SPORT'S TRIVIA

1. Who is the only baseball player to hit 5 homeruns in one day?

2. Who is the only Olympian to win both the decathlon and the pentathlon in one Olympic Game?

3. What professional basketball player averaged triple doubles for his entire career?

4. What college basketball team won both the NCAA and NIT in the same year?

5. What athletes played themselves in the movies of their own lives?

6. What were Joe Di Maggio’s brother’s names?

7. Who won the first World Series?

8. Who won the first Super Bowl?

9. What is the exact distance between home plate and the pitcher’s mound?

10. What two baseball players have statues of themselves in the actual Hall of Fame? (Not the museum, just the Hall itself)

11. What man, born a woman, won a woman’s tennis tournament?

12. Who is the first baseball player to hit 3 homeruns in one World Series game? (In checking this question, I found that more than one man did this...so I changed it from ONLY to FIRST, I thought that Reggie Jackson was the only man to do it, but he wasn't, as a matter of fact, one man did it twice. I am not even sure if there was only one to do it twice, so I couldn't ask who that was. If anyone out there knows how many men did this, please let me know, also, I'd like to know if there was more than one man to do it twice.)

13. Who invented the game of basketball?

14. What was Lou Gehrig’s number?

15. Who is the oldest player to play in the National baseball league?


16. What golfer coined the term “caddy”?

17. What Chicago Bear running back was known as “The Galloping Ghost”?

18. What quarterback threw 70 completed passes in a single game?

19. Who was the “Athlete of the Decade” for the 1960’s?

20. Who set a NHL record, in 1976, for scoring 10 points in one game?

OOPS! I forgot that I couldn't post comments so I can't put the answers in the comments section, but they are on the other blog, click on this link to get to the answers:

http://callmemc.blogspot.com/2005/07/sports-trivia.html

My dad and I went out to dinner last night...

...and I told him about my two profiles on that dating site and the way that men respond differently to each woman. I mentioned the idiot who was married and how he told Kelli the truth and lied Meg about being married. My dad said, “I wish you could find a way to tell young women about that.” He said that “Men will treat you exactly how you expect to be treated.” He is, of course, quite right.

I told him that I thought that older women needed to hear it too.

Personally, I was quite surprised and as I mentioned earlier, I learned quite a bit about men myself. I’ve been around for quite sometime and I was still shocked by the way that some of the men reacted. There was only one man who said, “I’m glad to hear that your profile was a joke.” I was quite pleased by that because it showed me that at least some men could “think outside of the box” and understand that it was a joke.

Amazingly, however, most of them couldn’t do that.

For the most part, they seem to see what they want to see and I find that fascinating. If they want to see Kelli as a tramp, they do. None of them seem to even read her profile, they never get past the picture of her backside. Only a very small percentage of them respond to what was written, they simply see the picture and respond to that. Kelli gets between 20 and 100 emails a day from men, almost none of them pay the slightest bit of attention to what she wrote. And, when they do, they don’t seem to think that it applies to them. Kelli said that she wants to travel and most of the men seem to think that Kelli means that she will come to them, wherever they are, and sleep with them. Men from all over the world write and tell Kelli that they are waiting for her. Many of the responses are from local guys, wanting, once again, Kelli to come to their houses. As I said earlier, even a man who knew Meg wanted Kelli to come to his place and bring her “equipment” with her. Meg no longer exists and he expects Kelli to suddenly appear although Meg told him that Kelli is not a real person.

He doesn't want to believe that. Almost all of the men view Kelli as something that they have created in their own minds, I find it fascinating that even after Kelli says the profile is a joke, they continue on as though she never said a word. I asked my father what the lesson was for women and he said, “Men will respond to the message that a woman sends, whether she knows she is sending it or not.” In practical terms, that means that we as women can dress or behave in a way that we might find cute...but the men don’t see it the same way. They will get an idea in their minds and run with it. They will never look further into our souls, no matter what we do, if they have decided that we are “tramps”. The message that we send with what we wear or how we behave is far louder than anything we do, no matter what we do, after they have seen us in that way.

We as women may find certain clothing to be cute or attractive but if men find it to be sexual, they won’t even look any further. As I said, only one man ever acted pleased that Kelli was a joke. I found that to be very appealing, he could actually look past the picture. But, that was one man out of hundreds who responded. So, to summarize, I think that the lesson for women, young or old, is that we need to be very careful about the messages we send.

We complain about being seen as sex objects, yet we consistently send messages that are extremely sexual. It isn’t a coincidence that women choose clothing that enhances their sexuality. If a women is wearing slacks that show her backside in the most appealing light possible, she knows it. Women will try on a pair of slacks and look to see how that backside looks in the mirror. Then, when she is wearing those slacks and a man whistles as she walks away, she gets offended. That is so unfair.

We expect the men to “restrain” themselves after we have gone out of our way to emphasize our assets. Talk about your double standards. The men who respond to Kelli are from so many varied backgrounds that there isn’t any way to blame them or their upbringing. Men are simply accustomed to responding to “big round things” and when they do, we can’t expect them to act as though it isn’t part of their make up. It’s something that they can’t help, any more than we can help it when we respond to their ability to “support” us.

Now that I think of it, I think that I can prove that we, as women, have our own prejudices and foibles. I am going to create two men's profiles. They will be almost identical except for one thing, one of them is going to be a doctor and have a lot of cash while the other one will be the same type of man, except that he will have a blue collar job. Then, I will sit back and wait for the responses from the women. I think that I can prove my point, and I think that I can do it quickly. Ooh, this is going to be fun.

OK, I am off to create two fake men and I doubt that it will take very long at all for the women to pounce upon the “backsides” of the men, their checkbooks!

See ya soon,

Meg

PS I cannot get this site to allow comments so I will put a link on the posts so that you can easily comment should you want to. I will post the comments as I receive them. Here is the link,

meg.kelso@gmail.com

I can be such a nit wit if I try...

I missed that first chemotherapy treatment for no good reason at all. They scheduled 3 of them and I skipped the first one because I was afraid that it wasn’t covered by insurance. Well, the doctor’s office pre-certed all 3 of the treatments before the insurance was canceled. I could have gone to the first one, I was just afraid of the bill. I forgot that this is exactly what happened with the dentist in January and Vex ended up paying for that...all I had to do was go to the treatment appointments and he gets to pay them as well! Maybe, if I send enough bills to him, he will think about re-insuring me like he agreed to do.

Anyway, I did go to the second appointment and I will go to the third one, too. I can just send Vex the bill! So, I had the treatment Tuesday and I have another one scheduled for the second of August. The first one has had me feeling pretty bad so I’ve been doing a lot of resting. I get so nauseated that I can barely move without blowing my grits. But, if it works and the tumors are shrunk, I will feel better in the long run. I can deal with this, it isn’t fun, but I can handle it. I just have not been terribly energetic lately since I haven’t really been able to eat. I hate that. I had just started gaining a little bit of weight, which is a good thing since the treatments leave me with no appetite. I had a bit of fat there to burn while I am undergoing the therapy. I had been down to 95 pounds and I went up to 110. Now, I will probably lose a few more pounds and I would have been really freaked if I went under 90 pounds. Gaining that weight has given me a few pounds to play with. I am going to try really hard to stay above 100 pounds.

It seems like yesterday that I couldn’t get myself under 150 pounds. I would prefer that weight to this weight anytime. If I ever gain it back, I will never, ever bitch about it again. It’s hard to complain about weighing too little When I do, there is always somebody who says something like, “Oh, it must be so rough for you!” in a sarcastic manner.

I understand that, but I wish people would understand that I would much rather be healthy and overweight than so sick and underweight. I felt much better before I lost all of this weight and I think I looked better too. Oh well, I can handle it for now.

My father is here, actually, he is at a bridge tournament right now. I dropped him off at the Hyatt in Atlanta this morning and I will be picking him up sometime this evening, I’m just waiting for his call. After my treatment on the 7th, I will be driving to Florida with him to help him go through his ex-wife’s things and get them organized. Remember when she was here last spring? They had sent all of her things to a storage facility in Tampa before she got too sick and now she’s in a “home” back in Illinois. All of her stuff is down there still and he actually threw away a bunch of things that he thought were junk. They were things like Gucci purses with the tags still on them! He took a bunch of stuff to Goodwill, which is nice but I doubt that people who shop there are looking for Gucci purses. Anyway, I am going to help him sort through all of these things so that he doesn’t throw anymore of her good stuff away. I told him that if nothing else, we could take some things to a flea-market and sell them for her. I’m sure she would prefer that to having them all thrown away.

I have to do a few things around the house before the next treatment. I am going to trim the hedges next. Remember when I put down the weed killer? Well, it worked where the sun shone on the grass, but not in the shade. I have large trees that shade most of the lawn so it did very little good. A friend of mine told me that the pre-emergent stuff works better than this stuff so I will stop worrying about it until fall now.

I hope this guy was telling me the truth. I wouldn’t blame him if he lied to me, I accidentally pulled down his garage one day when I was pulling out of it. Driving my aunt’s Kia, I was backing out and the fender hooked to his garage door jamb and it pulled down his garage and pulled off my fender. I felt pretty bad, but he still lets me come over. He is so very nice, I wish I had more friends like him.

Oh! Speaking of “hims”, I have been speaking to that friend of mine who I ran into that night I forced myself to go out. He is so very nice and I do like him, but I don’t get something. In all the time that I’ve known him, he has acted as though he was interested in me but he has never so much as KISSED me! He works the late shift so every so often, he comes by before he goes to work. We watch a movie or play guitar and when he leaves, he hugs me, but no kiss! I don’t get that. I have a question. If you like a woman, and respect her, under what conditions would you continue to see her without kissing her? I don’t expect him to ravage my body, especially since I am still a married woman, but a kiss would be nice. I do enjoy making out and I would love to do that, but at this point, I am a tad afraid to start anything on my own.

