Dear Meg...

"...Except that I've a very 'male' brain. I don't play mind games. I say what I mean, or if I don't its because I feel intimidated by someone who weighs twice as much as me and excudes an aura of latent violence the moment his will is thwarted..."

Oh Enyo...now I know what YOU mean! Why is it that when a woman tries to be as up front as possible, we never get anywhere? I not only don't play games...I don't know how to play them when a guy begins to try. I always say exactly what I mean, I'm not at all cryptic but I do find that most men are so used to women who do play games that they don't believe that there could be one who doesn't.

I am often underestimated and accused of not being honest when I am as honest as I can be. I don't get that other than to say that most men are just used to the women who do mess with their heads. Oh well. There's not much I can do except keep on being myself.

Right now "myself" is alone for the first time in a long time and I'm as happy as I can be about that. For the longest time after Rick left, I was so lonely and sad and now when I am around a guy for any length of time, I can't wait for him to go home or to take me home. I like living alone and I'm going to do it for a very long time. I think that everyone should live alone until they learn to like it. That way, you don't give it up until you are absolutely positive that's what you want.

I remembered one of the things I wanted to mention. One of my very first true loves was Peter Brady. He was so adorable and such a nice guy...I saw him every Friday night and even forgot Donny Osmond because of him. Donny got married in May of 78 (if I remember correctly) but Peter Brady never did that. Until recently.

When he did finally get married, it was to one of the tackiest bimbos that I have ever seen. Why did he wait so long just to marry such a dime a dozen, trashy chick who flashed people in her wedding gown and belched loudly at her reception? I would have expected so much more from him.

I guess that when he allowed the entire reltionship to be aired on television, I shouldn't have expected much more. But come on...a couple of big boobs attached to a common, low class hick that couldn't find her way out of a trash bag? Whatever.

It's amazing what a couple of tits will do to a man. I guess when he started pushing 50 he felt the need to grab whatever he could find and that chick was it. I give that marriage less time than Pamela Anderson and her latest husband du jour. I just hope that I get to see that as well.

This icky female actually called Cindy Brady "one cool bitch"! Cute little Cindy, who couldn't hurt a fly and this wench is calling her names on television. She could have had the class to act like she liked her or to keep her mouth shut but she didn't. The obvious jealousy was so tacky that I was embarrassed for her. Lord knows she wouldn't have the decency to be ashamed of herself.

Oh well. What can you do?

OK then...I'm going to take my dog for a walk and hope that he doesn't smack my face into a fence again. I haven't taken him for a walk since the last time he did that but I missed him so much that I feel like spending some time with him. I'll be back after I walk the dog and unpack. Have a lovely evening!

Meg

Good afternoon!

Driving back I was thinking about so many things that I wanted to write about and now that I'm at the keyboard, I can't remember any of them. I know that I did want to ask what your pet peeves were regarding the opposite sex. One of mine is the propensity that men have to totally shut down during an argument, thinking that if they shut up long enough, their women will be in a better mood when the men finally decide to speak again.

That's so incredibly NOT true...if we don't get what we have to say out...we won't stop being angry. Worse, while the man is off pouting and waiting for us to "get over it"...we are simmering to the point that when they come back, things are a hundred times worse. But, they don't seem to get that...do they? Taking the chicken's way out is never the right thing to do but so many of them just keep on doing it.

Rick used to do that to me. He would go into the bedroom and lie on the bed. Then, when he would come out and find me still annoyed, he would be shocked that I wasn't over it and things were worse. I've said it before, if a woman feels the need to bitch, she must do so or things will only get worse. So, a smart man will just get the stupid argument over with in the first place.

I'm sure that we all have things that rub us the wrong way...what's yours? Do you hate going out with a guy who will buy you a lovely dinner and then stiff the server when it comes time to tip them? Do you hate it when a woman refuses to tell you what you've done wrong yet she wants you to somehow fix everything? What is it that drives you nuts about the opposite sex? If there's something that drives you insane...put it in the comment section and I'll post it when you do.

I was chatting with a woman at the beach who was irritated with her husband for looking at other women. Her daughter was telling her that she shouldn't mind and that she was being ridiculous. If something makes a person feel badly...it isn't being ridiculous. We can't help the way things make us feel. Feelings aren't right or wrong, they simply are.

I don't like it when the guy who I am with looks at other women with me sitting right there. I don't care what he does when I'm not around, but if I'm sitting right there, it really does make me feel badly. Now, that doesn't bother all women but it does bother some of us. A man has the right to look if he wants to but if he does, he should be with a woman who doesn't mind that. I have the right to choose a man who is more considerate of my feelings. I certainly am not a shrinking violet...I've always let the men in my life know that stuff like that bugs me.

I may think it's silly that a man doesn't want me to go online if he's right there...but if it bothers him, I'll wait until he's not around. That's what you call respect.

Man...I can't believe that I've blanked on what I wanted to say here. I just walked in so maybe I need to settle in and think a bit so I'm going to do just that. I'll sit in the chair with a pen and paper and relax a bit...writing down the things that I've been thinking about and then I'll be back after I get a few of them written down. Remember to let me know what bugs you about the opposite sex...I'm sure that we could all learn from each other.

OK then...I'll be back in a bit after my brain catches up with the rest of me.

See ya!

Meg

Hello!!!

I'm back in Georgia...but at the beach again! I'm having a great time although I am a bit burned. I've spent a bit too much time in the water...WITH SPF 50...and I still burned a bit. It could be much worse, like the time that I got sun poisoning.

Right now I'm in my first internet cafe and I'm paying for 30 minutes of internet time because I wanted to say "HI!" and check the opinions of people who had something to say about the Yates'.

I'm quite glad to see that other people think that Rusty is to blame as well. Also, when I said that Tom Cruise was a nut, I had forgotten what he said about Brooke Sheilds. How dare he comment on another person's medical issues? What a flake. But, what can you expect from someone who believes that we're all aliens?

Oh, another first, the guy just brought me my first...and last...espresso. YUCK. I asked for whatever had the most caffeine in it and I got it. Now I wish that I had simply ordered 4 cups of coffee.

I'm having fun, but really looking forward to going home. My son is staying at my house taking care of the animals. Hopefully, he felt inspired and mowed my lawn or else I'll have to do it when I get home.

There's a guy at the bar here (coffee bar, not liquor bar) and he's smoking from a hookah. I've never seen anyone do that outside of a very private place.

I just heard that Paul McCartney is getting a divorce. I would think that it's the wife's idea, she's put in some time and should get a pretty penny out of him now. The reason that I think it's on her is because Paul ISN'T a Tom Cruise or a Brad Pitt...he married once before and stayed married. I certainly could be wrong, but I would bet a few bucks that it's the wife.

Well, my half hour is almost up so I should run but I'll be back as soon as I get home. My friend wants to spend another night here because we're having so much fun. He has to check in with his secretary later on tonight to see if he can stay another night. I hope so...I'm really, really enjoying myself. Oh, I took some pictures and I'll post them when I get home...I don't have the cord to upload them with me now. Have fun and I'll see you later!!!

Meg

Jean and I just got back...

...from the nail salon. I started to do her nails but they were so nasty that I cleaned them as well as I could and took her to have them done professionally. Since we were there, I had the same done. And, I broke one of my most important rules...never say yes to someone speaking in another language unless you are ABSOLUTELY POSITIVE of what they’re asking. So, now I have flowers made out of diamonds on my big toenails.

They are pretty, but I thought I was saying yes to another coat of nail polish. It’s OK, I guess if you’re going to have diamonds on your toes, you should have them on your toes while you’re in Florida wearing sandals.

It’s storming outside now or else I would be on my way home. The storm began while we were at the salon and it’s a nasty one. Now I’m stuck here for another night with Jean at the controls of the television.

My father wanted to watch Mission Impossible, but Jean won’t allow it because she can’t abide Tom Cruise. Then, he grabbed The Last Samurai and she nixed that as well. She won’t watch anything with Tom Cruise because "of what he did to Nicole." We all know that he’s nuts, but that doesn’t mean that ALL of his movies are bad.

My father said that Clearwater is the headquarters for The Church of Scientology. I just read a book that mentioned that "church". I didn’t know that they really believed in aliens. Now Tom is a bit wackier than I had ever realized. Apparently, I am an alien stuck in a human being’s body. I hadn’t a clue. Maybe THAT’S why I left my body that time I was having the out of body experiment. I guess I was trying to get back to the mother ship.

Anyway, my father decided to watch a tape that he has with the best of Johnny Carson. That should be good. I have to say that I miss Seinfeld. If I wait until Jean goes to bed, I can watch middle of the night TV, but other than that...all I can watch is the evil white men on Lifetime.

Once she went to bed last night I was able to watch the news and I saw that they acquitted Andrea Yates of murder. I couldn’t believe that...innocent because of the fact that she’s nuts? That’s bullshit. I prefer the guilty but insane verdict that other places have. If she needs help, she should get it...but those babies will always be dead so she should never be free. The Defense said that they took her case pro bono because they believed that the guilty verdict was wrong.

There are so many people who deserve help in this country (who DIDN’T murder children) that I just cannot believe that they chose her to donate their valuable time to. Then, her nutcase of an ex-husband stands by her still...even though he is married to another woman. He stood out on the court steps and said that Andrea was "psychotic". Well, perhaps she was...so why did he leave his children with her? If she truly was a nut..then he should be punished for leaving his children with a nut. I’m stunned that no one seems to be responsible for 5 dead children.

What do you guys think of that case? Hinkley is allowed visits home and he shot the president...Andrea could be allowed out and if she became pregnant again...who can guarantee that she wouldn’t murder another baby. Is it just me...or is this just insane?

