Good morning!

It's actually late night for me, I spent the night sitting up with Jean who was having a COPD exacerbation. I did what I could to keep her out of the hospital until my father woke up to take her to dialysis. I'm hoping that once she gets the excess fluid off of her lungs she'll be much better. But I have decided that we absolutely have to have oxygen here TODAY.

When they get back I'll call the doc and ask him to arrange to have the O2 delivered. Last night was awful. At about 10 PM she started getting real, real short of breathe. I gave her a breathing treatment and some steroids to bring the inflammation down. Then, at about 12:30, she started breathing much easier and when she did, she reached for a cigarette. I just about lost it. But somehow we made it until my father woke up. I tried to go to bed but after about 3 minutes, it occurred to me that my father would never be able to get her downstairs by himself so I just gave up and got back out of bed.

Although I don't want her to go to the hospital, if she did, I'd be able to run home for a few days so it really wouldn't bother me too much. On top of everything else, I need to have some blood work done. I should have had it done before I left Georgia but I didn't have the time. Also, I have to have Stewie fixed and I want to see Payton. I miss him so much that I get stomach flutters thinking about him.

If I get the blood work drawn, the doctor may order another round of chemo which would keep me in Georgia. I can't let THAT go. I'm starting to get the headaches again and that's never a good sign.

I prayed for patience all night long and somehow I found it in me to keep from freaking out. I can't do it again today unless I have a few hours of sleep. That's probably the worst part of being here, I have to stay up until Jean falls asleep and then my father wakes me up when he gets up so that I can feed her and give her her morning meds. You would think that it would occur to him that I might need a bit of sleep now and then. I'm getting to the point where I just snap at him...something I never would have dreamed of when I was younger. It does seem to work...he backs off. I wish I had tried that when I was 16.

OK then...I'm going to go feed Jean's cat and clean the kitchen. Have a good day and I'll be back the first chance I get. I haven't had any time to go online since I got here...maybe 20 minutes at a time. If I could go home, I would sleep, play with my dog and then I'd come back...honest I would!

Ciao!

I'm trying very hard...

...not to be frustrated with Jean. I've said often that Alzheimer's patients are my favorite patients to care for but usually they're sweet and silly. Jean is not sweet at all. She was a rather unpleasant woman before she developed this hideous disease and now she is an unpleasant woman who forgets that she just insulted you so she does it again.

Even when she's behaving as nice as she can...she can be rather annoying. She loves to watch Law and Order so I've been Tivo-ing episodes for her. This morning she was watching an episode that I Tivo-ed yesterday and about halfway through the show, I went to the store to get some things for dinner. When I walked back in, she was watching the same episode over again. I said, "Do you want to watch another episode? We just watched this one." She got annoyed and said, "I've never seen this one!"

I had to sit there for a while and tell her everything that was happening before she would let me put a different episode on. I don't enjoy watching the same program over and over again but I can deal with it. What I can't deal with is watching the same episode of the same program over and over again. Right now she's in there watching Law and Order again. Her attitude was starting to get to me so I came in here and looked up a post that I write a while back. I had to reread it to remind myself how difficult it is to have Alzheimer's so I wouldn't feel so bad for myself As hard as it is to care for Jean...it's got to be a billion times worse to have such a dreadful illness.

So...I am going to repost this for anyone else out there who may be taking care of a loved one with Alzheimer's':

To my wonderful children,

I watched you as you walked out of the Alzheimer's Unit today and I know you thought that I didn't remember you. I saw your tears and I wanted to make them go away but I didn't know how. Even though you tried to hide it, you seemed so sad. I wanted to make the sadness go away but, once again, I didn't know how. I heard the doctor tell you that I didn't know who you were. I had to let you know that nothing could be further from the truth.There's a very special place deep inside of me where I dwell along with my memories of you and of all that you have ever meant to me. In that special place, I know who you are. You are my child. For as long as my heart beats, you will be inside of it…and I never go anywhere without my heart.

When you were a tiny baby, I would hold you in my arms and stare into your eyes. I watched you stare back at me with such a look of awe…I wondered what was in your mind. You couldn't tell me then and I can't tell you what's in my mind now. But trust me, just as you were behind the eyes that I stared into back then…I am behind my eyes today. Maybe people can't see me, but I'm there. And, in my special place, I have you with me.