What would you suggest? Should I go ahead and kiss him myself or should I continue to wait? I suppose that it’s possible that he’s waiting for my divorce to be final. I respect that and I certainly wouldn’t go to bed with him, but I don’t understand why he doesn’t even kiss me. As I said before, he made it quite clear to me that he was interested years ago...when I wasn’t at all interested in anyone but my husband. Then, he told me that he was hoping to run into me the night we did run into each other so I know that he is still thinking about me. I keep on thinking that I won’t hear from him again, especially after he spends a few hours with me and doesn’t kiss me. But, he always calls again.

Gosh, I hope he doesn’t read this! He said he has never visited this thing, I just hope that HE was telling me the truth, LOL.

Oh well, my son just finished mowing the lawn so I should go trim the hedges now. Have fun this evening!

See ya!

Meg

By the way,

I had a lunch date with a man yesterday to meet him for the first time. I went to the restaurant but was running late. I called the resaurant and spoke to the hostess. I misunderstood her and she misunderstood me so she had my name and my date's name wrong.

This poor guy waited for me for over 45 minutes before he finally left and of course, I arrived 5 minutes afterward. When I got there, I spoke to a lady at the door and she asked me what the guy looked like. I told her that I hadn't met him so I didn't know. The hostess that I spoke with on the telephone overheard that and she said, "You haven't? Oh, he is very good looking! Certainly worth the effort!"

To make up for my tardiness, when he asked me to do dinner with him instead, I drove over to his side of town and met him at Red Lobster, which, might I add, was quite a jaunt. Anyway, that chick was right!!!! He is the best looking dude that I have been out with since I don't remember when. And sweet! What a nice guy he is. I was absolutely dazzled by his personality, his conversation and his broad range of interests. He's an "outdoor" type guy and we are going fishing up in the north Georgia Mountains on Saturday.

And, might I add, he has hair! Another head with hair, I am simply giddy with delight over all of this man hair that I seem to be finding about.

Happy I am this afternoon!

See ya,

Meg

Hello!!!

I was just watching a movie on television when I noticed that the commercials were actually getting pretty good. It seems as though they are putting quite a bit of production value into them nowadays. If they keep this up, they are going to be better than the television shows very soon.

I’m quite disappointed in television nowadays, as I guess most people are. Writers are pretty much a thing of the past and the counterfeit reality shows have replaced what little creativity there was in television. Talent shows are no longer a blurb on somebody's resume, they are now the launching pad for “stars”. The networks declare some unknown singer a star and by the next day, they have released an album which will sell a million copies for no good reason. The media tells us who we are to “idolize” next and then we, being the good little dimwits that we are, revere them.

Where have all the creative people gone? Occasionally, we may find them making movies. Those Wilson brothers have been out there creating amazingly clever slices of life. But, far too many people are making movies by beating some dead horse of an old television program. There was a time when television was considered far below movies on the totem pole of artistic classification. Now, television shows that have been mocked for decades suddenly become the hottest movies at the local super-plex.

Have they totally run out of ideas in American show business? It would appear so. In the book Fahrenheit 451, the wife of the main character would find herself watching a screen full of nonsensical gibberish and eye catching images. I think that, in many ways, we are at 451. We have reached a point at which people are so afraid of offending anyone that they really don’t even try to push the envelop any more. You wouldn’t find a creative, cutting edge show such as All in the Family anywhere on television or at the movies. The talented people who once went out there to seek new and entertaining ideas are so afraid of being classified as offensive that they pretty much have been stifled, leaving us totally void of originality.

This phenomenon isn’t confined to the entertainment business. Almost every aspect of our lives is trampled upon as we attempt to make all things in life good and equal. You can’t have “winners and losers” anymore, someone may be offended. So, in such American pastimes as little league baseball, everyone gets a trophy so that no one feels “left out” and they spirit of competition is gone. Competition is looked at as being some evil entity even though that is exactly what brought us to such an incredible level of ability in so many fields. 12 year old girl swimmers of today are swimming better than Johnny Weismuller ever hoped to. That is because of competition and the astonishing spirit in so many of our best young people. But now that is considered a bad thing and all of the little children need to feel good about themselves, not because of anything that they may have accomplished, but because they simply are. We are teaching our kids that they needn’t really put much effort into anything, they can “feel good” about themselves because they got out of bed and made it to school. There is very little reason for our youth to excel and put forth effort anymore. When you teach them that there are never any “losers”, you have pretty much told them that there are no winners either. Why would any young man feel as though he should strive to stand out at a little league game when there isn’t really any difference between what the winners and losers accomplish?

There are other countries on this planet that don’t behave in such a manner. China isn’t telling their people to feel good about themselves and make nice with each other. They are out there competing with us for position and if we keep this ridiculous behavior up, they will surpass us within the century. America is losing it’s competitive edge and it’s creativity and all on a large world screen where everyone can see that we have totally eliminated the need for people to break new ground and endeavor to be bold and different. We are telling the entire planet that we have run out of ideas and we not only don’t care, but we actually LIKE things this way.

What a shame. History is written by the winners and I would hate to see what people will say about us when our civilization crumbles. I’m not sure what it would take to turn things around. Unfortunately, I think that something devastatingly ominous would have to occur before we realize what we are doing. The generation of people who won world wars and built this country to be what it is today are dying out and that’s a dreadful ignominy. They were born into hard times and they learned how to become strong out of necessity.

My fear is that we will do the opposite, create a generation of people who are losers and weaklings. As long as we try to eliminate competition and creativity, we are never going to get back onto the path of greatness that Tom Brokaw discussed in his book The Greatest Generation. So, until we let the competitive nature of human beings run wild, we are doomed to defeat. Of that, I am sure.

Seinfeld Trivia Quiz

The answers are right below the quiz so hide them from yourselves. I didn't know how to hide the comments with the answer. I'm gonna try to do that now. If I figure out how to hide the answers, I'll probably be too lazy to come back here and get rid of this paragraph. Oh, one day when I'm bored and it comes to my mind, I might do it...but it probably won't be today. So, whatever. I hope it didn't bother you. Oh, and I sure hope reading this paragraph wasn't a waste of your time...I SO wouldn't want to do that. I know that time is money and some people just don't have time for pointless chit chat. I know I HATE that when I see other people do it. Like my sister, it doesn't matter WHAT we're talking about, she can't make a declarative sentence without going around in so many circles that I want to smack her. Don't you hate that? You're trying to get out of the conversation, but there's nothing you can do. The nut just keeps on and keeps on, talking and talking, making you crazier and more annoyed each time they go, "Oh...and the lady who works with her stepson's girlfriend said the very same thing!" Oh man. That just sticks in my craw. I can't get her to shut up so I basically tune her out. It works. OK then, here are those questions...good luck. Now that I look at them again they're really quite easy but of course I am a Seinfeld aficionado. There are few who could outdo me in Seinfeld Trivia. If you super Seinfeld fans would enjoy it, I'll make a quiz for US. If you want me to, just leave a comment. Oops, someone at the door. I have to go. Jeez, I hope it' not the Witness's. I can never be rude enough to stop them from coming around. Oh well, I better get that.

1. Who did George’s mother always wanted him to be more like?

2. What is Kramer’s mother’s name?

3. What was the virgin’s name?

4. What happened to Jerry on June 29th, 1980?

5. What holiday did George’s parents celebrate with a pole?

6. What did Puddy do for a living?

7. During what movie did Jerry and his girlfriend make out, making his parents angry?

8. Who did Jerry turn in for shoplifting?

9. What was Jerry’s father’s name?

10. What was George’s large coat made of?

11. What was the name of the book that George was supposed to read for his book club?

12. Who wanted Jerry to take him to dinner in exchange for an Armani suit?

13. What tool did George use to get the layer of “film” off of pudding?

14. What game did George play with the Bubble Boy?

15. What song did Jerry sing to distract him from the naked lady that Kramer was looking at?

16. Where did Uncle Leo’s son work?

17. Which main character did not appear in the first episode of Seinfeld?

18. What did Kramer drop into a man during surgery?

19. What did the vanity license plate on Kramer’s car accidentally say?

20. What movie were the gang headed to see when they became stuck in the Chinese restaurant?

Good morning!!!

Do you remember those two different profiles that I had at the POF web site? Well, there is a guy named Ron who is talking to both of the characters. When both Meg and Kelli told him that his wife had emailed them, he wrote them back in 2 very interesting and distinctly different ways.

This is the email that he sent to Meg (Meg is a very sweet lady who doesn’t appreciate being lied to):

Just so you know...My EX WIFE "Hacked" my computer and is trying to ruin my social life!!!She still wants me because I'm a good guy!!!I was married over 20 years...nobody needs to tell me about commitment!!!Thanx for thinking the worst!!!BTW...I'm no perv!!!Ron

LOLOLOL, he is angry at Meg for doubting him. Rick used to lie like that, he told one of his mistresses that I was an ex-girlfriend as well. I love the way these nuts try to turn it all back on the ones that they are lying to. Manipulation by internet, what a concept.

Now, Ron replied to Kelli with this email (Kelli told him that he should call his wife):

OK... Called her...LOLShe don't give a s*%t what I do...So, Now what can we do???I'll be in my L'ville office next week...Wanna get a drink???Dinner???Let me know...Catch ya later...Ron

He figured that Kelli wouldn’t mind being lied to. What a nit-wit. Ooohh, I should post a picture of this freak so that women will see him coming. I will do that next.

But first, I wanted to let you know that Rick hasn’t sent any alimony since last month, and he hasn’t bought medical insurance either. So, I think that I can safely assume that he doesn’t even have enough money to do either one of those things. If he did, he would have done so at least long enough to get a divorce.