Meg

I had a great time at the beach...

...without burning this time. I usually burn within the first couple of hours but last time I also got sun poisoning, eyes swelled shut, lips like Angelina Jolie...the whole 9 yards. So, now I put so much lotion on that I barely get pink. I buy the baby stuff that comes in a chap-stick like tube and then rub it all over myself, from the face down. I wear a hat with a huge rim and a t-shirt as well. So, I avoided the sun poisoning...and the sharks.

I had fun, I did. We walked out to the sand bar and stood up like we were walking on the water. We could have gone to Clearwater Beach but a while back I found a beach called Madiera Beach that is as nice as Clearwater but it has a fraction of the people. It's a few miles south of Clearwater Beach.

I bought myself a bathing suit with some of the money that my father gave me. He told me to buy myself some clothes so I did. I bought a bunch of 2's because that's what I wore the last time I bought clothes (I hate trying them on, I'd rather exchange them.) but the bathing suit was a 6 and it was just fine so I think that the Marinol is working really well. If it keeps up like this, I won't have to take it much longer. It's certainly giving me an appetite, I can eat an entire meal and I haven't really been able to do that for a couple of years (except for the time that I smoked that pot...it absolutely did make me hungry.)

Anyway, I think I've gotten everything taken care of here except for choosing the right person to check in and help my father out. I will probably go home this weekend if not sooner. I do miss my house and the ability to turn the AC as cold as I want it.

I also miss my remote control. Jean has the remore here and she freaks if anyone tries to watch anything. She loves Lifetime and I absolutely despise it and the sexist trash that they show on it. I have actually had to take a xanax or two because she is so annoying. I have to keep reminding myself that she doesn't mean it and isn't trying to be a pain in the ass, it just comes out like that. The one night that I put a movie in and watched it, she stormed out of the living room and went to bed. Nobody wants to annoy her anymore.

My father is right behind me again, snoring on and off. I think the clicking of the keyboard is keeping him awake. When he walked in here, he said, "So, you're about done?" I said, "Nope, I just started."

But...he doesn't have Alzheimer's and when he gets mad, it's for real so I should probably wrap this up and finish telling you what I wanted to tell you in the morning.

My options now are to stay here and annoy my father, go into the living room with Jean and watch stupid stuff on TV or go to bed and I'm not tired. My sweet friend is in there chatting with Jean so I should go relieve him. I'm sure he doesn't enjoy what he's doing now...he's just a really, really nice guy. Maybe I should go to bed:):):)

Meg

Hello...

...it's still hot here and I'm still playing the air conditioner game with my father. When he passes the thermostat he turns it off and when I pass it, I turn it back on. Up until yesterday, the only summer clothes that I had was a pair of capri jeans. I took the money that my dad gave me and went shopping for some summer clothes so now I have some cooler clothes to wear. Today, I'm going to try to go to the beach and I'm going to wear a pretty "gypsy" skirt that I bought.

I didn't get a bathing suit but that's OK, if I want one, I can always go get one. I just don't know where to find the old fashioned bathing suits, not the early 1900's type, but I would like one that doesn't come up to my waist on the sides.

My dude du jour took a shower this morning and he broke out in a sweat just toweling off. It's amazing how men can sweat like they do. Rick did that too. He would dry himself with a towel and as he did, the dry area began to sweat immediately. Anyway, I have another sweaty man but this one doesn't smell as bad.

Rick had a particularly pungent brand of body odor. It was so bad that once as I was driving from Virginia to Chicago with my kids, I began to notice a familiar odor. After I noticed it, the kids began to pick up on it as well.

One of the kids asked, "What's that smell?" Then, another one of them said, "It smells like Rick."

It did smell like Rick. But...he wasn't there. After a while it got so bad that I had to pull over. I looked through the car and finally found the source of the hideous smell...one of Rick's t-shirts was, for some reason, stuffed under my driver's seat. Driving with the windows closed so I could use the AC made it impossible to miss the unmistakable rankness of my ever so odiforous husband.

I think it's a good thing that Rick's in Montana...the state of Florida would probably toss him back over the border if he hung out here for any length of time.

Well, I suppose I should get ready to go to the beach. My friend has to use the computer to get a few things done for work and then we will leave. I've spent the morning taking care of Jean and interviewing people to come over a few times a week to bathe her. I'm ready for a break.

I gave her a manicure a little while ago and when I took her nail polish off, the cotton balls seemed to have more tar and nicotine on them than they had nail polish. Her nails were so filthy that I actually had to use diluted bleach to clean them. Now they're as clean as they can be and so is the rest of her. I've gotten the house cleaned up, the laundry done, the alarm on the door, Jean is as clean as she can be and I've cooked enough stuff to last a good while. I froze a few meals so that they can have something besides Stouffer's frozen dinners. As soon as I hire someone to care for Jean after I leave, I will head home.

Oh, I also filled all of her daily mdication things and she has a few of them. Her meds are taken care of for the next month. When I first dumped the old meds out of the container, I saw that she was taking three 1 mg. Xanax a day. I have an order for three half mg. Xanax a day but I only take two of them unless I'm having a bad day. If I took anymore than that, I'd be out like a light. No wonder she ended up totally confused and in the hospital.

Jean has a quack for a doctor in Chicago who treated her for well over twenty years. He's a psychiatrist and he was giving her so many heavy duty medications that I'm surprised she didn't overdose. He was the doctor who's name was on the bottle of Xanax. No other doctor would give an Alzheimer's patient that much of a mind altering drug. My father once said that, "Any doctor who treats a patient for 20 years and doesn't cure them should be shot."

I don't know about shooting them but this nut should have his license pulled. I couldn't believe all the meds that she had from him even though he hasn't seen her in over a year. He was still calling in refills for controlled substances without seeing her at all! My father doesn't know a controlled substance from an antibiotic so he was just giving Jean what was ordered. I threw all of those Xanax in the trash so that no one could give them to her anymore. If her doctor down here wants her to have them, he can order them at a lower dose.

Oh, I keep forgeting to mention something to you...the room that my friend and I sleep in has twin beds like Lucy and Ricky Ricardo. I asked my father if we could push them together if we promised to keep one foot on the floor. I doubt that I could really get it on with anyone in my father's house anyway so I guess it's just as well that we are waving at each other before we fall asleep.

On the way home, we plan to stay somewhere for a couple of days. It's starting to look like we won't be coming home until the weekend. I have to call the probation office and let them know that. When I left home, I had planned on helping my father find a nursing home for Jean but they decided to bring her home so instead, I have to set up some sort of care for her at home instead. She didn't qualify for hospice and that surprised me. I thought that if you had a doctor's order, you would qualify but she didn't.

So, I'm back to home health care and I'd rather hire someone that I can pick out than to just trust strangers from an agency. I figure it'll be worth it to pay a responsible, pleasant person to come over and help out instead of paying an agency who would take a percentage and then pay whomever they can find to come by. Someone who's making all the money themselves would be more likely to take this job seriously.

OK...I'm going to let my buddy take care of some business and then I want to go to the beach and play in the water. Doesn't that sound like fun?

I'll be back later!

Meg

It's been a long, long day...

..and as soon as my father goes to bed, I'm going to clean the shit out of this condo. I can't do it while he's up because they're watching television in there now. Well, Dad is watching television, Jean is crashed out on her chair. She just narrowly averted being burned on her belly by a cigarette that I picked up off of her shirt as I passed her. The shirt was just starting to smoke, it would have burned a hole through to her stomach within the next 20 seconds if I hadn't walked by when I did.

That's a scary thought. I suppose my father would have put her out before she totally burned up. But, that would have hurt for a long time.

I hate a burn. I'd rather break both of my legs than have a burn. When I burn myself cooking I usually keep my hand in a bowl of ice water for a couple of hours until it stops hurting. Usually, I can handle pain so well that I never knew I was in labor until there was a head between my legs that belonged to a person I had never met before. I had the kids so fast that the doctor said I must have a very high tolerance for pain not to notice that I was in labor but if he saw me after I grabbed a coffee cup with a gilded rim out of the microwave, I believe that he would reconsider that opinion.

I just got back from a laundromat a little while ago. I hate those places. There's a laundry room with one washer and one dryer but it's far away and downstairs and I did every piece of laundry in this house today. If I had done it in the laundry room here, it would have taken me two days of running up and down those stairs. Instead, it took me two hours.

The woman working there was such an ass that I was forced to be a bitch and I hate that. But, a woman's got to do what a woman's got to do and I had to be a bitch. I told her that one of the dryers ate my quarter and she actually said, "You have to push Start to make it work."

I looked at her and said, "Do you think that I would have walked all the way over here to tell you that the dryer was broken if I hadn't pushed the Start button?" And then, she didn't say a word.

Now, if she had ASKED me if I pushed the stupid button, I wouldn't have minded. But, she inferred that I was an idiot and I am not an idiot. And...I hate to be treated as though I'm an idiot.

So, I walked back and changed machines, while I decided what to do. I decided to go ask her when the owner would be in because "he owes me a quarter". She said, "He isn't here tonight."

Now I knew that SHE was an idiot. If there's one thing I hate more than being treated like an idiot...it's an actual idiot.

I looked at her...jaw-dropped and dumbfounded at her vacuity. Then she said, "Wait until I'm done with this person (and this is where it gets really good) because I can't do more than one thing at a time."

"Of that...I have no doubt." I said. I almost walked away but then,I turned back to her and said..."I would be quite surprised if anyone, anywhere, ever...one single time, accused you of being able to do more than one thing at a time. You are the stupidest person that I've encountered today and I spent the day with an Alzhemier's patient. How on God's Green Earth do you find your way to work?"