I get frustrated sometimes and things get a little confusing for me. I try to tell you that I love you and instead, I take off my shoe and stick it in the sink. I want to cook dinner for you and instead I throw food on the floor. My heart wants to hug you but my hands just make circles in the air. I don't know why these things happen any more than you do. But please don't think that I have forgotten you. You're right here, inside my special place.

And please remember that I'm still your mother and that I want what's best for you. If it means that you have to take care of your own family, please know that it just serves to make me proud of you. All I ever wanted was for you to have a life and a family of your own. Please don't feel as though you're neglecting me. You're ALWAYS right here with me, deep inside my special place.

I don't want you to think that I'm sad, I have so much inside of me. So many things are here in my mind. I remember them so clearly. There's no rhyme or reason to my thoughts, but I know them all. They're thoughts that I've had before…but they come in so randomly that I can't really make heads nor tails of them. But I DO know them all, and you're a huge part of my thoughts. That's because instead of coming to me in real time, my thoughts are coming from my special place.

I have so many things in here with me, recipes, phone numbers, the ice cream man who came to our neighborhood when I was a child. I have school dances, tree houses and my purple bicycle. With me are memories of being in love, holiday dinners and driving through the mountains. And of all the things that I have in my special place, you are by far the most precious.

I may have lost the ability to know how to put on a pair of shoes…but I remember putting yours on when you were 4. I may not know what to do with a telephone but I remember when you called to tell me that you had just gotten engaged to be married. I can't, for the life of me, figure out what to do with a spoon, but I remember feeding you with one. I can't find my way to my bedroom but I remember tucking you into bed with a kiss at night. It may not seem like I know much at all, but here in my special place, I have a wealth of knowledge…and I earned most of it from raising you.

So, don't be too sad. Instead, look at your life, your children and your happiness. If you can take care of all that you have and all that you are, then you've done all that I've ever wanted you to do. Your life makes mine worth all that I have, all that I know and all that I've ever done.

And remember, you're with me always, always. I keep you deep down in the core of my soul with all that I am. It may be hard for you to understand…but in my special place, the essence of you exists in a way that I can recognize. I know exactly who you are, you're my child.

Mom

I just got back...

...from having dinner with a really nice guy. He's a pharmacist and we spent the entire evening chatting about this and that...mainly about things that we have in common. Of course, both of us work in the health field so most of our conversation was about that.

He has a son in medical school who told him that he has friends, other med students, who take Adderall so that they can stay awake long enough to study. The kid goes to SFU or FSU...something like that. It's right near here. I asked him where the kids were getting drugs like that and he said that they just go to their own doctors and report the symptoms of Adult Attention Deficit Disorder. I was blown away that medical students would do something so stupid.

The other thing that amazed me was the fact that when doctors began prescribing Adderall to kids for ADD, they said that a drug that is normally a stimulant in adults (Adderall), acts as a calming agent in children. Well, if that's true...why do they give it to adults who suffer from ADD? That makes no sense at all. For years they've been giving kids that drug saying that it works totally differently with the brain chemistry of a kid...so how do they justify giving it to adults?

And what the heck is wrong with doctors who prescribe such a drug for med students? Do they take care of their own by giving them drugs? They know how tough med school is...do they really think that med students need uppers for anything other than staying awake? The guy I was with tonight said that he believes that doctors don't mind passing out drugs to each other because they believe that they are all "disciplined" enough to take the drugs "properly". It's never, ever proper to take drugs to stay awake and it certainly isn't proper for them to take the drugs to stay awake during med school.

The guy's kid is beginning his first year of patient contact and he goes to school with a bunch of kids who will also be caring for sick people but they'll be doing it while drugged up on Adderall. I've done stupid things in my life but I've never gone to work under the influence of anything stronger than caffeine.

Anyway...dinner was nice. After we got back we went walking along the water by the condo. There are canals along the perimeter that people keep their boats in and I guess they use them as "streets" for the boats. We watched a few people fishing off of boats and off of the side of the canal. If you were to float (sail?) about a half a mile west of where we were, the water turns brackish. I've fished in fresh water and salt water but never in brackish water. Now I have to go get some fishing gear so that I can walk out to the canal and drop a line when I start to get frustrated here.

Well, Jean is sleeping in the chair and my father is sleeping in their room. I have to go wake Jean up and help her change into some jammies so that I can help her into the other room where I can wake up my father by putting Jean in bed. Neither one of them are going to be happy about what I'm about to do but I have to do it. So...I'm off to wake up two old people who are sure to bitch at me. Sounds like fun, 'ey?