Of course, he probably needs a way out of getting married again as well. He doesn’t want a divorce, he doesn’t need one. He asked me to wait for him for 2-3 years and if I know him, he is counting on that 2-3 years to have a little fun with. I have given him no reason to think that I am serious this time. I know him, he will lie for as long as he has to and then he will just run away. We are in Georgia because he wanted to run away from one of his affairs. Knowing him, he only had to lie to his current bimbo long enough to get her to Montana. Now, if he can get her to stay there long enough for the Montana court’s to get jurisdiction over him and his baby, he will be nice to her for a little while. He has already gotten her to move there, now he just needs her to spend a few months there. Oh, I am so glad that I didn’t move to Montana, I could be sitting alone in a state that has 12 people in it

OK, I have to go to the SSN office, so I must run. Also, I have to post a Seinfeld trivia quiz for some people on my other blog...when I do, I will post it here as well.

I’ll be back in a little while, unless our government has suddenly become efficient. I doubt that, so I am just going to head on out and wait for someone to call my name.

See ya,

Meg

OK...

...I was the second to the last person to be called at court today. I didn’t get out until afternoon. I was pretty disgusted but it’s over and I’m home. A guy came to get Moby a little while ago. The dude actually asked ME to get that sucker out of the tank. He came in with this huge pool skimmer when a net was required and I think that I can safely say that the guy was afraid of the fish. He said, “Ooh, that’s a big one. I’ve never seen one that big before.” LOL...yeah, he was freaked.

I got a trash bag (a small one, like for the bathroom trash cans) and put it in the aquarium, filled it with water and tried to scoop him up but he touched me and then I freaked. The guy said, “Oh, you had him! You let him go.” I was jumping up and down and going, “Ick, ick, ick” from being touched by the big stupid thing and it dawned on him that he would have to get it. I was just gonna react like that every single time, I’m a girly girl.

Anyway, he eventually got Moby in the bag and brought in a bucket and left with him. He came back an hour later to get his skimmer, which he had forgotten, and told me that Moby was swimming all over. Now he has goldfish that he lives with. You know, it just occurred to me that those things are aggressive. Uh oh. Now I’m freaked again.

I just watched Jeopardy and I was answering all of the questions just as though it were Celebrity Jeopardy, which is, of course, easier than Teen Week. I was answering all of them but I didn’t know final Jeopardy because I didn’t know what kind of gun James Bond used. I have never seen a James Bond movie and the gun was German, I think, for something like “police pistol”. That’s the kind of thing that will get me every single time.

Earlier, I mentioned that book, Let’s Roll, and how it made me feel. I don’t know why something like that would effect me so much, I wouldn’t have thought it would. But it did. I was astonished at how amazingly these people behaved when they absolutely had to. If that plane had left on time, it probably would have crashed into something with people in it.

And, for whatever reason, the hijackers didn’t stop the passengers from using their cell phones so they did. Lisa Beamer wrote about a woman who was on the phone with her husband, Todd, while the hijacking was going on. She relayed to Lisa what transpired in the conversation so we know what transpired in the cockpit that day.

These guys knew that the other planes had hit their targets. They knew that they weren’t going to land if they sat back and did nothing. So, they broke all of the rules of hijacking “etiquette” and rushed the cockpit. They most certainly saved lives that day. I guess I just never realized the enormity of that. Isn’t it amazing?

Of course we would all like to think that we would do the same thing, I certainly think that I would. But these folks happened to be the ones who did and aren’t you grateful? I know I am. Who knows how it might have impacted any one of us had the ending been different that day?

Fortunately, because of what these brave people did, we will never know.

Did you know that the flight attendants boiled water and carried it, spilling it on themselves, as they ran with the men toward the cockpit? I didn’t know that. Todd’s father drove from San Francisco to New Jersey for his son’s memorial service immediately after the disaster and somehow he didn’t drive that car off a cliff, accidentally or on purpose. “Let’s roll” wasn’t just what Todd said that day, it’s what he said to his tiny sons to get them motivated.

There’s really nothing more to say about that, either you get it or you don’t. I think most of us do and that’s why we will never forget what these people did. It’s a shame that they don’t sing folk songs anymore, these guys should have songs written about them and little children should sing them.

See ya,

Meg

Good morning!

Last night my power was knocked out by a storm so I couldn’t sign on although I kept thinking that I could. I hate that, when the power went out, I was watching TV and I knew that was out. But, it takes a while to realize the full extent of a power outage. I had to flip every dead switch as I walked into each room and I picked up my phone only to realize that it didn’t work without electricity. Then, I thought I would just go online, but of course this thing is electric too. I can’t use to stove? I’ll just use the microwave, right? no, not that either. I spent a while fumbling around looking for flashlights and candles, trying to use the last few minutes of daytime that were left the best way I could.

Eventually, I put two very strong flashlights in the living room and two in the kitchen and I put candles in the hall, bathrooms and bedrooms. The flashlights gave me enough light to clean the kitchen and do the dishes (the one thing that I could do was the dishes, LOL). The living room was light enough for me to read so I did. I read a book called “Let’s Roll”. It was written by Lisa Beamer, the wife of the guy who said, “Let’s Roll” on Flight 93 on 9/11. That was the plane that went down in Pennsylvania. That book moved me to tears and I will be writing more about it when I get back from an 8:30 court date. It/s almost 7 right now so I have to get ready to go to the courthouse. OH! By the way, I found out that if you are giving something away for free, the local paper will run your ad for free so I ran an ad to find Moby Dick a home and I did! When I get back from court, his new parents will be coming to put him into a 500 gallon tank! He is really moving up in the world! The people who I am giving him to are going to give me some snails so that I don't have that problem again. Of course, they have a lot of snails because they bought two and they multiplied until these people have thousands of snails. I may be asking for an entirely new problem, but Moby will be doing well in his new digs.

See you later!

Meg

I just heard that Scotty died...

...yep, the guy who played Scottie on Star Trek has gone to his reward. I hate hearing things like that for so many reasons. The death of an icon seems to beckon the passage of time. They listed the cause of death as both pneumonia and Alzheimer's. So, I don’t know where he was in the progression of that hideous disease but he must have been pretty far along if they listed it as a cause of death.

It made me wonder about something, especially after watching Mark Furman on TV last night talking about Terri Schaivo and how she may have REALLY died. Whatever. That’s not what I was concerned with. I just started thinking about the entire concept of “mercy killing”. Most issues like this one do not end with one court case. That case sets precedent for another and before too much time goes by, things that we had never intended to have happen have occurred. I don’t think that the people who argued for the passage of Roe v Wade would have ever condoned the partial birth abortion fight But we get a little bit desensitized as these things become the norm and the best of intentions can lead to a situation that would outrage us.

Especially in the case of mercy killing. Like it or not, that’s exactly what occurred. Withholding nutrition is akin to withholding the truth. Technically, we did not murder Terri. But, we most assuredly took her life by refusing to do the simple task of feeding her.

OK, I can almost live with that. My fear is that we will eventually find ourselves allowing this to desensitize us a little bit more as to the dignity of life itself. When that begins happening (DUH! It HAS begun), our descendants might just horrify us with a dreadful disrespect for certain types of people.

I was wondering about all of the Alzheimer’s patients that I have taken care of and treated for pneumonia. Pneumonia is a relatively easy illness to overcome if caught early enough, anti-biotics usually do the trick. But, of course, the frailer the patient, the less likely they are to survive. And so, we treat those people who have both of those illnesses everyday.

But...should we do that? Should there be a point at which an Alzheimer’s patient is NOT treated for such illnesses and nature allowed to take it’s course? And if so, when? Who decides that? Obviously you can’t simply say that people should have a living will. First of all, if your healthy relatives have the ability to sue, the doctor probably will do whatever they ask him/her to do. And, as we learned in the Schaivo case, one needn’t necessarily sign anything, apparently, you can just mention it in private to one other person. By the way, if you choose to go that route, don’t mention it to anyone who stands to prosper from your death.

We look back in revulsion at the notion that one human being could own another. But, at the time, the best of our citizens owned human beings. When you look back in time, you expect to see things as a little less enlightened. It should always be like that, looking back, we should always see that we have grown as a civilization.

If we start allowing people to die, how far are we from actually assisting them along? And if we don’t need a legal document, how long will it be before you don’t need the permission of a family member? I can easily imagine a time when an anonymous man with some mind affecting disorder is found and mercifully assisted into the peaceful calm of death.You know, it wouldn’t at all surprise me if the LACK of a legal document is the criteria by which the medical community makes such a judgment.

These types of issues usually take on a life of their own and before long, there is a group of people who have made an industry out of the issue itself. When that happens, these folks want to keep their jobs so they never, ever, under any circumstances, stop their pursuits within the realm of their mission. So, the mission itself must necessarily grow.

Abortion is the best example that I can think of. It began as something that we could tolerate and has grown to include partial birth abortion. Even if these people had that procedure legally sanctioned, they would find some ridiculous co-issue that they would use to keep their jobs. Maybe they would fight the mother of a 12 year old abortion patient to force her to hide the abortion from the child's father becuase the child is terrified of a potential reaction. That sounds insane but why not? Who could have ever foreseen the push for partial birth abortion? Doctors have always acted in the best interests of the mother, why do you need a law to provide for that? If a mother’s life was in danger unless that procedure was preformed, any doctor would perform it. I don’t know why it would be necessary, but you don’t need a law to allow something that isn’t prohibited.

Anyway, the point is that sometimes, issues do take on a life of their own and there doesn’t seem to be much that we can do about it. But, we owe it to our kids to think about such things and try to teach them concepts like dignity and respect. Unless of course, those things become politically incorrect. If you think that that is impossible, think about a religious man trying to get elected to a public office. Within my own lifetime, that has gone from a good thing to a bad thing. Yikes.