She finally decided to do something semi-intelligent, she reached in the register and gave me the quarter.

OH! My father gave me some money today and told me to buy myself some clothes. I realized that it was the first time that I've spent money on anything but bills or food since winter. Spending money on myself this year has meant paying for prescriptions. I bought so many things that I hadn't even thought about buying in months...like hair clips, clothes and the movie Appolo 13. When I run out of money, I'm going to be sad again so I better win the lottery and soon.

Well, my father has fallen asleep on his bed behind me so I guess that I have to wake Jean up and drag her in here. Then, I can get this place cleaned up. I'm trying to get everything straightened out so it's as good as it can be when I leave. I think that I'm going to have to come down here every so often just to make sure that it's appropriate for Jean to be here. It's going to be tough and if my father wants to do a helluva lot of work, it can be done for a while.

But, I don't think that he has a clue what he's getting himself in for. It's one thing to do this for a living, it's quite another to do it 24/7.

Oh well. Now I have to go get Jean, wake her up and put her jammies on so that I can clean the living room. This ought to be fun. I heard my father trying to get her in here before he came in here and fell asleep. I know that she doesn't want to get off the chair.

I'm half considering carrying her in here, it'd be easier than arguing with her. Anyway...if I'm ever going to be able to go home, I have to get this place cleaned up so I'm gonna go now.

See ya!

Meg

We never could get it through his thick skull that Alzheimer's wasn't just reverting back to childhood.

Yep...I wrote a list of suggestions for my father last night and one of them said, "I’ve heard it said that, ‘Once an adult, twice a child.’ but that is misleading because children can learn. She cannot. She isn’t trying to annoy you, she simply doesn’t know any better."

I think that he is finally getting it after the second disappearance in one day. He didn’t want to explain to the police why he lost the same woman twice in one day but he had to. I think he gets that much, at least.

"...you all might consider getting the door chimes that are enabled simply by opening the door when the charge is disengaged..."

I did. I got something from Radio Shack that will alarm when anyone opens the door or even gets close to it. Then, after I installed it last night, I forgot about it and walked into the kitchen after everyone else had gone to bed. Everyone except Jean came running out. I said, "Just a drill folks...go back to bed." No one appreciated my sense of humor. Oh well.

It's difficult to accept some things in life. The older you get, the harder it is. To admit that a contemporary is so ill, you almost have to admit that you could get that sick as well. It’s not so easy. Facing the mortality of someone that you care about usually makes people think of their own mortality and that’s not easy to do.

Jean doesn’t ever get "hungry". When it’s mealtime and you offer her food, she says that she isn’t hungry so my father just let it go. I told him that he had to see to it that she ate. I’ve had to say this to other patients as well..."It doesn’t matter if you’re hungry, think of it as medicine that you have to take to save your life."

People with Alzheimer’s are a lot like children in that they need structure and they need for someone to take charge and tend to things that need to be done. Although they can’t learn new things, they do feel the need to be secure and they, like children, can sense when they’re being given too much control. And, like children, they know that they can’t possibly handle so much control.

They need to feel as though there is someone who is taking care of business. My father has always had a tough time making Jean agree with him which is why she’s an ex wife now. He has to change their entire relationship from one with two responsible adults who enjoy each other’s company to one where he is in charge and acting responsibly.

He sure the heck could take charge and stay in control when I was little, all he has to do is remember how he did that. He didn’t want to get some of the things that I suggested yesterday because he didn’t think they were as necessary as I did. For example...he didn’t think that she needed pads for her chair or to put under her on the bed. Then, when we got back home, she showed us that she did, indeed, need a pad for the chair. Perhaps if she showers him once really well, he will decide that I might be right. I did get him to agree to a rubber sheet for the bed, but not for him.

We do listen to the same things over and over again, all day long. She keeps asking me when I’m going back to work and how I made the cheese omelet that she eats every morning. She watches Headline News all day. She doesn’t mind the reruns every 30 minutes but everyone else gets a tad annoyed after hearing the baseball scores for the fifth time in a row. So far, he hasn’t decided to take control of the television back from her yet. It isn’t even good for her to sit there watching the same stuff over and over again.

I think that he’s getting the message. He’s getting annoyed less and less and seems to be getting a bit more patient with her. He really did think that she was trying to annoy him with some of her antics. She is an annoying person at her best. But at this point, she isn’t trying to annoy him at all, she’s simply trying to figure out how to get along in a world that she barely recognizes anymore.

Can you imagine? People who look familiar stand right there, but you can’t quite place them. Nothing around you seems to be familiar at all. Every day you get a bit more confused and a little less secure in the world around you. The streets that you see don’t look at all familiar and if someone speaks to you, you aren't quite sure if you should know them or not. You remember enough of yourself to know that something is wrong, but you can’t quite put your finger on the problem. You look at a strange woman and ask, "Who are you?" The answer could be, "I’m your daughter."

You’re taking a walk and all of a sudden, the police are asking you for your phone number and you can’t answer them to save your life. Then, you find out that you never should have taken the walk in the first place. In your mind, you long to go home but when you get there, you don’t recognize it. How can you ever go home if you can’t remember where home is? You long for things that you can’t verbalize and you miss people who you thought were in the next room but in reality, died years ago.

It seems as though you have someplace to go, but you don’t quite know how to get there. If anyone asks you where you want to go, you answer them, but your answer makes no sense. Not to you, not to the person who asked the question, not to anyone. You see your car, but you can’t remember how to open the door. You know that so much of your life is missing, but you don’t know why. And, you have no idea how much longer this feeling will go on.

The truth is that the feeling will go on until your mind is so far gone that these things are no longer bothering you. As cruel as it may be to have your mind totally gone, having some left is even more cruel because you know enough to know that things aren’t right, but you have no clue how to fix them.

Alzheimer’s is a dreadful illness...it steals what makes you YOU. It takes away all of your dignity and leaves you in a shell that will slowly get more and more useless as time goes by.

Jean is a very, very proud person. She is smart, witty and totally self reliant. But the woman in the next room is none of those things. Is she Jean? I don’t know who she is. Jean seems to be gone and she won’t be coming back.

Meg

I almost came online...

...a while ago to tell you something that I thought was funny but when I thought about it a bit more, there was a chance that something really bad might happen so I thought better then to joke about it right then. But now that all is well, I don't mind telling you that I laughed quite a bit this evening.

My father, while supposed to be taking his ex wife for a walk, put her in the car and took her to the mall. That's not too funny. But, what he did next was pretty silly...he dropped her off at the entrance and left her there to wait while he parked the car.

Of course, when he came back, she wasn't there. And of course, an exhaustive search of the mall didn't produce her so we had to call the police again...for the second time today...to report the same person missing.

I asked her where she went and she said, "Just for a little walk."

I told my father that he has to make believe that the woman actually has Alzheimer's Disease and act as if she might need some supervision...just for the time being. I'm sure that if he pretends long enough, it might just occur to him that she does, indeed, have Alzheimier's and there's a reason why they lock the door to Alzheimer's units.

I guess it's tough for people to comprehend that the person they know so well is pretty much no longer there. Someone certainly IS there, someone who doesn't at all act like the old person. And this new person doesn't grasp logic. You can torture an Alzheimer's patient every single time that they walk away and they won't ever learn that the torture is coming from their own actions. There won't be any learning anymore, nothing is left to learn with. Things just go downhill from now on.

I'm sure that he's learned his lesson about leaving her unattended...but I doubt that he has any clue what he's in for until she finally does have to go into a nursing home. That's not funny, she will have to go into a nursing home soon and other than my father, nobody cares. Her daughter doesn't care and there really isn't anyone else. If it weren't for my father, she would be locked up already somewhere in Chicago. Her daughter's answer to the "problem" is to have a legal guardian appointed. She doesn't realize that would be like a millionaire applying for food stamps. People who have daughter's don't get public guardians. That's what daughter's are for.

Oh well. She has just walked in here complaining that she's cold...if I don't give her a blanket, she's going to turn off that damn AC so I have to run and cover her ass up.

See ya!

Meg

I'm finally getting some things done...

...as the needs arise. Today we had an "elopement" so I could justify an alarm sytem. All that's left is to explain it to the inmate. This is fun. I'm in Tampa and I haven't been any closer to the beach than I am right now...sitting at this desk.

I did get up to a swamp, but that's not at all as nice as a gulf coast beach. I don't have a bathing suit and I don't really want one. I guess you have to have one but I hate wearing bathing suits. I wouldn't mind if they were those big, black and white striped (maybe they were red and white, but the pictures were all black and white so you tend to think of them as black and white) puffy things that go down to a woman's knees. I could swim in one of those things. Not competitively, but I could swim.

No beach for me yet. I had fully intended to be out of here by now. I still have some things to do so I don't even know if I WILL get to the stupid beach at this point. I'm worrying about everyone today. These people here in my face and my daughter, who left Chicago by car Saturday morning headed for L.A.. The last time I text messaged her, she was west of Amarillo and had been stuck in some traffic nightmare.

I hate traffic jams in the desert during a heat wave...don't you? I hate heat...period. I walk outside of this condo and I want to die. It's hideously hot and humid. I can't imagine how much worse it can get. This is like some horribly hot place in the middle of Africa-hot. GEEEAAAAAAWED....I hate hot.

If I had been born on the continent of Africa...or any such hot place, I would have moved so far north that I could build a house that I could choose to heat or not to heat. I could freeze my ass off if I wanted to...or I could start a fire and have a bit of hot...not too much, just enough.