See ya later!

Technically it's morning...

...but I haven't gone to bed yet so it's sort of still night. I just got home from going out and I was so bored that I might as well have stayed home. I sat there watching people and I realized something...fat, goofy looking men can get hot chicks and that's just not fair. You never see fat goofy looking chicks with hot dudes...what's up with that?

I was so bored that I sat there staring at some basketball game that I didn't care about...I don't even know who the heck was playing. I couldn't even tell you if it was college or pro. Apparently, my boredom was appealing to one guy. He sent me a drink and I wasn't sure how to handle that. I didn't know if a woman is just supposed to wave or if she's supposed to walk over and thank the guy. It's been THAT long since I was in a position where someone could send me a drink.

I was bored enough to walk over and thank the dude. Unfortunately, I was sorry within 14 seconds of doing so. He was moving in odd ways...at first I thought that he might have Parkinson's...then it dawned on me that some drug addicts move like that too. It's too bad that I sat down before I realized that he was actually a freak. I could have stayed home and listened to some nut tell me the same things over and over again...but...NOOOO...I had to go out and pay money to do it this time.

After about 10 minutes of sitting net to freaky dude...I felt like I was going to puke. It had nothing to do with him...I was just having one of those days. Ever since the chemo I've occasionally felt like that. If it keeps up, I'll have to ask the doctor to put me back on the Marinol. Anyway, at one point, I said, "Man, I don't feel well, I think I'm gonna barf." I didn't care if it turned the guy off...I actually wanted to get away from him. But he was one of those slap happy people who said, "If you have to...go ahead, no one will mind."

That's all I would have needed. If you blow chunks in a place full of people who are drinking and/or half drunk, chances are pretty good that you'll start a huge barf-o-rama and that's no good. At least not if you don't have a camcorder. I didn't. And thankfully...I didn't puke either.

Oh well...I'm sitting here yawning over and over again so I'm going to try to see if I can fall asleep before 5 AM tonight. Last night I ended up staying awake until after that because Jean got up and fell. Then, I was too afraid to fall asleep for fear of her falling again. It was after 4:30 when she finally did go to bed and then I laid there for a while until I finally fell asleep.

Ordinarily, when I'm typing, I look down at the keys. I am one fast hunter and pecker. But just for the hell of it, I'm typing whilst looking at the monitor just to see if I can do it. I'm not doing too badly but it does let me know that I need something exciting to do with my time. Not being able to think of anything...I'm just going to take my xanax and go to sleep now.

Good night!

Hi Hi!

It's rather late...if the clock on this computer is right, it's a few minutes after midnight and this is the first chance I've had to come online all day. The day started with a doctor's appointment for Jean. The doctor was amazed at how well she looked. In the 6 weeks before I got here, she ended up in the hospital 4 times. I've been here for close to a month and she hasn't gone in once. Also, when I got here, the doctor had gotten two other doctors to sign a paper stating that she needed to be placed in a nursing home. Today he said that he no longer thought it was necessary.

It wasn't tough at all to get her in good shape...unless you count her bitching when I would ask her to do the normal things that she needed to do. I took her to have a mani-pedi a couple of times...against her will. I even had her face waxed... she would have argued about that if she had any idea that they'd be "ripping her face off." We went and had her hair done for the first time in a couple of years. She would occasionally have it trimmed but she had let the color go so I had them style it and color it. I've been making her 3 meals a day, take all of her medication and her respiratory treatment...not to mention 3 showers a week. I've had to withhold her cigarettes to get her to do it...but she did it.

I went to Target and got her a bunch of new clothes because all of her other clothes had cigarette burns in them. (I can't believe that she had so many burns in her clothes, the chair she sits on and the plastic thing under the chair to protect the carpet and yet she never once burned herself.) That's all it took to make the doctor allow her to stay out of the home. She complained to the doctor that I was "relentless" in my efforts to get her to do the right things and of course, he told her that it was a good thing. All the complaining that she tried to do about me backfired...the doctor just kept telling her that it was for her own good. I wanted to laugh when she said, "But she hides my cigarettes from me until I take a shower!" He told her that he backed me 100% and that he wouldn't mind if I took them away and never let her have another one.