Things are changing a lot more quickly than they ever have before. Life is nothing like it was even 50 years ago. Things never changed this quickly before. I don’t think that it will be very long before the entire issue of mercy killing gets totally out of control. It wasn’t that long ago that we put Jack Kevorkian in prison for assisting totally willing people in their own suicide. I have a feeling that had he been tried after the Schaivo killing, he very well may have gone free.

It’s all in the timing and time marches on. My biggest fear is that we have piqued as a civilization and are now beginning to see our downfall begin. Nothing good could possibly come from allowing people who haven’t left a living will to die like Terri died. Just like capital punishment, it diminishes us as a society just a little bit and it does so with no real benefit to us. We, as a species, simply don’t know enough about the secrets of life to play God on such levels.

I HOPE our descendants will evolve to a point where they can look back in horror at some of the things we have done. But I have a feeling that is we who can foresee the ghastliness.

HI!

I should have left well enough alone. I went out with a man tonight when I just should have waited for "make out on the couch dude" from last night.

If you ever find yourself on a date with a woman and you would like to have her sneak out on you, just do what this guy did. We went to a nice restaurant for dinner and I asked him how long he had been divorced. He said 9 years and then he said he missed being married. I asked him what he missed the most about marraige and he responded, "Waking up early in the morning and crawling under the blankets to eat breakfast." I wanted to gag on my spinach and artichoke dip. Then, when I jokingly said that I would love to order the baby back ribs but I didn't bring my dental floss, he offerred to "suck the meat" out of my teeth. I did inded gag at that visual. I should have eaten more last night because with all of that gross stuff going on during dinner tonight, I could barely stomache the ice water.

After dinner, he asked if I would like a drink, I told him that I didn't really like alcohol and I would have to have a drink that tasted really good. I was looking at the drink menu and he took it away and suggested a few drinks, I didn't like any of his suggestions but was tired of arguing with him so I said, "Order me whatever you want." So, he ordered me a Long Island Ice Tea and then, when I couldn't drink it, he said, "We aren't leaving here until you drink every bit of that!"

I finally got him to leave without making me drink the entire thing and as we were walking out to the car, he pulled me close to him as though we were high school kids who had raging hormones. When he opened the car door, he tried to kiss me before I got in. I went to submit to a quick kiss to get it over with but he pulled me close and stuck his tongue down my throat as though he was searching for his car keys in my mouth. I was horrified.

He was taking me back to my car and pulled into a bar parking lot. I said I didn't want to go because I had to get up early. He said, "So do I...who cares?" Well, I did. He tried to get me to go shoot pool with him but I told him that I didn't have my stick and I didn't want to shoot with a bar stick. He asked, "Why?" I said that I played better with my own stick and he said, "You can play with any stick....it doesn't matter!"

I said, "Sure, I COULD play with any stick, I said that I played BETTER with my own stick." I was trying to be gracious but there was no way to keep it up. I finally told him, "I find the things that you have said offensive." He said, "No, it wasn't offensive! A lot of women are after me and I always talk like that!" I suggested that he should go find one of them.

He called me "uptight" for not getting into his behavior and basically dismissed everything that I said and imposed his will on me every opportunity that he could. And this was a middle aged, successful business man. By the time that I got home, I was so disgusted that I wanted to learn to like alcohol.

Then, I went online to check my email and found this:

FYI: When you meet a man on the internet looking for a good time when he is out of town on business, it usually means that he IS married. I know because Ron is married - I'm the wife for 26 years.

That would be fine except for the fact that I don't know who Ron is. So, this woman has informed me that her lying husband is emailing me but she never considered the fact that he might lie about his name as well. I tried to email her back to thank her and to find out who her husband is so that I could be sure to avoid him. But, I got the email back because she has an email block. I am hoping that she allows my email through (I filled out a form and resent it) so that I can assure her that I absolutely have no interest in married men. Of course, I have no idea how many decent women refused Vex before he found one who would to do a married man so this lady still has a problem. I am not that problem, but there are plenty of trash out in the world that could be. I have to think about this for a while.

As though that isn't bad enough, check this one out:

I am looking for a long-term intimate friend. I have been married for 18+ years, and although our relationship is good and we are best friends, there is little intimacy. In particular, the kind of intimacy I am missing is the playful, teasing, tickling, spontaneous, kissing, laughing kind. Dance with me a few steps as we walk through the mall....kiss while we ride an escalator...."accidentally" brush your hand against me and wink afterwards....tell me what you like and say "oh, yesssss" when we do that.....It's not that I'm into public displays of affection or that I'm not discreet when necessary; I'll protect your privacy just as I will mine. I have no desire to hurt any of your or my relationships.

If you are feeling like this, tell your wife! Especially if the two of you are "best friends". I would have rather Vex had come to me and said this than just go out and screw somebody else. You know, if you are lucky enough to be married long enough, this is what happens. Either leave the marraige or repair it. Like Vex, this guy will never learn how to be happy with a life long partner. He will keep screwing around instead of fixing the marraige and one day, he will find himself alone and miserable. Someday he will do something stupid, his wife will catch him and if she has a shred of self respect, she will divorce him. Then, he will lose his best friend and an 18 year marraige that is far more valuable than any woman who would be his accomplice.

Oh well, I am tired and must go to bed now. I have to say hello to someone, excuse me for a moment.

Mike, I see you again! If you are so interested, why don't you call me?

OK, that's it.

Good night!

Meg

Hi!

Sorry to be so late tonight but I had company. Dinner, a movie and a make out session on the couch. All in all, the kind of evening that I would like to have more of. Ah, that was nice.

My attorney’s office called today and “opposing counsel” has decided, after taking months to draw up the divorce papers, that I should sign them a little faster. She told my attorney that I did indeed have insurance, but the people at Circuit City’s human resources said otherwise and I was unable to go to a planned hospital trip because of it. I told my attorney that I understood how his attorney must feel, her client is a lying bastard. But, I am not signing any new papers when that jack ass is in contempt of the current order as it is. We could always go to court, it’s right down the street from me. Georgia has jurisdiction over this marriage and I am still here. I haven’t gone anywhere. He, on the other hand, decided to leave town and it would be a commute from Montana.

My attorney is on this one though, I think he sees the situation for what it is. That nimrod sent me insurance cards that arrived on the last day that they were any good. Oh well, I was pleasantly distracted from that this evening.

I really would enjoy more evenings like I had tonight. Like I always say, it’s easy to find a man, just lower your standards. I haven’t and as a result, I’ve been pretty bored and lonely lately. But, it certainly was worth the wait. This guy is perfect for such an evening, smart, funny, nice and as cute as a button. And hair...oh my God, hair. And a lot of it. Long, curly hair. And, IT’S EVEN ON TOP OF HIS HEAD! I haven’t been able to put my fingers through hair since the mid 80’s. This is the guy who gave left a copy of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy in between my screen door and back door early one morning after I told him that all of my Ring movies had been stolen. He is also the same guy who I was leading to the police department one night after he appeared to be following me. He honked at the red light before I turned right and I looked in the rear view and saw that it was him.

I was shocked, I hadn’t seen him in quite a while. One of these days I am going to ask him a few questions about why he decided to look for me again, right now I am just enjoying his company. And phone calls! I get phone calls during the day again. Those “just to say hello” calls that I haven’t gotten for years. I like that.

The last time that I saw this guy was one night a few months ago when I was out by myself shooting pool. I went up to the bar to get a drink, saying hello as I passed him. As I was waiting for my beer, another dude told me that this guy had been sitting at the bar staring at me ever since he had come in. I knew that he was there but I wasn’t really paying any attention, my mind was on the game. I wondered why he didn’t just come and speak to me after the other guy told me that he was watching me but I just brushed it off and went back to shooting pool. Then, a couple of weeks ago, he popped up totally unexpectedly and I couldn’t be more pleased. A more lovely distraction, I could not ask for. It’s just thing kind of thing that lets me know how lucky I am to have lost the big, bald, lying moron that was in my house a year ago.

Well, I am going to bed now. Have a great day!


Meg

Good morning!

I hope you all had a great weekend. I did, the grandkids were here. I watched their parents argue over who was doing what when and who would have to baby-sit as though the kids are a chore. It reminded me of my ex who would claim he didn’t want to “baby-sit” his own kids when I needed to leave the house. I wonder how many other people out there are thinking that their kids are a chore. A lot of work, yes. But I would love to have that job again. It ends far too quickly and just when you think you have completed your job, you realize that it was the best gig you ever had and you can’t get it back.

I guess we all go through life unappreciative of what we have until it’s gone. But...our kids? How can anyone not appreciate them? Parents leave them at home so that they can both go out and earn enough money for bigger and better stuff. Then the kids are more confused then the parents ever were. All because of parents who feel as though the income is more important than the kids.

I’ve never seen a child who didn’t welcome the attention of an adult. Both of those kids spent the weekend grabbing me and saying, “Watch me!” and doing some silly thing like jumping up and down. They are so starved for attention that I felt for them. We had a lot of fun this weekend, I did watch them and they were enchanting.

Oprah is full of people who are totally screwed up because someone didn’t give them the love that they wanted or needed but you don’t see them complaining that they didn’t have enough toys or a nicer house. I think most kids would be more happy in a shack with a couple of parents who loved them then in a giant home with multiple vehicles. Oh well, I guess this has been going on since the 60’s. When I was a kid, I felt badly that my mother worked. Most other mothers didn’t back then. When my youngest entered high school, I decided to stay home and nurture the last of my kids. His response amazed me. He asked, “What do I tell my friends when they ask what my mother does for a living?” I was a bit stunned. I told him to tell them that I wash his dirty clothes and cook his meals for him.

In one generation, we went from a society of families with one working parent to a society where kids feel odd if they DON’T have two working parents. What a shame.

Well, I have things to do today, I just wanted to pop in and say hello. Thanks Rcade, by the way.

