could easily identify him/her as a raccoon. Today, 6 days later, Mr. Raccoon was not looking too good. He was more of a large lump with sort of a tail sticking out and a lot of other nasty brown mess. As we sat at the light I pointed the road kill out to Ger and teased him about stopping to pick it up for lunch. Ger's comment was, "I don't want SNAKE for lunch". HA HA, funny guy but if that was a snake it had to be a 30 foot Burmese Python because it was a LARGE lump. Now maybe because I had seen the poor deceased animal last week and KNEW that it was raccoon it did not look anything like a snake to me. That was the start of the discussion for the next 10 minutes. What specie is the road kill? It's actually a good game and one that only ends when one of you gets out of the car and pokes at the remains, much to the irritation of the other drivers.
And speaking of crossing the road . . . . Why did the boy cross the play ground?
TO GET TO THE OTHER SLIDE ! Thanks to Kaelin for that one!
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