But, she was happy that he told her that he didn't think she had to go into the home. She was so happy that she tried to give me a pair of earrings. I couldn't accept them because they were huge diamond earrings and it just wouldn't be right to take such a gift from someone with Alzheimer's...although I must say...I would have loved to have those suckers. Each one of them had two diamonds and the smaller of the two diamonds were both at least one karat. Damn...why do I have to be so ethical?

Anyway, he also told her that a month ago he wouldn't have given her three months to live. Actually, last month he told my father that she wouldn't survive for another few months. Today he said that if she keeps going the way she has been going, she could live indefinitely. He told her that she appeared to be "immune" from death. That's great, right?

Well, there's one problem with that. If I were to go home now...she would decline again because my father doesn't want to argue with her. He offers her her medication and breathing treatments, he tells her to shower and he serves her nutritious meals. But, she refuses it all because he doesn't have the patience to listen to her bitch so he doesn't force her or blackmail her by withholding her smokes. I don't fault him at all for that...he's too old to have to deal with that crap and he's an attorney...not a nurse. So, basically, as soon as I leave, she'll have to go into a nursing home.

I had never planned to stay gone THIS long...much less indefinitely. I have to think this one through for a good while. I want to go home! On the other hand, as I've said before, I would feel absolutely SHITTY if I were to leave knowing that she would go straight into a nursing home. I would rather just take her home with me than to have her in a home...but she wants to stay here and I don't think that my father really wants her GONE...he just wants her to be well cared for.

Oh well, the doctor's appointment made me feel really, really good. Then, we went to the beach and when we got back, Jean and my father went out to play bridge and I stayed here cleaning the house and doing laundry. I didn't wait for my father to decide to go to the laundromat...I just did it downstairs without telling him that I was going to so the laundry was done before he could scam me into another trip to the laundromat.

Now the kitchen is dirty again and I was going to clean it but I decided to come here and write this before I started another round of housework. I've done MUCH more housework here than I did at home. My father is most certainly an old fashioned chauvinist but I love him. If there's a female in the house, she gets to cook, clean and do the laundry. I knew what I was getting myself into when I came down here but I didn't know it would last this long.

I spoke to my brother the other day...the middle one. (There are 3 boys and 3 girls in my family.) He is a great guy, everybody adores him. He's one of those people who ALWAYS has a great joke to tell when you speak to him. He told me two of them...one was in very poor taste but it was as funny as hell. It was in such poor taste that even I can't tell you but I can tell you the other one. This one is much better when you tell it as opposed to when you write it but I'll write it anyway...you can tell someone sometime:

This guy was sitting as a bar and he heard the guy next to him order a beer. The guy ordering the beer spoke with an Irish accent and the first guy was Irish too so he introduced himself. Then, he asked, "Where in Ireland are you from?"

"Dublin!" said the other guy.

"What a coincidence...I'm from Dublin as well! Where did you go to school?" he asked.

"Why, I went to St. Mary's School."

"What a coincidence...I went to St. Mary's as well! When did you graduate?" asked the first guy.

"Aye...in 1963."

"Oh my heavens...I graduated in 1963 too! That's amazing!" responded the first guy.

Then the bartender said to the bouncer, "It's gonna be a long night, the O'Brien twins are drunk again!"

I got quite a kick out of that one. If you want to hear the one that's in really, really bad taste...I'd be happy to email it to you, just email me at megkelsobroderick@gmail.com and I'll be happy to send it to you.

A long time ago, I wrote something on this blog that was in such poor taste that I posted a warning...a very stern warning that what I was about to write was extremely offensive and if you were at all sensitive to poor taste, you should stop reading. Then, a bunch of nit wits commented about how dreadfully offensive what I had said was. I couldn't believe that people would be stupid enough to read past the warning and then bitch that the warning was right. So, if you do want to read the joke, I'd be more than happy to send it to you...but when you see how bad it is...no bitching to me that it's offensive!

Well, the entire condo is quiet so I'm going to take advantage of it and go watch the end of Field of Dreams. I hope you're having a nice day and I'll be back soon. If I'm still awake after the movie I'll come back tonight...if not, I'll be back in the morning.

See ya!

Odd what you see around town

This is far too cute...

not to be read:

http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=48932737a6&attid=0.1&disp=inline&view=att&th=118e8a081e845f9f

Now THAT'S funny!

Oops, I didn't know that link required a gmail sign in.


By the way, I don't read emails that don't begin with "I'm sorry." unless they're from people who DON'T owe me an apology.