OK, gotta go, have a great day!

See ya,
Meg

Let me tell you something...

...if you are into online dating at all, you should have at least two totally different profiles. I do and I have found it to be about as eye opening of an experience as I have ever had. I almost addressed this strictly to women but then it occurred to me that to do so would be rather rude because I am not in a position to say that women don’t lie as much as men do, it’s just that my experience is with the men and for better or worse, THAT cannot change. For me, it has truly been a crash course in the male psyche.

I signed up with a free online dating site and once, on a lark, I created a second profile using a picture of my backside that I happened to have. I don’t know why I did it but I did. I have never done anything like that before, ever. The closest I ever came to having a picture of myself like that was once over 15 years ago when Vex and I took some pictures of each other in the buff. I was playing around with my web cam one day and took a couple of ass shots...clothed, and you would think that I was Linda Lovelace by the way some men have responded. It is the single wildest thing that I have done in years and it provokes such a startlingly similar response from certain men that I cannot help but wonder what it must be like to be the type of women that does that type of thing on a regular basis. I imagine it must be pretty damn successful, judging by simply putting an anonymous ass shot on the internet.

I can understand the little boys acting like they do, every hot blooded 25 year old with a keyboard has emailed me. I could even understand the reaction of some odd older men. There was some of this that I could have predicted. But never, ever would I have predicted that the same men would write to both of the profiles and behave in such a dissimilar manner when they do.

Some of the sweetest, most sincere appearing men have written to my real profile, the one that has my face and a few true words attached to it. There are even a couple who I have met once or twice and still hear from occasionally who have all of a sudden found Kelli (the ass profile) and have responded to her in a manner that shows them to be as fake as Kelli is.

There is no Kelli, there is only a picture of my ass and a pack of lies. I honestly don’t know why I did that but I am rather glad that I did. As I said before, it’s been a crash course in the male psyche for me and I could imagine going through a few entire relationships before learning as much as I did just doing this. If there was any lesson that I didn’t learn from being married to an habitual liar, this experience has taught it to me.

And it’s more than just their approach that changes in response to the different profiles, the men themselves change. I sat in the Marietta Diner and listened to a seemingly sincere, rather shy man tell me about his daughters and his recent divorce. He presented himself to be a very sweet homebody type who suddenly found himself divorced from a bitch from hell type woman who took him to the cleaners after he had dedicated his life to making her happy. He spoke about his kids so caringly, I thought that his wife must be some kind of nut for letting him go. I should have known better than to listen to any man who says anything at all bad about his ex but I fell for his BS because of how reticent and gentle he appeared. It didn’t seem possible for this man to be terribly deceptive.

Only the fact that I am still married has kept me from getting too involved, I have admittedly only met this guy twice and I admittedly again, haven’t gotten to know any of them more than that at all. But, my God, you wouldn’t expect such drastic swings in behavior from any one human being.

When I let this guy in on the joke, I actually thought that he would remember the LADY that he had already gotten to know to some degree and find her more intriguing. Instead, he basically told me to come to his house as soon as humanly possible and to bring the “equipment” with me. Even though I told him that the entire thing was a gag and that I took the picture as a stunt, he chose to believe that Kelli was real. Meg ceased to exist altogether. Even the consideration that Meg was a real person with feelings had gone out the window quicker than I could snap my fingers. Rather than another date or even the cover of something clever like, "Come let me cook dinner for you!", this guy treats me as though I am Pussies-R-Us AND that I deliver.

The pack of lies was rather innocuous so I know it was the picture that provokes the response. Nobody refers at all to what I wrote on the profile, they are simply looking at the picture without reading any further.

I suppose there are some people out there who are thinking, “Duh! Of course people would act like that!” and looking back, I feel like an idiot but I honestly didn’t expect it. It’s amazing that one can learn so much about people from such an impersonal thing as the internet. So, now do you see how Vex was able to lie to me so successfully? I am truly a jack ass. But...I am just a little smarter of a jack ass now.

See ya,

Meg

By the way, I have just learned that I am not the only one who was so naive:

Cherry: I covered most of them! There weren't nipples involved. Call me incredibly naive, but really did just think it was funny. I didn't expect a reaction. This is where you call me naive.

Ah...now I feel much better.

Big D...a smile for you!

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Just a quick post to say hello to Big D...damn girl, you are one obsessed chick! I thought I told you to spend time with your daughter. I see you every single time you come in. What are you getting out of this? Oh well, go knock on your husband's bedroom door, maybe he gave up knocking on yours. By the way, have you heard about my moving to Chi-town? I thought that you would be happy to hear that. Lombard is pretty close to you, isn't it? We'd see each other ALL the time! Wouldn't that be great?! The fear it would put in your heart is reason enough to come back home. See you soon!

Hi ya'll!

I was just about to go to bed but I wanted to get Sunday's Trivia Game in before I went to bed because I might not have the time before church. I was just watching television and I noticed a commercial for some "male enhancement" product and I have to say that it was done in such a cute, innocent and creative way that there was nothing to offend. If a product like THAT can find a way to produce a commercial that could be viewed by children without concerning their parents, I think that a bunch of other products could do the same. I happened to have no need for this particular product, but I would go out of my way to patronize a company that went out of their way to present their product in a manner that is not full of gratuitous sex, violence and foul language. When I am not headed off to sleep, I am going to create an e-mail sedning that message to certain companies so that anyone who wanted to could easily send the e-mail off to those who might be in a position to make a difference. The media keeps mentioning the power of blogs, let's see if we can't start flexing that power in various ways, OK? I am a firm believer in the fact that we the people CAN make a difference. Anyway, off to sleep I am so here are the questions. Have a great Sunday!

1. What is the capital of New Hampshire?

2. Who was President of the US in 1914?

3. How many bones are there in the human body?

4. What is the second largest city in Illinois?

5. Who declared June 6, 1944 a "a day that will live in infamy"?

6. On the television show Seinfeld, who had the "kevorka"?

7. Who is credited with the discovery of penicillin?

8. How many Vice Presidents served under President Nixon?

9. Name the longest reigning monarch of England.

10. Who played the lead character in the television show "Julia"?

11. What country was the original "Banana Republic"?

12. What North Carolina town was the supposed setting for Mayberry on the Andy Griffith Show?

13. What state contains the southern most point of the United States?

14. Who hit 3 home runs in one game during the 1977 World Series?

15. What Broadway musical introduced the song, "The Impossible Dream"?

16. Who wrote the book "In Cold Blood"?

17. What 1946 movie had characters named Bert and Ernie?

18. Name the only state in the country that is physically bordered by one other state and is otherwise surrounded by water.

19. Name at least 5 ways for a batter to get to first base.

20. The coffee bean originally grew wild on what continent?

Good morning!

I had such a good day yesterday that I decided to go out. As I was driving, I found myself sitting at a stop light feeling sad. I have had so many people tell me to "get over it" and forget about Vex that I am aboud to scream. How do you NOT find yourself thinking about things when you have spent almost a quarter of a century with a person? I sat at that light being sad and then I became angry at myself for doing so.

Then, it occurred to me that I am not wrong or weak for feeling this way, I am just a normal person going through a divorce. These things have got to be normal, it doesn't matter how badly Vex treated me, he was a major part of my life and it's tough to go through a day without something reminding me of our life together. It doesn't mean that I miss him, it just means that I am going through the stages of grief that comes along with any major loss. So, I am not going to be too tough on myself from now on.

Anyway, I wanted to tell you what happened last night. I have been saying that I am going to go out for weeks now, only I never end up actually doing it. Last night, I felt pretty well so I decided that I HAD to get myself out of the house. I hadn't been out in weeks. So, I went to this little bar that I've been to before and I sat in the parking lot thinking, "I don't want to go in there. I really, really don't." So, I headed home.

As I got close to home, I decided to go to this little place very close to my house that I had never been to before. Once again, I sat in the car thinking that I shouldn't go inside. I sat there for close to ten minutes before I decided to go in for one drink.

I was actually scared as I walked in. I hate walking into a bar alone and I haven't done it in so long that I was very uncomfortable. I planted myself in a corner booth and started watching the Mets game on TV when a guy at the bar asked me to come and join him and his little party. I decided that I should do that, I didn't like sitting there by myself and they seemed to be having fun. I took my beer and sat at the bar with those folks and joined them in their conversation and all of a sudden, I noticed someone that I knew sitting at the other corner of the bar.

This guy is someone that I have known for years. He and I have never been anything but friends although he always made it quite clear that he would like to be a little bit more. Last year during my Betrayed Wife Sale, he stopped by my house and we chatted a bit (He lives on the other side of town and this was quite a coincidence.). I told him about Vex and the affair and he asked me, "Well, NOW can we go out sometime?" I told him that I was still hoping to save my marriage and we had a nice chat and then he left. I hadn't seen him since.

So, when I saw him, I found myself absolutely stunned. If you knew how much I tried to talk myself out of walking into that place, you would know what a total shock it was to see him. The word serendipitous came into my head over and over again. He came over to speak to me and he asked what I was doing. I told him that I wanted to play pool and I mentioned what I had gone through before I came into the place where we were. I mentioned that I had come into this place to see if they had a pool table. They didn't. But...my friend did. He has one in his basement and he asked me if I wanted to go to his place to play. I said yes and off we went to shoot pool in his basement. This guy has never made a move on me and I thought that surely, now that Vex was gone, he would. Well, after a couple of hours of shooting pool and talking, I started getting ready to leave because he hadn't given me any reason to think that he wanted me to stay. As I picked up my pool cue and started to put it back in the case, he asked me if I wanted to go upstairs and watch a movie. I said that I would love to and we went up to his den and started watching Panic Room.