It doesn't work so well this way....trying to keep the inside cold. It's too fricking hot so you sweat like some animal and then you walk inside to an air conditioned place and then you freeze your ass off from being wet. That is just so stupid. Whoever created all this crap...that was dumb. There is no good reason to make a place so hot unless it truly is hell and then I guess everyone asked for eternal damnation.

My step mother was getting restless so I told her to ask my father to take her for a walk. He did. That's so sweet. Now, while they're gone, I'm gonna run and turn the AC up...these people sit around in 100 degree heat with 150% humidity and say that it's not warm enough for the AC to be turned on. These two people enjoy bickering with each other regarding every single topic that I can think of...except when it comes to that one point...it's not warm enough for the AC yet. Well, it's going on now...suckers!!!!!

Alrighty...I'm going to go and see what I can make them for dinner. They're old people, they're pretty easy to please. I could choose the funkiest vegetable that I could think of and they would eat it. But I'd have to eat it too and I'm not going to be a vegetable martyr. So, I'll just make something normal like Rick's list of vegetables...pea, corn. You can't go wrong with those...pea, corn is as good a list of vegetables as anyone could have.

OK then, tonight....PEAS!

Meg

OK...

...just as the helicopters were buzzing overhead and the canine police were asking for an article of her clothing, the phone rang. The sheriff's department in the next county, Pinellas, found her at least 5 miles down the road. I know it's at least 5 miles because the cops said that the county line is that far away.

I have no idea how she got that far...but she did.

Now, how the heck can I leave town knowing that my father is caring for a lady who doesn't know any better than to walk out the door while he's sleeping and wander aimlessly throughout town?

There's a thing called an alpha-watch that you put on people's wrists and when they get close to the door, the door locks and an alarm goes off. I think that they should get one of those if they insist on keeping her out of a nursing home. I know it's tough to put someone that you care about in a nursing home, but there are times when it's the only responsible thing to do.

This has been a fun morning. I'm just glad that they found her before she made the evening news. And, if those helicopters had been up for much longer, she would have made the noon news for sure.

Now, I have no idea what we're going to do with her. I don't even think that home health is any good because unless you have someone to sit and watch her around the clock, it would be useless. So, now I'm back to square one with her.

OK, now I'm going to have a cup of coffee before my dad gets back with her. Then, I guess we'll just resume the little war that we have between the old people who think that it's not that hot in Florida and the younger people who hate to sweat. The AC is on, but I don't know how long it will stay on.

See ya soon,

Meg

We just woke up and...

...my step mother is not here. I woke up at about 7 and she was up making coffee. I went back to bed for a little while and when I woke up again, my father was looking for her. I've called the police and I'm waiting for them to get here.

Last night I woke up around midnight and she was wandering around the condo in clothes that don't match and she said that she was going to work. I told her that it was the middle of the night and that she should go to bed. She did.

Everytime that I got up during the night she was awake, usually just sitting in the chair smoking a cigarette. Then, for some reason, she left the condo this morning and we have no clue where she's gone.

My father and everyone else who can drive is out looking for her. I'm here waiting for the cops who seem to be taking a long time to get here. I had drawn little notes and put them around the apartment...like one on the stove that says, "Do not use the stove!" and one on the door that said, "Don't go outside!" She didn't like them because she said they made her look like a child.

The cops are here,

I'll be back soon.

Meg

Well...

...I've had an interesting day. First, my father woke we 15 minutes before he wanted to leave for Starbucks. So, I threw on some clothes, put my hair in a pony tail and ran out to Starbucks. We ended up going to Starbucks in a very nice mall that hadn't opened yet. The Starbucks was open, but the mall wasn't. Then, on the way home, he decided to go out for brunch. So we did.

I had on no make-up and I was wearing an over sized Cubs t-shirt and dirty sneakers. But, into the restuarant I went because daddy wants to. We had a nice time, but I don't see why the rush to get to a closed mall. Anyway, we went home and my father asked if we wanted to see the manatees. We said "Sure!"

My father said that we could take showers first but then he changed his mind so we left and I was still in serious need of an all over cleansing. It's hot all over and it's hotter here because it's always hotter here. Anyway, I need a shower. But, I figured that I was only going to sweat more so what the heck. I got in the car and left to see the manatees.

When we left, I picked up the map and asked, "Where are we going?" I had the map open to the page that had Tampa as opposed to the entire state. He pointed in the area of Tarpon Springs and spun his finger around and said..."Over here somewhere."

I said, "Tarpon Springs?"

He said, "Somewhere that way." I should have known right then that something was up.

When we got close to Tarpon Springs, he said, "Let me see what's north of Tarpon Springs." I told him that I would have to open the state map for that. He said, "OK then."

That man knew he was taking me far, far away and he didn't tell me. An hour past Tarpon Springs, we got to the manatee place. We chatted (newspeak for bitched) back and forth about politics the entire way. It was a very, very long ride. We finally got to the manatees but there was one small problem...we got there an hour after the last boat left.

BUT...the restaurant and tiny "museum" were still open. And...they did have a two-headed turtle. So, I got to see that.

I thought that perhaps we could go to the beach since I am in FLORIDA! But, the place where we were, while right on the coast, has no beach. It's all swampy marsh land or some such sludge. So, I was looking at the map on the way home and I saw a coupon for a genuine Indian Tribe...Seminoles.

I have to wonder how genuine those Indians are. How does an Indian get a web site? If you're nestled between a coupon for Jellystone Florida and one for St. Augustine's Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum...what kind of Indian are you?

Whatever. Now I am cooking my father dinner. We're all eating better than usual. He has a cook and I have someone to buy all of the groceries. This is as close as I've come to having money in my pocket that I can spend without worrying in months. That's such a nice feeling. I would like to have more money to spend now. I have another problem. That damn lottery plan hasn't panned out one little bit.

Well, I'm off to cook dinner...see ya later!

Meg

Depending on how you define a baby-boomer...

...I think am one. Using the post WWII through 1959 parameter, I just eek in, I was born in 1958. (But, I am having that legally changed to ‘68 as soon as I have the attorney’s retainer.) One way or the other, I can say “we boomers” with some authority.

However you define us, our parents are growing older. If we are lucky enough to have them at all, they require, at the very least, our concern. My mother is gone but my father is alive and well. He is as healthy a 70 something-year old as I have seen. But, as a geriatric nurse, I have seen what can happen to healthy 70 year olds.

When I graduated from college, all of the nursing students had jobs lined up. Naturally I did, too. I was staying where I was already working as a nursing assistant back in the day when nursing assistants didn’t have to be trained. (If McDonald’s wouldn’t hire you, a nursing home would. I ended up working at a nursing home in high school because I at the time, I didn’t have a car. My best friend, Caryn, did. It was a beat up old ‘69 Camaro that I would love to have today. Anyway, wherever Caryn worked, I worked. So, I ended up at Leyden Extended Care in Franklin Park Illinois.)

Up until I took that job, I had wanted to be a teacher. I fell in love with those old people and wanted to work with them for the rest of my life. So, when it was time for me to get a job as a registered nurse, I stayed in geriatrics.

As my fellow nursing students and I compared jobs, I told them I would be staying at the Villa. They were stunned. As a nursing student, I loved the subject matter so college came very easy to me. I graduated with a 3.87 GPA. My fellow students were shocked that a nurse with so much potential would take “such a job”. That was the first time I ever remember hearing anyone “dis” nursing home work. I’ve heard it often since.

I understand it on one level. It isn’t much of a challenge technically and the nature of the patient population makes it a very routine job by necessity. But on another level...it is nursing in it’s truest sense. These people are such treasures, each of them, and they deserve a gentle hand now and then.

Alzheimer’s patients are my favorite although I certainly enjoy the 100 year olds with sharp minds and the ability to tell a story well, from memory. (I had the honor of caring for a man who survived the Bataan Death March. He authored a book about his experience. How neat is that? I became friends with a piece of living history.) Alzheimer’s is certainly a sad disease but there are a lot of sad diseases. At some point, many families need help coping and someone who enjoys that work should be there. I happen to enjoy it.

Even when things go wrong in this line of work, you have an amazing story to tell. Sad or funny, they all touch you and keep you going back everyday.When I was 16, I took care of a lady named Belle. She was about a thousand and four years old, had 108 long gray hairs all pulled up in a pony tail on top of her head and she was every bit of 90 pounds. As I passed her in the hall one day I said, “Hi Belle!”

She snapped at me from her wheelchair....”Go to hell you schla! " (I don't know what that is, it's just what she said.)

I looked at her and said, “Now, Belle, that wasn’t very nice."

She responded, “Shut up or I’ll bite your head off.”

I reminded her that she didn’t have a tooth in her head. She looked me square in the eye and said, “Then I’ll gum you to death!!!!!!!”

I assume that she's no longer rolling around anywhere now but she still cracks me up. I love her for that.

There’s nothing like a baby or an animal to brighten up an older person’s day. Sometimes, you can evoke a moment of coherency by bringing in a baby. I used to bring my kids in on my days off. It was good for the kids and the residents.

There was a lady named Eva who would lie in bed all the time (far too obese to get up) and she always grasped a baby doll in her left arm. One day I took my 8 month old into her room to visit. Eva NEVER spoke. I had never heard her utter a word. I stood next to her bed with my son and asked, “Would you like to hold my baby, Eva?”

She looked at the baby and waved her right arm a little as she spoke for the first time in my presence. “No, it might scare him, just hold him where I can see him.”

I was stunned. Not only had she spoken, she made perfect sense. What had she been thinking all the months before that, I wondered. I continued to wonder in the following months, I never heard her speak again.