I woke up FREEZING this morning...

...and I figured that I screwed up and left the AC on too low. I couldn't figure out why my father didn't turn it off. I went to look and it was 62 degrees in here without the AC...it's just plain COLD here! So, I did what any cold skinny person would do, I turned the heat on. I expect my father to bitch a bit when he comes home but I can't help it. I'm far too cold to leave the heat off.

I sat on the couch wrapped up in a blanket and watched the beginning of American Justice. They were showing a woman named Linda Jones who was serving time for masterminding her husband's death. Of course she was on the show saying "It never occurred to me that this could happen." Well, I didn't know whether she was guilty or not until they showed a picture of the 18 year old that the hubby was sleeping with. Then I knew she had done it.

I understand why it would cross her mind, it certainly did cross mine. But I never actually killed my husband. I can't imagine either doing it or getting away with it. But if I WERE going to do it, I wouldn't have hired 3 men to do it for me...if you can't trust one, how can you trust 3 of them? Sooner or later one of them would spill the beans to save their own ass. I didn't watch the rest of that show but I bet 50 bucks that's what happened.

I would think that if I wanted someone dead so badly, I would be ready to serve the time for doing it. I wouldn't sit in prison denying it after I was convicted. How stupid can she be to think that anyone would believe that her husband survived 30 years of marriage but just happened to be bludgeoned to death during an affair with a teenager? It happened in 1995...maybe she would have called Cheaters if that had been an option. I wonder how many of those people would have committed murder if they didn't have Cheaters as an option? Ooh, wouldn't it be odd to find out that Cheaters actually saves lives?

Jean wants to go to Paris for a weekend and she wants me to take her there. I hope she forgets that idea soon. My father took her to Europe last year and he said it would be easier to get a bunch of box cutters and a pistol through security than to get Jean through. Apparently she bitched the entire time and they almost didn't let her on the flight. I don't need to be a part of an evening news story.

I thought about taking her to Chicago...but once again, the security check points are an issue. I would drive her there but my father said she does what she does here...smokes constantly and drops lit cigarettes in the ashtray. That would drive me insane. I wouldn't get on a bus and I would imagine that a train would be just as bad. Oh well, with her dialysis, we would have to take a plane to go anywhere and if she has a problem taking off her shoes for security...she can't fly.

I offered to take her to the beach for a weekend. That way she could walk out onto the beach from a nice room if she wanted to. Maybe that'll work. But, the temperature has to be over 70 for that. The first time I ever came to Florida it was cold...I was so annoyed. I bet there are people here now on vacation thinking, "What the heck is going on here?" The other day it was warmer in Chicago than it was here.

My father just got back from the store. I went the other day and apparently I bought the wrong type of paper towels. He likes the kind that are too small...it supposedly saves paper. It seems as though all old people use those short paper towels and I don't know why. I end up using 3 because one is never enough and it's almost impossible to rip off two so I end up with more than I need. I think the short paper towels are a dumb idea.

My dad likes to shop "frugally". He goes to Sam's and buys a huge container of Windex and other name brand things when I know it would be cheaper to buy the store brand. There's not as many shoppers as cheap as I am so when I see my dad buying Clorox...it makes me NUTS! It's nothing but a chemical so there's NO reason to buy the name brand there. My daughter buys the most expensive shampoo out there and that makes me crazy because hair is hair...nothing but dead skin cells and people pay a LOT of money for shampoo that fixes "dead hair". It's ALL dead! The cheapest shampoo in the world is good enough to get your head clean. Oh...if anyone likes ketchup...it's me. My mother would only buy Heinz ketchup but when I started shopping, I found out that the store brand tastes exactly the same. Once someone told me that the big companies actually sell their products to other companies who put their own labels on and charge less. I don't know if that's true or not...but I buy the cheapest that I can.

There are a few things that aren't the same...like tuna fish. I bought generic tuna once and almost puked just opening the can. It wasn't even the same color. I'm quite sure that if I had bought cat food, it would have tasted better than that generic tuna. And I wouldn't even want to try generic liver sausage. I don't like liver and I'm not a huge sausage fan. I'm not sure what they put in there and I don't think I want to know.