I sat on the couch with him but left about 2 or 3 feet in between us. He immediately said, "You can come closer if you'd like." Well, I liked. So...I moved next to him and we snuggled up on his couch and watched the movie together. That was so nice...I can't even describe how good it felt to be so close to another human being. I have a feeling that if he had made the slightest effort, I would have been hard pressed not to give in. But, a gentleman he is and I left after the movie without doing anything other than cuddling. I didn't get home until after 4 am. Now, how many people would believe that a man and a woman could spend the night together in an otherwise empty house and do nothing but cuddle? I doubt that I would buy it but that's exactly what happened. And, I have been pretty much been smiling ever since.

Now, I have to tell you something. I have another blog and I used the name MC Moewe on it as a pseudonym. Rogers Cadenhead, the jack ass who has smeared my name all over the internet, has tipped his hand a bit. I did a search for his name and one of the sites mentioned that his wife's name was MC Moewe. I figured that I could safely use that name. Nobdoy would be smearing it, that's for sure! I never said that I WAS MC Moewe and I believe I made it pretty clear that I am Meg Kelso, even on the other blog itself ( http://www.callmemc.blogspot.com ). Well, Rogers doesn't like it when someone gives him a bit of his own back. He whined to Blogger that I was impersonating his wife...here is the email that they sent me:

We have received a complaint of impersonation concerning your blogcallmemc.blogspot.com. We ask that you please change your profileinformation to not show 'M.C. Moewe' in the About Me section. Please seeour Blogger Help article for details on how to do this:http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=58Please note that if you do not comply within 24 hours, we will be forcedto remove the content in question and/or delete your blog.Thank you for your understanding.Sincerely,Blogger Support

Now, remember, I did nothing to besmirch that name and I had no plans to do so. I simply figured that it was a safe name to use online. Well, Rogers should have left well enough alone. He just exposed his weak spot and I am going to take advantage of it. Of course, should he decide to be decent instead of acting like a silly 13 year old boy, we could end this here and now. He has done all he can do to me but I haven't even begun to fight back. So, now he is out of ammo and he just turned over an arsenal of stuff for me to fire back with. He knows how to put a stop to this nonsense and he has the power to do so at any time. Until he does, I am forced to do what is necessary to level the battlefield.

Have a great day!

Meg

Hi!

How are you guys doing? I’m having a pretty good evening except for the alone thing. I just watched 4 straight episodes of Leave it to Beaver and now I’m cooking dinner. Ah! My son just pulled up...he must have smelled my cooking. I better go ...be back soon!

OK, that was quick, wasn’t it? Actually, I just woke up from a nap. It’s the middle of the night and I am wide awake. I had a nightmare, isn’t that awful? I hate nightmares, especially when I am sleeping alone in the living room. I had to walk in the dark to turn the light on and that freaked me out. Now the television is on and so are the lights so I’m not scared anymore.

It was one of those really realistic dreams where you wake up thinking that it’s really happening. I dreamt that I was a little girl and it was back in the 60’s again. When I was a kid I was always afraid of a nuclear bomb because we had those stupid drills where we sat under our desk at school. They were like fire drills only they were in preparation for the Communists and their bombs. If you add to that the occasional prediction that the world would end on a certain date, it was kind of scary being a kid in the 60’s.

Anyway, in my nightmare the world was ending and all the mothers had to put the kids in caskets and when the kids fell asleep, the mothers would lock the caskets and the kids would die in their sleep. The fathers were all at work and the bosses did the same thing to them that the mothers did to the kids and then the fathers died in their sleep as well. I’m not really sure what happened to the moms and the bosses, I never asked anybody. Anyway, it wasn’t supposed to be a bad thing, this was supposed to save us all from being killed in a nuclear explosion.

So, being the bright kid that I am, I only pretended to be asleep and when everybody else did fall asleep, I jimmied the lock on my casket and opened up my brother’s and sister’s caskets and then I ran from Elk Grove Village to downtown Chicago and opened my father’s casket.

After I saved my family, I ran around saving my friends. For some stupid reason, we lived in our neighbor’s house and I wore my brother’s shoes (they were really mine even though part of me knew they were my brother’s). So, after I saved a bunch of people, my dog bit off my hands. I had to change some strange babies diaper with no hands and then I woke up for real. When I did, I thought my hands were really gone because I had been laying on them and they were totally numb. I had to pull my arms out from underneath myself and actually SEE my hands to be sure that they were still there.

I woke up and looked at the window for a few minutes to be sure that I was awake and over the nightmares. The next thing I knew, I was driving and my hands were gone again. When I realized that my hands were gone, I checked the glove compartment to see if they were there. I don’t know how I opened the glove box, but I did, without my hands.

They weren’t in the glove box so I kept on driving handless and as I did, I remembered that I had dreamt about the hands and checked for them...so I knew that I HAD hands and I knew that I was dreaming, but that knowledge didn’t give me any hands in my dream.

The next thing I knew I was at Denny’s with some of my friends from high school (it was the 70’s now) and I still didn’t have my hands. My friends wanted to know where my hands were and I told them the truth...that I was dreaming and that my hands were in the future, at the end of my arms. They didn’t believe me one little bit. I asked them to come with me to wide wake-land and I would show them my hands.

They said they would come with me but when I woke up, they weren’t here. Luckily, my hands are.

So, I thought that maybe if I did something with my hands like type, I would be able to go to sleep and keep my hands in case I need them in another dream.

OK, now I am going back to sleep.

See ya,

Meg

First let me say thank you...

...to the anonymous person who sent me the laptop, yes, it will make it incredibly easy, I can type in a reclining position and that’s exactly what I need. (And, to answer your question, yes. I wouldn’t have ever known otherwise.)

OK. I was doing some soul searching earlier today and I realized that I had a problem that must be addressed. I am not sure how to treat my problem although I am sure that I can go to a doctor and have it officially diagnosed and then see what my options are. Maybe they have treatment centers and maybe I’ll have to go for outpatient treatment but whatever it is, I understand that the toughest part of the entire journey to wellness is admitting to yourself that you have a problem, and I have just done that. As they say, today is the first day of the rest of your life...and I am vowing here and now to adopt a Carpe Diem! attitude and beat this illness! I feel so much better already just admitting it.

Yes, finally, after years of suffering in silence, I admit it. I am suffering from both misogyny AND misogamy. There, I’ve said it. Now, where is the organization that will support me in my sincere attempt to terminate this appalling dual affliction...and without delay?

Being a wedded woman myself, I endure excruciatingly uncomfortable feelings of self-reproach and disgrace just HAVING these two frailties in the first place. Questioning why I must also endure the burden and stigma that society assigns to these maladies is pointless because there are no answers nor is there any justice in life. We pick up the hand we’re dealt and we play it out the best way we can. But still, I find it exceedingly heartrending and agonizing that society still considers it “fair game” to mock and taunt misogynists. And, when one adds the further encumbrance of misogamy into the mix, well, you can just envision what manner of tribulation these political “orphans” must undergo.

Luckily, there are some women that I do find enjoyable and even some marraiges that I envy. The tertiary and most intense phase of the illness is identified by a total inability to find any woman on the planet enjoyable. Fortunately, the tertiary phase is, with a few notables exceptions, confined to men.

Although there are a few women that I do find to be pleasant human beings, usually I have the hideous fits of disdain that happen as quickly and as unexpectedly as a heart attack. I will see a woman do something stupid like wear a thong and BANG! I suffer the most wretched and distressing rage that one could imagine. It is simply one of the most incredibly debilitating illnesses that one could contract.

Being one to enjoy helping others, I am going to begin a support group for other Miso-Miso victims and I would like to appear on Oprah to reach as many people as humanly possible. I am sure that there are many others out there, waiting for the day when all Miso-Miso victims can be free of thoughts like, “Hey, you nasty, blonde headed piece of scum from the bottom of a Chinese restaurant’s dumpster...I wish you and your sagging sacs of silicone would just go visit some of your maggot neighbors and see if they will teach you how to behave like a decent dumpster dweller.” And of course, which one of us hasn’t seen a women driving slowly in the fast lane and thought, "What the heck happened to you? Did your mother drink Draino during the first trimester of the last nine month period that this planet enjoyed life without you on it?"

Yes, I feel better now that I have finally initiated the search for help for this affliction and I appreciate the support of all of you out there who know how difficult it is to admit to any one of a million diseases that can be cured by compassion, empathy and understanding. It is only through the kindness offered by caring and benevolent people such as yourselves that makes it possible for wounded people like myself to come forward and ask for the help that is required to eradicate this dreaded disease from the face of the Earth once and for all. Thank you for your grace and maturity in dealing with this difficult topic. I foresee a day, and not too far away, when we can all live, hand in hand, in peace. It will be our respect for each other and our constant hope for a better world that guarantees that we will see a cure in my lifetime.

I've not been having fun at all...

...I have been quite ill lately...the pain has gotten so bad that I can barely inhale without hurting. The results from the MRI showed that the tumors have spread to my spine. I was supposed to go into the hospital today for treatment to shrink the tumors but RICK KELSO has quit his job and is currently in hiding in Montana so when I went to the doctor yesterday, I had no medical insurance. I was able to pay for two of my prescriptions but not the others. I had about $400 to my name and over $300 of it went to the two medications that I could pay for.

He left without the divorce being final and his attorney...JAMIE SMITH, has sent the final divorce papers to my attorney for me to sign. RICK KELSO is in contempt of every order that he has agreed to thus far and I would be a fool to sign any further papers. If I did, the orders in which he is in contempt of would no longer be in effect so I will not sign them until he decides to honor the existing orders. I will not sign those papers until he is current on his alimony and he reimburses me for the $300 that I had to spend on my medication because of my uninsured status.

Obviously they have no respect for the institution of marriage so it's not as though they care if they are married or not so I don't think that a divorce is a priority to them and it certainly is not terribly high on my list of things to do at this point.