As I said, animals can do the same thing. Activity directors often set up times when a certain person or group will bring in different animals. One day they brought in a rabbit. The residents were sitting around, sort of in a circle and the lady was allowing each resident to hold the rabbit for a few moments. A blind lady named Susan was stroking the rabbit as it sat in her lap. “What is it?” Susan asked.

The lady told her that it was a rabbit. Susan shrieked, “A rat?” and threw the poor animal across the room. The rabbit was fine but Susan didn’t come to the animal visits after that.

Too often, people make the mistake of mis-judging a resident’s “mental capabilities”. I was told that “Jack” had none. I was in his room feeding his room-mate, “John”, who had an I.Q. of 40-something since birth. “John” truly couldn’t speak and I truly can’t NOT speak so I was talking to “Jack”, who, supposedly, couldn’t understand me.

At some point he babbled something about Arkansas and I asked him if he knew the state’s capital, more out of just babbling myself than to evoke an answer.

“Little Rock! I know it well!” he said as he slammed his hand on the table next to him.

I was flabbergasted. He and I went through ALL of the state capitals, he knew every one of them. Well, he only knew the capitals of the 48 states that he was aware of. He and I developed a friendship that lasted until he died. I never made the mistake of underestimating another resident.

Another lesson I learned was, never say yes to a question asked in a foreign language, no matter how well you think you know the language.

I was working at an Italian nursing home years ago and a sweet little old man asked me something in Italian. I told him, in my broken Italian, to wait a moment. I was busy taking care of someone else at the time. He persisted, I reminded him to wait. He demanded an answer, I assured him "Si!", if only he would wait one moment.

He repeated the question, I repeated my answer: "Si", and in my broken Italian I continued, “If you can just wait one moment!”

He smiled and went to wait. I returned to what I had been doing and finished it. Then I walked back to the nurses station. When I did, I found the old man standing there. He was leaning with his left hand on the nurses station counter, his pants down around his ankles and his “member” in his rapidly pumping right hand. He looked at me with that smile and said, “Ready?”

Apparently, I had agreed to something that he was looking forward to...very much.

Years later, I worked the evening shift and answered the call light of a patient I had never met. He was as alert as I was and after I did whatever it was he needed me to do, I spoke with him for a moment before I left for the night.

When I came back to work in the morning, he was my patient. And, he was dying. Overnight his condition had become so bad that he was drowning in his own fluid. I couldn’t suction his lungs enough to keep them clear. He was in agony. He looked at me and said, “If you can’t make this stop, at least help me not feel it.”

I called the doctor. It took a few calls and a few increases in dosages but eventually, I was sitting on the side of his bed, pushing morphine into his vein, a little at a time, until he calmed down. At one point he seemed to be sleeping. I said his name. He opened his eyes and smiled. I asked what was so funny.

He said, “My wife left me on my 28th birthday and when she did, I remember praying to God, ‘Lord, whatever else you do to me...just let me die with a redhead in my bed. It looks like my prayer has been answered”

“Go for it.” I told him.

I smiled as he did just that.

Although I knew I wanted to work with these folks when I graduated from nursing school, I couldn’t have ever known how gratifying and fulfilling it would be. Everybody should stop in a nursing home and say hi once in a while. You might get lucky enough to make a new friend who would truly be a valuable asset to your life.

I’d like to hear from any of you who are caring for elderly or sick parents. I'm in Tampa to help my father figure out something to do to help his ex wife. Her own daughter couldn't care less. When my father told her that she might have to go to a nursing home, the daughter said to send her all of the financial information and then she wanted to know what to do to get a welfare person to care for her mother. She has absolutely NO interest in her mother's care...she just wants to make sure that the money isn't all spent on that care.

Jean, the woman who I'm referring to, has a nice little nest egg. What is it there for if not to assure that she doesn't become a ward of the state? According to Keri...her daughter...it doesn't matter what the money is supposed to be spent on, she just wants to make sure that she gets it.

I couldn't imagine any of my brothers or sisters having such an attitude. I may be wrong, but I think that all of them would be more concerned with our parents than we would the money. I could be wrong...but I doubt it.

I'm not sure how you raise such a rotten kid. Jean seems to be a normal woman...but her ex husband can't stand her and has a few more bucks than she does. So...Keri usually kisses his ass and treats her mother like dirt. But, her mom has one thing that Keri wants...a bunch of cash that should go to her care.

Oh well. Jean just wandered into the room that I'm in and said that she was hungry. I doubt that she just wanted me to know about that...I guess she wants food. So, I'm going to feed her. What the hell...I'll feed my father too.

OK then, I'll be back later!

Meg

We just came back...

...from the doctor's office. The doctor gave me exactly what I wanted for my ex step mother...an order for a hospice nurse. Now, we are waiting for the hospice to call with a time. Once the nurse comes out here and sets Jean up with everything...my work here will be done. that means that I can spend the weekend at the beach or in Orlando.

Jean wants to stay home and out of a nursing home. With hospice, they will do whatever they can to keep her at home so everyone should be happy now.

I had spoken to one of her doctors who said that she wasn't "close enough to death" to require a hospice. That was asinine. They wanted to put her in the nursing home for a "few months". That would have pushed her a bit closer to death but we prefer to do it with her at home as long as that's where she wants to be.

OK then...now we're going to wait for the nurse to call and then I'm going to act like I'm in Florida having fun!

See ya later!

Meg

Today I have to take...

...my ex step mother to the doctor to try to get an order to have her evaluated for hospice. That's the perfect answer to me. Hospice has one purpose in life, to keep people at home. So, if the doctor will go along, I can get her set up with hospice and she'll have people checking in on her a few times a week.

When I called the doctor yesterday, I told him I was her daughter so that he would speak to me. He said that he wanted to put her in a nursing home for a few months to "get strong" and then she can come home. Rarely does anyone ever "get strong" in a nursing home. I've seen it happen with highly motivated, non-confused people. But with a confused lady who's only concern is where she can smoke the next cigarette, I don't foresee much motivation. So, this yahoo doctor had better go along with what we want or I'll pretend to be someone meaner than her daughter.

I stayed up last night cleaning the condo. I dust all the time because I hate dust to be all over my things. I don't like to see it all over anyone else's things either. So, last night I cleaned the place up. I waited for dad and his friend to go to bed so that no one could stop me from throwing away paper clips and rubber bands.

What a helpless group of people they all are. I hear the men out there talking about how hungry they are. They asked the lady if she could cook for them and she responded, "Do you want gravy with your mashed potatoes?" It's 9 AM and there isn't a potato in sight. I have a feeling that I'll be making breakfast.

As I was attempting to fall asleep last night, I was trying to remember all of the different ways for a batter to get to first base. I thought that would bore me to sleep. But, I was just annoyed. At one point, I could come up with 5 ways....a single, a walk, pitcher's balk, dropped third strike and hit by a pitch. But, then I started thinking up other ways to get to first base and now I HAVE to know, how many ways are there? Can any of you think of any other ways to get to first base? If you can, put the answer in the comment section.

Then, I started thinking up different names for the male member. I asked that once before and we created a list...here it is:

Mr. Happy
Champ
Shaft
Dingo
Pepe
Mr. Midnight
The Thunder Down Under (My apologies to Georgia State Rep. Tumlin)
Mr. Peabody
Junior
Thor
Captain
The Purple Headed Yogurt Slinger
Mr. Winky
The One Eyed Wonder Worm
The Handful
The Mouthful

Why do you suppose we do that? We name the parts of our body that are covered up by bathing suits. I have Sally, Sue and Molly. Rick had The Twister. (But he was generally only tire-kicking.) Most couples have their version of Mr. Happy. I think it's kind of funny that you don’t rename the body parts until you know someone really well. Up until then, you have to use the regular names of whatever body part the two of you are busy with.

I hate the word penis. What a stupid word. Penis. I hate that. Say it out loud a couple times, Penis...Penis.

Penis’s do give us some information...if you ever wondered whether or not God is a woman, look to the penis for the answer. If God WERE a woman, the penis would be on a man’s chin, not in between his legs. The penis will tell you how large a man’s foot is as well. You find one big enough and you can be sure, there are some big ass feet walking around somewhere. A funky penis will tell you that your date has been visiting a certain trailer park in Kennesaw, Georgia where the appellation trailer trash is considered a compliment.

Although I don’t know any people named penis, I did have a boss named Mr. Penisis. He was the manager for the Yankee Doodle Dandy Restaurant that I worked at when I was 15. I would use his phone and if he left his name tag on the desk, I would cover up the "IS" at the end. He never noticed it before he put it on. I can’t believe I was paid to laugh that much.

I wonder what the record is for using the word penis in a paragraph? Penis is a word that doesn’t flow too well, say it again, penis. You can’t really work penis into too many sentences. What can you really say about a penis? After the penis envy conversation, why would you ever use the word penis? You can’t just stand up and shout, “Penis!”, not even in a crowded movie theater. As a nurse, I was able to write penis occasionally, but not often. I did have a patient with a damaged penis once. I had an order to do a dressing change on his penis. I thought that perhaps a doctor should take care of the penis. A lady shouldn’t touch a strange man’s penis if there is another penis person around. So, the penis wielding doctor took care of the penis for me. Of course, I had to ASK him to change the penis dressing which meant I had to say the word penis to him. You can’t replace penis with One Eyed Wonder Worm at the nurses station, you just have to say penis. Shouldn’t the plural of penis be peni? Well, I am all penised out. (Funny, that never happened when I was with Rick.)