My grandfather went to a hot dog factory once and when he saw anyone eating one he would always say, "If you knew how they made those, you wouldn't be eating that hot dog!" He may be right...but once again, I just don't want to know. They say that they sell everything but the oink when they slaughter a pig. I suppose they do the same with cows. If I'm eating a cow's tail...I would prefer to remain ignorant. I try to make myself feel better by only buying Nathan's or Hebrew National hot dogs. Also, I stay away from all hot dogs that describe themselves as "meat". If they can't even get specific enough to name the animal...I don't take a chance. A meat sandwich isn't my idea of a tasty lunch. I'm quite sure that meat is a code word for "the crap you wouldn't eat if you chopped up an animal".

Oh well. Now I can't eat ANY meat for a while. I'll have to get these thoughts out of my mind before I'll be able to eat anything besides ice cream. Damn...I just thought about the fact that the government allows a certain percentage of bugs in all food. I'm not sure what that percentage is...but I don't want to eat any amount of bugs.

OK...I have to stop now or I WILL puke.

See ya!

I'm not quite awake enough to come in here...

...and type but my father is talking politics and I'm not clear headed enough for that.

My parents were politicians and there was political speech in our house all the time when I was growing up. This morning, I woke up, walked out into the kitchen, got some juice and sat on the couch. Within five minutes I was in a heated debate over whether or not abortion was a matter for the Supreme Court to debate in the first place. I stared at my father thinking, "Why is he doing this so early in the morning? Does he really think that I can understand this crap right now?"

He switched the conversation to a Connecticut case that banned birth control and mentioned that someone said, regarding that ban, "Why is the government in our bedrooms?" He responded, "It's not...it's in the drug stores." I said, "If I smoked marijuana in my bedroom would the government leave me alone?" And then I walked away because I had an opening. I'm afraid to go back.

The bad part about that is the fact that he is scraping the wall in the hallway leading to the kitchen (so I can paint it) and I'll never get any coffee if I have to go through that hall. Of course, I'll never get any coffee if I DON'T go down the hall either. I feel like climbing out the bedroom window and walking to Starbucks.

Jean's at dialysis so I have a few minutes to myself. I don't get many of those. Yesterday she was more confused but rather pleasant. If she could get to be a pleasant confused person, she might have a chance in a nursing home. But as it is, she's much too unpleasant to stay in ANY nursing home for any length of time without being abused and/or neglected.

Unfortunately, there are occasionally workers in nursing homes who don't like their jobs and they take it out on the residents. The residents most open to abuse are those who can't tell anyone what happened. Jean probably couldn't remember someone smacking her on the head for longer than 10 minutes. Her annoying personality opens her up to such treatment as does the fact that she really has no family. Confused, annoying and basically alone in the world. That's the triple play of abuse victims in nursing homes.

I've worked in them long enough to know that's absolutely true. Even some nurses neglect patients who don't want to comply with their orders. If a nurse walked into the resident's room and said, "It's time for your breathing treatment." and the resident said, "Get out of here!", some nurses would take that as an excuse to just walk away...after all, people have a right to refuse treatment. They also have a right to hear from the nurse why they should take the treatment. But there are nurses who wouldn't waste their time with that.

Think about it, people have to shower, change clothes, brush their teeth all before they get their medicine, treatments or activities. Jean will fight you tooth and nail over these things. And she does it every single day. How easy would it be to leave the woman filthy? Sadly, far too easy. As an assistant director of nursing, I had to forbid the use of powder on the patients because some CNA's would use it to cover odors instead of cleaning the patients.

Of course, not all people who work in nursing homes are nasty pigs like that, but one is too many. And for some reason, those people gravitate towards the residents who have Alzheimer's. Those poor people can't complain one bit. When I imagine Jean in one of those homes, I imagine her needing help and calling for me but I don't ever answer. This is why I'm so angry at her daughter. I can't take the woman home with me and my father is the only person here to visit Jean.

In that business, the squeaky wheel gets the oil so if there's a family member who bitches and bitches...their mother or father will be well cared for. No one wants to hear anyone bitch so the employees do their job with that one patient. And it's almost always at the expense of another. The confused lady with no family is the one most likely to suffer and this confused lady is my responsibility right now.

OK...maybe I can handle a political conversation now...if I HAVE to.

:)

How's this for odd...

...I created a blog in which I simply admitted to everything that Obama's preacher has accused white people of. Here is a snippet from that blog:

"I am a typical white person. As such, I am a racist and a bigot. All white people are racists. If you don't believe me, just ask Reverend Jeremiah Wright. He'll tell you that all white people are filled with hatred and that we all got together in a secret meeting and decided to infect the black community with HIV."