I have received many phone calls from people who care more about me than the man who vowed to honor and protect me. I am sorry if I worried anyone, I was simply to ill to sit at the desk and write. I wish to express my sincere gratitude to the folks who have written and called when I seemingly dropped off the face of the internet.

I have spent the last 30 years of my life helping others and I am now in a postition of needing help myself. Since learning that I have no medical insurance, I have realized that I have to do what I have been trying to avoid....I have to beg for help. My pride is aching but I want to live for my children so I must spend this week trying to find assistance to help pay for my medications and my medical treatment. If anyone out there knows of any resources available, please email me with any information that you may have at Meg.Kelso@gmail.com. I have no money with which to buy food nor do I have any money to pay my bills with.

I am sitting alone in my kitchen right now and I need help but I don't know where to turn. I am scared and I am sick...but I am still here and I will fight with every fiber of my being to survive. I will be back to write more after I have written something by hand and I will get it online somehow.

Thank you all for your concern and for any help that you can offer.

I remain sincerely grateful,

Meg

Good morning!

I went to the Cubs game at Turner Field last night and I ended up leaving before the first inning was over because, for some odd reason, they have decided to make Turner Field a large pinball machine. At first, I thought that all the noise and lights going all the way around the stadium would stop once the game started but I quickly realized that the only time they shup up was while the batter was up. After the at bat, the music and lights started again. God forbid the Braves got a hit, the music became more raucous and the lights more distracting.

Wrigley Field hosts the Chicago Cubs, a team that has a tough time staying above .500. Everyone knows that the Cubs are the Lovable Losers but they sell out almost every single game. It has nothing to do with whether or not the Cubs lose or win, it's because at Wrigley Field is a BALLPARK. Nothing more, nothing less. The scoreboard has a kid inside of it that changes the scores by hand, he just changes a big 1 for a big 2. Nothing fancy at all, that scoreboard has been there for as long as I can remember and I can remember over 40 years back. There is an organ that plays Take me out to the Ballpark but it isn't very loud, it's actually kind of pleasant. Except for the lights that they installed in 1988, nothing has changed. You can sit peacefully and enjoy America's Past-time without a headache and without any distractions.

I've been to Turner Field every year since I've moved here and I don't ever remember this crap being there before. So, what happened? Did someone complain that the ball games were too quiet? Anyway, I won't be going back to Turner Field unless one of my children becomes a baseball player, you have my word on that.

I was speaking to this guy the oher day, he's married and he was kind of hitting on me. I knew he was married and I asked him why he would do that. He started to complain about his wife and I finally stopped him and asked him if he ever told his wife the things he was telling me. He said, "No, she would just cry and bitch back at me."

Jeez, is that true, guys? Are you out there complaining about your wife to other women without ever giving your wife a chance to make you happy? Vex never told me there was anything wrong. To the contrary, he constantly told me how happy he was. If he would have ever sat down and said, "Here is what's bothering me...", I would have done my best to make him happy but he never gave me that respect.

Some men cheat because of problems that are happening at home and some men cheat just because they are cheaters. You can't really do much with a cheater, but if you are considering cheating because of something going on at home, go home and discuss it with your wife. If you do, you may be surprised. Of course, you may be disappointed, but you haven't lost anything. It is always the honorable thing to do, if you don't at least give your wife a chance to make it up to you, you are not an honorable man.

Well, my father is here and he likes to talk, and talk, and talk....so I have to go listen.

I'll be back when he takes a breather.

See ya!

Meg

Hi.

I’ve had a death in the family so I’ve been kind of pre-occupied.

Well, I’m still waiting for the final paperwork. As I mentioned earlier, I think somebody is playing games with my divorce. Apparently, that’s the way some attorneys operate. They don’t work as much for the benefit of their client as they do for the sake of playing a game and winning minor battles.

You know, this is a female attorney that I am referring to and she is a perfect example of why woman have a hard time being accepted into important, leadership positions. So many woman, with few exceptions to the rule, have a hard time differentiating between being tough and being mean. I’ve heard women complain about being called a “bitch” when they assert themselves. Well, there’s a reason for that. When they assert themselves, they happen to do it in a bitchy way. I am sure there are men who could do better as well, but in general, women will be a bitch where a man will actually really be tough. Roseanne made the point that a man in her position would be considered “a shrewd businessman” but I don’t think her reputation had anything to do with her being a woman, I think she was just a bitch. We have to learn the difference and this attorney, in my opinion, needs to consider that possibility herself.

Anyway, I am over being angry about everything (in the divorce) although I preferred it. I was more comfortable there. Being angry was cool because I could come up with all that “twisted penis” stuff. Now I’m just sad and I don’t know what to do about that. I certainly don’t want to write about that, sad is sad...to say more would be whining and that’s such a downer thing to do so I won’t.

I went to the Battlefield with my dad yesterday and we got lost. I dragged that poor man all over the place. Up hills and down hills, it was crazy. I was sure he was gonna have a heart attack, but he made it. He’s in bed now so I am taking this chance to say hi.

Oh, that guy who stopped by the night before my birthday called me last night. I was glad for that, it came at a good time. And he is just so cute, you wouldn’t believe. And tall. And smart. And I have known him for a couple years at least so it’s not like he’s a stranger or anything like that so that’s cool.

I’ll see ya a little later,

Meg

Yeah, I know....

I have no comment section right now. Well, I will post the asnwers beneath the questions or you can go to my new blog at:

http://callmemc.blogspot.com/

Now, I know that you realize that I don't think ALL people are stupid, but if you have an IQ in the double digits, you realize that there are far too many stupid people in the world. Besides, I was in a bad mood when I wrote that thing and I don't feel like changing it now. So, just keep on coming here or visit me under the name M.C. Moewe at The World's First Flexi-Blog!

1. Who said the following:"If I am nominated I will not run, if I am elected I will not serve?"

Pat Paulson

2. What is the capital of Kansas?

Topeka

3. What did John Wilkes Booth shout after he shot Abe Lincoln?

Sic Semper Tyrannus

4. Who had Mary Queen of Scots executed?

Elizabeth the First

5. Who sang the 70's song Disco Duck?

Rick Dees

6. Name 2 sit coms that Sammy Davis Jr. made guest appearances on.

I Dream of Jeannie and All in the Family

7. Who discovered the very first vaccination?

Edward Jenner

8. What disease did the first vaccination prevent?

Small pox

9. What is the largest organ of the human body?

Skin

10. Who said "Give me liberty or give me death?

Patrick Henry

11. Who was the first African American to win an Academy Award?

Hattie McDaniels for Gone With the Wind

12. Who shot Lee Harvey Oswald?

Jack Ruby

13. Name the Seven Dwarfs from Snow White.

Sleepy, Grumpy, Dopey, Sneezy, Happy, Doc and Bashful

14. Where was the 1967 World's Fair held?

Montreal

15. Which Brady kid poked a hole in a convertible while on a date a a drive in movie?

Bobby while on a date with Greg

16. Who was the first president of the USA to be impeached?

Andrew Johnson

17. Complete the following commercial sentence, "I'd walk a mile for a ______."

Camel

18. Who posed nude in the magazine Cosmo in the 1970's?

Burt Reynolds

19. Where is the Taj Mahal?

Agra, India

20. What kind of car did all 4 Monkees receive for agreeing to be part of that television show The Monkees?

GTO

HI!

I was thinking about telling you guys the story I had promised and my day was so busy that I haven't had a chance until now.

I was going to tell you about another time I used fake badges to "bust" people. Actually, they weren't fake badges, they were real, they just weren't mine. My mother was on the Forest Preserve Commision and Du Page County Board and for some reason, they issued badges for such things. I don't know how much she used them, but my friends and I used them quite a bit. I'd just take them out of her purse on my way out the door and drop them back in on the way out. I didn't carry them all the time, I usually ended up going home to get them for one reason or another.

One time we went to a disco and a friends of mine used one of those old, picture-less ID's that I told you about before. Remember how people used to keep the old driver's license when they switched over to picture ID's? Well, anyway, one friend of mine named Jim lad loaned his old ID to a friend of ours, Jimmy. Jimmy wasn't old enough to get in but JIm was. (These are actually their real names.) We were all going dancing that night and Jimmy, my best friend Caryn and I got there before Jim did. When Jim did get there, the bouncers recognized his name, somehow, from when Jimmy used the ID. (Or, of course, they were just messing with him, or, as Caryn and I figured out later, Jim could have lied to us himself.) When Jim eventually showed up at our table, he told us this incredible story about how the bouncers remembered his name and took him to the men's room and shook him down for $80.

Caryn and I were really angry so we went to get the badges. We went back to the disco and flashed them at the bouncer and asked, "Who was bouncing here at about 9:30?" They were stunned. And, they were all to happy to point us in the right direction and away from them.

We got the two guys who were working the door at that time and we took them in the office. They denied everything so we shook THEM down for the $80. I hope we were right, I'd hate to think that we just robbed them.

Well, I just wanted to keep my word and tell you that story. Remember, tmorrow is Trivia Day so come back if you are spending a lazy Sunday afternoon. If I have time before church, I'll post it other wise, I'll do it as soon as I get back.

Right now, War Games is on and I've seen it so many times that I could fall asleep listening to it because I know what's happening on the screen.

Have a good morning and I'll see you soon!

Meg

Before anyone tells me that I'm wearing too much make up in these pictures, I already know that. I was playing with the make up and gave myself Raggedy Ann eyes.

Yeah...I'm bored. Help.

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When I get bored, there's no telling what I'll do.
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Good Afternoon?

Yeah, it’s afternoon. I went out with Anna Arky last night. She didn’t get off work until late so we met at the Marietta Diner after midnight and spoke and spoke and spoke. She brought a friend of hers with so the 3 of us ladies just sat around and chatted. That was so much fun. But, I ended up getting home so late and wide awake so I didn’t get to bed until 6 am. It could have been worse, we could have gone out drinking and I would be amongst the millions of people with hangovers taday.