When my son slammed his penis with the toilet seat, the doctors at the emergency room told me to take him home and elevate it. (You use a rolled up towel.) Apparently, there are some penis stories in my family I didn’t know about. My father and I have been discussing penis’s and he told me that one of my brothers zipped his up and hid in his room with it zipped up. Talk about delicate. That explains a lot.The Chicago White Sox had a pitcher named Gary Peters who was injured once. The paper ran a story that said, “Sox to play without Peters!” I’ve been a Cubs fan ever since.

Have a lovely day!

Meg

My father lives with one ex-wife...

...and he lives within 50 yards of his other ex-wife. He's a very courageous man...isn't he? From where he sits in his living room with wife number 3, he can look out through the balcony and see wife number 2. Ex-wife number 2 lives with her first husband but they aren't "together", they're just both living in their daughter's condo. They're an odd group of retired old people, that's for sure.

I personally irritated ex-wife number 3 this evening. We had planned to watch a movie and by the time I went to put the movie in...she had forgotten that she agreed to watch it and threw a hissy fit...threatening to march into the bedroom and watch "whatever I want to watch" on TV. We let her go. Besides the fact that I don't depend on her for sex so I don't bow to her hen-pecking manipulation...she won't remember any of this tomorrow anyway. So, we all watched the movie, except for her. She fell asleep watching "What I want to watch".

Now, I'm in the room where she's sleeping and she's snoring in the background. It's a cute little lady snore...not one those atrocious jack hammer snores like Rick used to snore. There was no place in the house that was far enough away from him so I just stayed right there and tried to fall asleep first. If that didn't work, I was going to be up for a while. There were nights when he snored so badly that I wanted to help him out by opening up his throat to let more air in.

You know what's good for snoring people? You take a hair or a thread or a piece of yarn and, waiting until after an inhalation, stick the "string" up their nose and twirl it around a couple of times. Then, drop the evidence and close your eyes.

Next, you wait for them to fall back asleep and re-eneter REM sleep. And then, you do it again.

(Hairs work best for this type of operation...they tickle more and they're eaiser to lose after the assault...thereby making your participation in the crime more difficult to prove.)

You could spend a lot of time doing that before they figure it out. I did it once to Rick and told him that he must have a "wild hair up his nose". (I got the idea from that stupid nosehair of mine that tickles the inside of my nostril when it grows over to the other side.) I offered to pluck the offending hair out of his nose. He let me pull about 7 hairs and say..."Oops! I got the wrong one again!"...before he finally realized my duplicity.

Now, this won't stop the snoring. I suppose it's possible that after years of doing it, some person somewhere might actually stop snoring out of some sort of Pavlovian response. Barring that...this little activity won't do a damn thing to stop snoring. BUT...it's as fun as it can be. I could do it for hours. I find it so entertaining and funny that my eyes give me away...I laugh until I cry.

The movie we watched was Sling Blade...not a bad movie at all. During it, I noticed something...Rick looks just like Billy Bob in that movie. Not so MUCH in the face, but a little bit there, too. Mainly it was the way he looked as he was walking in the distance. With the bald head and the funny posture, it was a very familiar impression. His affect was a bit like Rick's as well.

Like Billy Bob in Sling Blade...Rick never had much to say either. He grunted and groaned appropriately when humans were in the area using something little known to Rick...language. There was one huge difference, Billy Bob's character was a bit more concerned with the feelings of others. But, other than that...they were frightening similar.

Like Rick, the guy in Sling Blade had such deep thoughts as "These are good taters." and "I'd like to get me some more potted meat." He could even stare at dirt for hours. I never actually saw him do that...but I've seen him staring at nothing, brain shut down like C-3PO, just breathing. So, I have a lot of faith that he could stare at dirt, too.

Well, I have gone through a bunch of stuff that I moved to my father's before the divorce. My Beatle albums are here as are my paintings. I can't wait to put them up at home. (The paintings, not the Beatle albums.) I also found some of Rick's stuff that I didn't know was in these boxes. I spoke to him the other day about his pictures...now I guess I'll have to speak to him again to see if he wants his other stuff as well.

I could pull an Emily and sell all of his stuff. ("All of his stuff" is a box of pictures and a Bicentenial Pepsi Bottle that he had when I met him...and a box of pictures. That Pepsi bottle is his prized possession. It's also his sole possession.) Before he left, I had a "Betrayed Wife Sale". I sold a bunch of his stuff at bargain prices. My little sale even made it into the local paper by the second day. Well, the "Betrayed Wife Sale" sign made it into the paper anyway.

Alright then...I'm gonna go join the conversation in the living room. I've finally brought a man to my father's house that can carry on an intelligent conversation and my father is talking his ear off. With my father, that's most certainly the "I like this guy." sign. He's never bothered asking any of my husbands any questions tougher than, "What can I get you to drink?"

I'll see you later!

Meg

When my brother got arrested...

... the woman who was my mother's best friend couldn't wait to call and tell me about what happened. She is one of those people who loves to be the first to tell gossip, whether it's good news, bad news or just boring news.

I didn't want to hear about my brother, it was far too painful for me. But, she loved to call me and make sure to be the first person to tell me the latest bad news herself...before anyone else had a chance to tell me. I have never understood people like that. They actually seem to get a thrill out of spreading bad news and they even seem to get a little annoyed when no one listens to them.

After my mother's friend told me the bad news...I didn't want to tell my father. I HATE spreading bad news. But, if I didn't tell him, he would have found out some other way so I had to call him and tell him the bad news. I knew that it would be painful for him to hear and that in itself hurt me when I had to call him to break the news.

For some reason, Emily's blog has provoked a bunch of those types of people to send comments regarding the veracity of the stories that she is telling. I have my own feelings about that and if you've read much at all over the past week, you can pretty much figure out what I think about it all. But, I have no burning desire to stand up, waving my arms in the air, saying, "It's a fake! It's a fake! And...I AM THE ONE WHO SAID SO!"

As Anne pointed out in her comment, Emily didn't charge anything, no one HAS to read her blog, or believe it...nor do you win a prize for being the first person to point out any flaws in her story.

Go to any baseball game and watch people who boo the batter for striking out. At least the batter walked "up to the plate"...the person in the stands booing never got that far. They're happy to sit in the stands and harrass the person at bat.

I guess that somehow it makes a person feel a bit "better" than others when they go out of their way to spread bad news or point out another person's flaws. That's especially odd considering that the people who write to proclaim Emily a fake are doing so under the cloak of anonymity. Others have made special names to let us all know that they are not as stupid as we are...they are TooSmartForThat.

A mature person might see a flaw here or there in another person's behavior or words...and then they would simply walk away. They wouldn't stand there, pointing and shouting so the entire world will know that they are TooSmartForThat. I know that I'm too smart for that. I don't have to run around hollering, nor do I have to go out of my way to let people know how SmartIAm.

If I did feel the need to point out every flaw that I noticed...I would make an appointment and ask someone to help me deal with my low self esteem.

OK then, it's a lovely day down here...I'm going to see if I can drag my father and his ex wife out of this house. I can't seem to get an answer to any of the questions that I'm asking them. In order for me to help, I have to know exactly what they want. Neither of them wants to commit to anything right now so until they help me help them...I'm just going to make them enjoy themselves.

See ya later!

Meg

Tonight I saw the cutest...

..most naively romantic thing that I've seen in a long time. It had nothing to do with people..it happened to be two ducks...but it was quite sweet nevertheless.

Ducks, as do most birds, mate for life. They don't fly away from the nest after they raise their children...they stay together and have more. They choose that one duck and they stay with them for life.

And from what I saw tonight, they even have dates. I was walking down by the water...the canals where people in the condos with boats can park them. It was almost midnight and there was no light so I didn't see them right away. They slowly came across the water like two shadows. They stayed together, floating around the water like a pair of figure skaters. Then, suddenly, they swam away quickly, as though they noticed us standing there watching them and didn't appreciate our presence. I felt pretty badly about that.

In ducks, they call it instinct...in people they call it something a whole lot more sacred. People say that the ducks choose each other because of chest feathers or some such shit. But I bet that sooner or later...those two birds looked each other in the eye and really, really knew something more than chest feathers about each other. If it was only about chest feathers, one of them would leave at the first sign of a better chest feather.

What a shame that ducks have more loyalty than some people. Seriously.

But, those were really some adorable ducks, I must say. Anyway, I HAD to come here and tell you that...because I'm in my father's bedroom, on his computer, with him lying down on his bed watching the news. He is under the blanket and "dressed" for bed and I had to tell you about the ducks before he went to bed and I had no further access to the computer. OK.

So, I've done what I set out to do.

See ya!

Meg

I made it!

I'm in Tampa now...we just drove into town and chatted with my father for a little while and now I have to run out to the store to get something besides water or scotch to drink.

The ride was a long one. I had told my friend that it took me 8 hours at the most to get from Atlanta to Tampa. When we got here 9.5 hours after we left, he accused me (jokingly) of minimizing the length of the trip. Of course I can make this trip quicker than he did...I don't do silly things like drive the speed limit.

OK...I just wanted to let you know that I had arrived and I'll be back here shortly...I have to act like I have manners and be a bit social. Then, I'll come back online and do my best to write something somewhat entertaining.

OK...off to the store...I'll be back later!

Meg

Alrighty then...

..I'm getting ready to leave for Florida! I have to call the probation officer to let them know when I'm leaving and then I'll be on my way. I've made a huge cooler full of sandwiches and stuffed it full of blue ice so I will have plenty of food. Now all I have to do is wait for my ride to finish some work and head over to my house. I hope he's in a good mood. I'd hate to be locked up in a car for 8 hours with an asshole.