I had a great time but I fear that I may start that day/night circadian rhythm screw up thing again. Of course, I could just go back to sleep after I write this and then I’ll wake up nice and early tomorrow. OH! Church! I have to wake up early in the morning. Don’t you enjoy church? Not the getting up and getting dressed part, just being there.

When I married Vex, he never wanted to go so I let myself get out of the habit as well. But I always enjoyed church so I started going again after he left.

When I was a kid, we always lived within walking distance of our church, I think my parents did that on purpose. From their beds, they would shout, “Get ready for church! Then, “OK, everybody, go to church! They usually stayed in bed until we got back. Now that I think about it, maybe that was the only chance they had to get lucky. All 6 of us would be out of the house, safe and sound, at church. They did go occasionally, especially on Mother's Day. My mom wanted to sweep the Mother's Day awards and she usually did, “Mother with the Most Children." That was her!

It was in church that I learned the word "Woman". As one person started to go into the wrong bathroom, another shouted, “Hey! Can’t you read the sign? It says WHOA-MAN!” Looking back, it was a joke but for a while, I thought that woman was something that you said to make a man stop.

Before my cousin, Elaine, and I figured how to abuse the train system in Chicago, we used a church for our ride back and forth to each other’s houses on the weekends. Itasca Baptist Church was halfway between our houses and they had two buses. One went east to get me and one went west to get her. On Friday nights, we went to youth group and on Sunday mornings we went to Church. Friday nights one of us would go home with the other, and Sunday mornings we would each go to our own homes.

A more irreverent couple of adolescent girls, you could not find. We seemed to enjoy making each other laugh to see who was truly the funniest. Most of the time, our jokes were at the expense of other people.
One Friday evening, before the Youth Group plated Fruit Basket Upset, we were having our obligatory bible lesson. The head of the Youth Group had the misfortune of being rather funny looking so we enjoyed using him for our offensive joke fodder. One evening as he was telling us how important Jesus was, he shouted, “Jesus is the fruit of the cake!”
I couldn't hold it back: “Speaking of fruit cakes.”

It was easy and it was cheap. But we were 13 and that was funny to us. And, to everyone around us. So, we got banned from the church bus for a few weekends. That was back in the day of Cheech and Chong and George Carlin so irreverence was hip, or so we thought, anyway.

Neither one of us were Baptist so we found the proceedings rather odd and therefore, fair game. We were bad kids at times. We were the types of kids who would put a bag of dog shit in a bag and set it on fire at someone’s doorstep. WE put road kill in mailboxes and rang doorbells and ran away. Neither one of us would have done these things alone, but for some reason, we just couldn’t help ourselves when we were together. We loved to crack each other up.

When we were 12, they built a place for us kids to hang out on weekends, it was called Woodfield Mall. We had no money, but we could have fun for hours at the mall. When we were about 14, we made these fake police badges using the typewriters in the typewriter section of Sears. (That’s something you don’t see anymore!)

We would stalk the younger kids until we found one or two who were shoplifting and we would flash our fake badges and toss the kids in some “Employee Only” room and run. Ah, those were the days, having fun was so easy.

I am at an age where some degree of decorum is required but one of these days, I am going to be old enough to start being a prankster again. I will once again use my age as an excuse for my tom-foolery. There’s a saying in the geriatric business, “Once and adult, twice a child.”
I can’t wait to be a child again.

After I have my coffee, I’ll come back and tell you about when my friends and I used to use my mother’s badges to scare the crap out of people in the 70’s. Now, THAT’S entertainment.

Don't forget, tomorrow is Trivia Sunday!

See ya soon,

Meg

By the way, I'm still working on trying to get the comment thing back, it takes Blogger a while to write me back.

Hi there!

I’ve had a hot day. The AC guy finally came and I need a new compressor which means that I need a new air conditioner. I hope they come soon to replace it, I hate hot. I had the kids for most of the day so that made it tough to clean the carpet, but I finally got it all done. So, I’ve been busy all day.

I seem to have offended a lady with my earlier comment. I never meant to offend anyone, maybe I just said it wrong.

No, I have never lost a husband to death but when I took my vows, I knew that it was an option. If I had known that he would have been so violent and dishonest, I would have never married him. I went into this marriage knowing that one of us would outlive the other...I didn’t expect what happened. I think that a successful marriage is one that lasts until death. That’s the point of taking the vows, to stay together for life.

I only have one friend who’s marriage lasted until one of them died. She was the friend of mine who married one of our patients. He was a quadriplegic and thirty years older than she. Her mother asked me to try to talk her out of marrying him, but as her friend, I didn’t think that it was my job to do that and looking back, I’m very glad that I didn’t.

She married a paralyzed man who couldn’t give her children and was more than twice her age when they married. No one thought it would last, we all knew how much she wanted kids.

But, all of the people who said that her marriage wouldn’t last ended up getting divorced so that just goes to show you, you can never tell.

I don’t speak for anyone but myself and as awful as it must be to bury a spouse, I could have handled that much easier. As I said, it was part of the deal that I agreed to. The other stuff, on the other hand, was never part of the agreement.

My friend eventually remarried and had a child. She had so many problems with the pregnancy that they decided to adopt their second child from China. Those are the good only things to come out of this marriage. Her husband turned out to be a drug addict and a compulsive liar and he WON'T keep a job. Simply because he was her own age and he appeared to be a pleasant man, everyone assumed she would have a happy marriage. Nobody tried to talk her out of marrying him at all. But almost every single one of our friends who tried to talk her out of marrying an older man who was in a wheelchair have all divorced now. Go figure.

Speaking of wheelchairs, my friend May is about to be put into a nursing home. Her daughter has had her in their basement (They converted the basement into a handicapped accessible apartment.) But, since May has deteriorated, it’s no longer responsible to keep her there. Her daughter feels so incredible guilty and May is very angry, but it is the best thing for her and her daughter. The daughter has a family of her own with small children and they can’t afford 24 hour care which is what May needs at this point. So, that’s going to be a sad, sad situation for everybody involved.

The guilt feelings that go along with placing a loved one in a nursing home are hideous. “Tracy” , the daughter, has young children and a husband so she really doesn’t have the energy to care for her mother in her home. She asked me if I had any idea how long her mom could live and I told her that it’s so hard to say, Mays’ heart is in good shape and a good ticker can keep a person going for a very long time.

When the families of my patients ask me something like that, I can’t give them a very good answer of course, so many variables enter into the picture. I had one patient who’s family asked me that question and I was telling them that it depended on the patients heart. They informed me that the patient had a pace-maker and that made the question even tougher to answer, a pace-maker will keep a person alive for a lot longer than they need to be alive, considering the conditions that some of them find themselves in.

I can’t imagine having to put a parent in a home, even if it is the best thing for them. It has got to be one of the hardest things that a person could go through. The best that you can do in that situation is to make sure that you have thoroughly investigated the home that you are considering. Unfortunately, the squeaky wheel gets the oil whether it needs it or not, so bitch, bitch and bitch some more. No staff member wants to hear you whine so do it! They will see to it that your family member is well taken care of. Also, here are some things to look for when searching for a nursing home:

1. Odor. Some odors are to be expected and they are usually taken care of quickly so no odor should last too long. On the other hand, a urine smell indicates that many residents are left to sit in wet pants.

2. Staff to resident ratio. There should be no more than 30 residents to each nurse and 8 residents to each CNA.

3. Dining room. Are the residents allowed to eat in their room or are they forced to go to the dining room? And when you are looking in the dining room, are the staff being patient with the residents as they feed them? Are they seeing to it that the resident eats their entire meal or are they so rushed that they take the food away before the resident has a chance to eat? Do they mix all of the food together and stick that mess in the resident's mouth, or do they feed them their meat, vegatbles and strachy foods seperatly?Are they offering water or something to drink?

4. Speak to other family members, they are usually very happy to tell you about the facility.

5. Are the call lights going off constantly? More fractures are caused by residents who need to go to the bathroom and no one answers the call light, so they get up to go by themselves and end up falling.

6. Bed sores, how many do they have? 5% is about as good as you can expect. IF they have any more than that, ask some questions.

7. Activities. Are they appropriate for the different residents? Is there a totally alert patient stringing pasta when they could be knitting or doing crossword puzzles?

8. Diapers. Will the home put your loved one in diapers even if they are not incontinent? Most do. As soon as the family leaves, they slap a diaper on the resident and then, before you know it, they ARE incontinent!

9. Look at the staff. Are they rushed? Are they pleasant? Do they touch the residents (Gently, on the shoulder or back) as they pass or just ignore them?

10. Are the men shaved and do the women have their hair combed? I’ve seen matted hair on humans and that is despicable. Teeth are another one of my big problems, so many staff members don’t bother brushing the resident’s teeth.

The residents should be wearing season appropriate clothing and they should look at least somewhat groomed. They should be placed in a pleasant location, not lined up and down the hallways. The staff should appear pleasant and they should speak the same language as the residents. Too many residents complain that they can’t tell the help what they want or they can’t understand what they are saying. Ask a few staff members how long they have been working at this facility, a large turn over is a bad sign. The place itself should be clean of course, but don’t put too much stock in that, it SHOULD be clean, there are so many other things to check out as well.

Well, the landlord just called and told me that he is replacing the entire AC/furnace system so I am really pleased about that. The bad news is, they can’t get here to do the job until Wednesday! Oh well, as I said, it is saving me money in electricity. If I get too hot, I’ll just go for a ride and enjoy the car AC.

Well, it’s time to feed my face so I am going to sign off for now. Have a great weekend and remember, Sunday I am doing another trivia game, so check back early in the afternoon to give me time to get home from church.

See ya,

Meg