By dinner time, I'll be watching palm trees swaying in the breeze. I like that. Did you know that palm trees are actually grass? I learned that somewhere. If you look at a palm tree for a while, you can see the family connection. I don't know how much free time I'll have to enjoy palm trees...my father can keep me very busy when he isn't trying to. I think he's gonna put effort into making me work this visit. Now he's talking about trying to take the woman home with him instead of to a nursing home and I don't think that's a good idea at all. If that is what he decides to do...I'll have to set up some sort of home health care because my father can't handle her alone. He shouldn't have to when she can afford to pay someone who's trained to help people.

But, trying to advise two old people isn't the easiest thing in the world to do. To them, you're still just a kid and there's a lack of respect for my education and experience when it comes to my own family. It's annoying because at work, people defer to my judgment all the time so when parents have a hard time with that...it can make you want to throw up your hands in disgust.

Oh well, you gotta do what you gotta do. And I have to go and figure out some way for those two to live together without anyone getting hurt.

Well, my ride is here so I'm gonna have to run. The next time I write at you...I'll be in Tampa. I wonder what day it is there?

See ya!

Meg

Hello...

...I had something to say but I forgot what it was. As I was getting ready to begin writing, my father called me and now I've totally forgotten what I had planned on saying. I really, really hate when that happens. That's one of the reasons I couldn't smoke pot and write...I would have an idea but forget it before I found a pen and paper. I guess getting older is sort of like being high all the time. You just seem to get stupider. I know I have.

It's not too bad yet, I can still see senility in other people so I'm not that far gone. But...I certainly don't perform as quickly on Jeopardy as I once did.

A few years ago I had brain surgery and right after the surgery, I forgot a bunch of words. I couldn't recall the name of a cup to save my life. Then, I started to sing Happy Birthday to my niece on the phone and I forgot the words. I forgot the words to the Happy Birthday Song. I was that stupid. I guess itll be big things like that that'll get me...it won't be stuff like losing my train of thought...I did that when I was 24. It was just a whole lot cuter when I was 24. Now I'm just a stupid old lady. Oh well.

I won't worry too much about my mind until my cats outnumber my dogs. That's a bad sign. You can pretty much judge a woman's irritability level by the number of cats that she has. If she doesn't have an offsetting number of dogs...too many cats is never good. A woman can have two cats and be OK. But anything more than that (unless, that is, she has a husband who by some freak of nature loves the cats as much as she does. If so, all bets are off.) and a man would be well served by scouting things out for a while.

Getting involved with a woman who has more than three cats is just asking for trouble. Sort of like the tourist in Beirut...you volunteered, buddy. Only there won't be any flotilla of boats steaming to your rescue.

If you're already involved with a woman who has more than three cats...SUCKER!!! AND...if you stood by and LET a woman accumulate more than three cats in your home, you deserve what you get. It takes a lot of dogs to make up for 4 cats.

OH! I remembered what I was going to tell you...I'm going to Florida tomorrow...DUH! My dad's call totally blew it out of my mind that I was going to Florida to help my dad out. What a nit wit. Anyway, Yep, I'm leaving the state...legally.

I called the probation officer and I have to call to let them know exactly when I leave and then I'll be on my way. My father needs help getting my step mother into a nursing home and I can help him with that. I guess we'll have to take care of all of her stuff as well. Poor dad. He had someone to take care of, now he'll be all alone again. I hate that. And I'm stuck in Gogia. Forgetting stuff. That's not good. But, being with my father should make me feel much better. I already listen to the same story a few times over again. That's sort of freaky because my kids accuse me of the same thing.

Yikes.

Alrighty then, I'm going to finish my laundry and pack for my little trip. I will check in with you guys before I leave unless ABSOLUTELY NOTHING happens between now and then.

Good night,

Meg

My dog just farted.

Jeez, I hate that. I thought that all the nasty farting left with Rick. Oh well, at least I KNOW the dog doesn’t have enough sense to go into the restroom for such things.

There has always been a farting man in my life. When I was a little girl, my grandfather, a very successful businessman, would read the paper in his recliner at night and literally lift his leg and fart with no shame or “Excuse Me.”

Of course, when I got a little older, my brothers got a thrill out of farting. I left home and got married so I immediately had a farter of my own. Then, without missing a beat, I married again and had another farter. I swear to God, I had him convinced that woman just don’t fart.

Then, I met the fartmaster. When my oldest son attained a certain age, he developed a facsination with farting that he pretty much still has. He laughs so hard at his own farts, but you can truly annoy him by farting back at him.

When he and Rick where both living with me, it was one great big fart-a-rama. A few years ago, I was in New York and I had this great beef sandwich with peppers...three kinds. I went into the restroom and noticed what a hideous bouquet that sandwich had summoned.

I smiled.

I began developing my stratagem.It was so marvelously brilliant and the timing couldn’t have been better. They were both in the living room watching television. I went back into the living room and sat down as though all was right with the world. Serenely secure in my evil scheme, I withheld the pressure that was my vengeance for the years of anguish to which I had been subjected by the fartmaster and his little partner in crime. I smiled cunningly as I remembered the silence that preceeded the appalling stench. I knew that there would be no forewarning for my victims. I waited until just the right moment and unleashed what was the most foul, repugnant, revolting “silent but deadly” that I had ever had the misfortune of suffering.

And then I sat back and watched the consequences of my reprisal ensue. It was breathtaking...literally.

When the effects of my opus first touched their noses, they immediately glanced at each other. Then, they inhaled again. Oh, it was magnificent. I laughed so hard that I instantaneously gave myself away. They both actually got up off of their chairs. The looks on their faces were identical and said the same thing, “How can I leave the presence of this gruesome entity?”

Their eyes went back and forth as though they were looking for an exit. You would have thought that they were a couple of mice in the presence of a lion. Such a sense of contentment, I have never felt. I assure you, that one fart made up for the years of olfactory assaults that these two yahoos had released upon me. I have tried, in vain, to duplicate it but haven’t found the proper combination of weapons with which to do so.

OK, enough fart talk, the dog just farted again. I guess I asked for that one. Well, I have to clean my kitchen so I can mess it up again by making dinner.

See ya,

Meg

Damn it...

...I heard on television somewhere that it costs more than a penny to make a penny. Then, I told that to my daughter. This morning, I went online to see exactly how much it costs to make a penny and everywhere I look, it says .81 cent. So, now I've lied to my daughter and this is just the type of thing that she would tell other people before I could tell her that I was wrong. So, now she's gonna think that this is like the time that I told her that marshmallows come from marshmallow trees.

This is just the type of BS that I would make up but this time, I didn't make it up. I swear, I heard it somewhere. And when I told her, she decided that it was her civic duty to take all of her pennies to the bank to exchange them for cash. Oh well. Maybe it won't ever come up again and I won't have to explain myself. Besides, it probably will cost more than a penny to make one soon enough if it doesn't already. And...of course, I did discover the mallow tree that grows in marshes so I wasn't completely wrong about the marshmallows anyway.

I have to take a bath this morning and I'm looking forward to that. I just wish that my tub was bigger. The regular bathtubs are rather confining. I can float on my back but I can't really go anywhere. I do have to go down to Florida immediately so maybe I'll take a trip out to Clearwater Beach while I'm there. That should be big enough. I love the ocean...I guess it's actually the gulf there...in the gulf you can go out quite far before you have to worry about the current taking you away. Of course, the sharks are out there too...but I'm counting on numbers to keep me safe. If I can't win the lottery, I should be safe in a gulf full of other people.

My father took in his ex wife about a year or so ago so that she didn't have to go to a nursing home. She's begun falling and is getting more and more confused so he has to put her in a nursing home now and he needs my help to find one and get her settled in it. I told the probation officer that I might have to go to Florida at the drop of a hat and this is it...I have to go now.

He basically made me offer to come down there...he never just came out and asked for my help. I don't understand that. I set up my life so that I could run to Florida if I needed to and he pussy-foots around calling and asking me questions instead of just asking me to come down there. He wasn't like that when I was a little girl. He always let his wishes be known.

Anyway, he asked if I could get down there and I told him that I could. Then I said, "All I have to do is say that I'm taking the alimony and flying to Florida by myself and that would be all it would take for my boyfriend to offer to drive me down there."

He responded, "You're all alike."

He's a funny daddy.

Once, (around 1963) when he was yelling at me, he said, "And those big brown eyes of yours aren't going to work on me this time!"

I didn't even know that they HAD been working in the first place. So, that's where it started. Then, I got tits. Things just spiraled from then.

Women all have their own version of the "kevorka" but we don't always realize it. I had the kevorka back when I was a little girl and didn't even know it. When my kevorka was at it's pinnacle, I married Rick.

That was so incredibly stupid. If I had any IDEA of how strong my kevorka was THEN, I would have never married a man like Rick. If I had any notion of my kevorka's true power, he wouldn't have ever gotten that close to me. That's the problem with most women, we underestimate our own kevorka.

Oh well. Now I have to bathe in a "tepid pool of my own filth" for a while. But that's OK, I'll hose down after I'm done. Then, I'll have to clean the heck out of my house, call the probation officer and my son to see if she'll let me go and if he'll feed my animals. I still have to go to the doctor's appointment and get my prescriptions filled so that I can leave with plenty of medicine. I'll probably leave first thing tomorrow morning, after rush hour, that is. Anyway, I'll certainly be back a few times before I leave one way or another.

See ya,

Meg

Good morning!

I fell asleep early last night and woke up bright and early this morning. I woke up once at 4 but there wasn't a damn thing for me to do so I went back to bed for a while. I don't know why, but it just doesn't seem right to clean the kitchen at 4 AM. Now that it's close to 9 and the kitchen's still a mess, I wish that I had gone ahead and cleaned it at 4...but then what would I do at 9?

I have to go to the doctor again today but not until 3:50 so I have nothing to do until then except fix my hair. I meant to curl it last night but I fell asleep before I could. Now it's straight and funky. I'm fighting the urge to cut my hair and it's taking every piece of strength that I have not to do it. I know this is pretty silly, but Rick likes it short so I don't want to cut it now. I like to be able to hold my hair out as far as I can and say, "He's been gone THIS long." He's been gone for over a foot now.

The only problem with that is I don't know what to do with all of this hair except put it in a pony tail and that gets boring after a while. I've tried curling it with the curlers that I have but they were too small and I looked like Linc from Mod Squad (the TV show, not the movie). I keep seeing these cute little hair cuts and it's all I can do to stay home and let my own hair grow. Every time I've tried to let it grow out, something stupid happened to me. Once, I fell asleep with a wad of gum in my mouth. That was nice.

Another time, I went to get a body wave and told the guy not to "tamper with the length". My sister sat and watched with her jaw dropped as he cut and cut, telling me some bullshit about how it needed a trim and that it was too heavy so it needed to be thinned. When he was done, I had the Linc from Mod Squad look only that time it was a PERMANENT! I just had to wait for it to grow out to cut the frizzy stuff off. Then, I had long hair once again and I had to have brain surgery. That was bad.

At least a pony tail is easy...it's just so damned boring.

OK, my little mystery. I've gotten enough new information to make it even more mysterious...I guess that's a good thing. Who the hell knows? A mystery is supposed to be mysterious. There isn't much that I can do right now because I don't want to offend anyone if I'm wrong but eventually, I'll write about it here.

OK then. I'm listening to the news and they're talking to some lady who was vacationing in Beirut and now she has to evacuate Lebanon. Who in the HELL goes to Beirut for vacation? Why not honeymoon in Hanoi? A Cambodian cruise? When she stays in country for her vacation, does she go to such lovely destinations as East LA and Hell's Kitchen? And now she gets a free cruise around the world to get her home and no one can say a thing because she was a "victim" of a war. Well, I think that she's an idiot and if she is a victim, she stood in line to become one. And, I don't think that volunteer victims should get free cruises for being stupid.

Anyone who's been around for any length of time should know that Beirut is one of many, many havens for terrorism in the world. It's not only ON the list, it's quite close to the top of the list. And what in the heck is going on that they even HAVE spare cruise ships to send to Lebanon?

Why isn't it out there earning money and paying down the national debt? Are there more empty cruise ships sitting around? And, on top of the cruise, they get a battleship as an escort. Well, I guess if you party in Beirut, you must be used to seeing a bunch of army guys around.

We have no idea what it's like to live over there. In peacetime Paris, they have armed guards standing around at tourist sites like the Arc D'Triumph. That's a tad unnerving to see. They're everywhere, underground in the tunnel you have to take to get to the Arc (which sits in the middle of a traffic circle) and walking around the monuments themselves.

I can't even imagine what kind of security Beirut has. Not to mention the press that the entire middle east has gotten over the past 5000 years and you wonder why anyone in their right mind would go there if it wasn't to help or fight. Vacationing? What in the heck does she do for a living that Beirut seems like a relaxing retreat? Only a mercenary with a very full schedule would be able to relax in any part of the middle east.

My father is on the phone now...I have to go to Florida right away. I'll be back after I figure out how soon I can leave. Be right back.

Meg

Good afternoon...

...don't you love a good mystery? I know I do. My last really, really good mystery was finding out who my husband was boinking and how the heck he was getting away with it. Those cheaters can be clever little bastards when they work long and hard enough on their deception. But...they are never quite as clever as they think they are and sooner or later...they get caught.

Rick got sloppy. Or...should I say that he became NEAT! A middle aged bald man doesn't just wake up one day and decide to brush his few remaining teeth after years of not using the stuff the periodontist gave him for periodontal disease. If he was going to brush his teeth, he would have started in the 60's. The fact that he waited until 2004 CANNOT be a coincidence.

And why would a man go to Target and buy himself the very first article of clothing that he had purchased without his wife's assistance since 1987? I was rather distracted with a nasty case of cancer so I'm not quite sure when his little fling began...but by May of 2004, I was finding strange numbers on my phone. Incoming and outgoing. That sort of implies that someone in this house answered the number when it called and dialed it when it came up on redial. So what if I was the only other person who lived in the house at the time? It wasn't Rick using that number. It's all in my head. I must seek psychiatric help for my "trust issues".

Charlie Chan would have kicked that mystery down to some lowly intern. Heck...I solved the stupid mystery before I knew that there even WAS a mystery. Pretty cool...huh?

To say that Rick under-estimated me was a gross under-statement. He insulted my intelligence more often than he "peaked" prematurely. The man would deny the woman underneath of him if I caught him in bed with one. "Damn baby, it was the weirdest thing! I was running into the bedroom naked and all of a sudden I tripped and then you walked in right behind me....could you help me up?"

Well, I've stumbled upon a new mystery. It's so mysterious that I can't say anything just yet. But, when I figure out a bit more...I'll let you in on my little quandary. I can say this...I'm being under-estimated again.

Time sure has been flying lately. I measure the speed of time by this annoying nose hair that I have growing out of the left side of my left nostril. Every so often, it makes it's way over to the right side of my left nostril and begins to tickle the heck out of my nose until I can't take it anymore. I should just go into the rest room, grab a pair of tweezers and yank that sucker out. But as I've said, I'm quite a bad procrastinator. The only thing that I do exactly when I'm supposed to do it is pee. Other than that, I put things off until I absolutely CANNOT put them off any longer.

So, instead of plucking that stupid nose hair right away, I walk around for a few days with my fingers up my nose...trying to pull it out without a pair of tweezers. That never works but I keep trying. Anyway, it seems as though this nose hair has made it's way over to the other side of my nostril rather quickly this time. Oh well...it just gets me a bit closer to finding out the answer to the BIG mystery...is there life after death?

I sure the dickens hope that there is. I'd hate to think we're just here to be annoyed and then just turn to dust. But, I have this awful feeling that the commie may have been right when he said, "Religion is the opiate of the masses." Ever since I heard that I've been freaking out about the death thing. I was pretty well secure in the fact that I would be spending eternity on a cloud playing a harp. Now, I'm not so sure.

Even with my doubts...I can't watch The Sixth Sense alone. I'm sure that the dead people are standing right in front of me shouting, "Hey! Can't you hear me? GO TELL MY WIFE THAT THE INSURANCE POLICY IS UNDER THE MATRESS!!!"

Even a ghost worried about insurance policies would freak me out. I miss my mother but if she tapped me on the shoulder, I'd be rather startled...to say the least. Nope...I don't want to meet ANY ghosts. Well, if I were dead myself, it'd probably be OK...but until then, I'd rather commune with the living.

Once when I was in my early 20's, I tried to have an out of body experience. For about a second and a half...I felt as though I was actually leaving my body. It freaked me out so I jumped back in. I never tried that stupid stuff again. There's nothing that needs doing that can't be done WITH my body. Well, there's the flying around the room stuff...but then I'd see my own body without me in it and THAT'D freak me out. So, I pretty much just stay close to home.

With my luck, if I did have an out of body experience, someone would break my body and then what would I do? I guess I'd be a ghost but still alive. That would be awful. I would probably see other ghosts only they would really be dead. See? I have the worst luck.

Now I've gone and freaked my own self out. I have to go turn on more lights and televisions. Damn.

OR...I could take advantage of my freakedness and watch a scary movie!

Wouldn't that be freaky? All I have to do is pick one out. The Sixth Sense maybe?

Maybe not.

But...a scary movie for sure. OK...I think that's what I'm gonna do...see ya!

Meg

Alrighty then...I'm most certainly impressed. If more people did this type of thing, fewer Colleen's and Gail Glenn's would be stealing husbands.

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I must say...

...Emily has impressed me. I wish that I had the funds to do what she has done. That lady has purchased space on a billboard to send a message to her hubby.

Brava...Emily...Brava!

I was a bit nervous about what she was planning, I was thinking all types of hideous things. But, she did well. I am more than impressed...I bow to Emily...Queen of the Bitches.

This is the first day of her 14 days of revenge...so I think I'm about to have a very interesting two weeks.

Now, to my friend Solaris, after hearing more about you and your past, I understand why you find it so tough to stand up for yourself. You were raised to be a nice person. I bet Emily was, too. But some of us also have a little thing called balls that we use to smack down the fools that seek to do us damage. I want you to pay attention to Emily and see what happens when a woman with balls goes up against a man without any and the slut that he commiserates with.

Anne and I have decided to take Solaris under our wings and teach her that she doesn't have to justify the things that she does. Soem tramp seems to be able to intimidate Solaris and that can't be.

Solaris, you have us on your side...you have nothing to fear from a mouthy bimbo who thinks that she has the power to make you feel badly about anything. Now, sit back, watch Emily and pay attention...Anne and I are going to have you secure in your blog and in yourself before long. Thank God that Emily came along when she did...you can watch a REAL bitch in action. Not a pathetic husband stealing bitch, but the good kind. The kind of bitch that Emily is a the kind that a man creates and those are the most dangerous bitches of all.

Oh, and Emily...if you're reading this, reconsider the comment option on your blog. If anyone would like to use my blog to send Kudo's to Emily, please do!

So, what do you all think of Emily's first day of her 14 day vengeance streak? I'd say that she is a genius and my heroine for the day!

Meg