For some reason, it's OK to accuse white people of being racist, but it isn't OK for a white person to "admit" to any of those accusations. That blog is now "under review" for violating Blogger's terms of service. Isn't that stupid?

http://typicalwhitepersonsblog.blogspot.com/

That's the link to the blog that I wrote but you can't get to. Nothing on that blog is new...it's full of simple "admissions" to everything that the Reverend Wright has accused white people of. If it's alright to accuse white people of being racist, why isn't it OK for white people to "admit" to those accusations? I don't get this politically correct crap. I would have thought that they would be more concerned with a cross accusation than they would be with an admission, wouldn't you?

And exactly which term of service did I violate with that blog? Can anyone guess? I surely don't know. I read them and I couldn't find one that my blog violated. I didn't mention names, I didn't say anything bad about anyone except my own race. Surely if you can say bad things about white people, white people can admit to those things...right? Perhaps I was about to apologize next...how do they know what my motives were with that blog? It could have lead to better race relations between whites and blacks. Now we'll never have that chance because the Blogger people won't let me admit to the things that the Reverend Wright has accused me of.

After reading the terms of service, I think that John from Solon's blog is much more of a violations of those rules. I wonder why Blogger is so unfair when it comes to flagging blogs? When John and his minion complained about another blog, the author had to place a warning on it so that anyone going there would be "warned" about possible offensive content. They didn't even give me that choice...apparently admissions to what Reverend Wright has accused us of are so damned offensive that they can't even be read WITH a caveat. I find THAT to be offensive in itself.

Americans are supposed to be a protected group. That protection is assured in the Bill of Rights. It's the exact same protection that allows people like Reverend Jeremiah Wright to make some of the most heinous accusations at entire groups of people like a good racist. But I don't seem to have that same protection. Why is that?

If you find this to be as unfair as I do, you should send Blogger an email asking them why it is that white people can be falsely accused yet they can't agree with their accusers? If you'd like to see what Blogger wants to keep you from seeing, let me know and I'll send it to you.

I was just able to get to that blog this evening. I don't know if it's because I'm the author or if it's because Blogger decided not to censor it. One way or another...if anyone has a moment to try to go to it, let me know if you can get to it as well.

Thanks

Oops.

My bad. I wish I had an excuse but I don't. I just can't get away from what I need to do long enough to do anything that I want to do as long as I'm in this condo. So, I walked out to sit by the pool and finish reading my book. It was sort of late and it started to turn dark while I was out there so I didn't read the book for the entire time.

One of my dad's neighbors was out there with a telescope and he was getting ready to look at the stars. Isn't that a great line for a guy to use? I don't know if that was his intent, but for any guy out there...think about it. If you're sitting outside with a telescope, you're gonna attract a chick or two. Sooner or later one of them is going to want to look up your scope and being the curious sort of female that I am, I looked up that guy's telescope.

The first thing I thought was that I was gonna end up writing about it here sooner or later. That made me smile.

Anyway, we could see quite a few stars with that thing. He seemed to know every single one of them by name as well as a little story about each of them.

I like looking up in the sky anyway and I can name out a few of the obvious constellations but I know nothing compared to this guy. But he was very generouswith his praise when I did know something. He would be all, "Yes!!!! Very good!"

He asked if I knew what Virgo was. I said that it had something to do with water. He was like, "Very good!" as though I were a 2 year old who had just used the potty for the very first time. I found it rather condescending, but I decided to let it go because not many people are as smart as I am and how was he to know. I also easily grasped why cancer seemed to be off to the side during my birth...it appears as though the sun is in Gemini...but because of the bend of time, the sun is really in cancer. You'd have thought that I had mastered Chopan at 4. I made a joke about a flux capacitor and he was stunned.

Oh well, I still haven't figured out if he's smarter than I am, he just told me his own stuff. I didn't tell him any of mine. That's when I'll know if he's an idiot or not. Although you don't have to worry...he is NOT relationship material. He's not married. He's not hideously freaked out in the face, and he's not an unemployed drug addict. But he IS a Jesus freak of some sort. And THAT'S not happening. I wouldn't mind if he was his own Jesus freak, but he asked me, "You DO believe that Jesus died for our sins don't you?" I answered with some joke that followed the conversation we were having before that little nugget popped out.

I turned the conversation back toward astronomy and he went back to it too. At one point I noticed three planets up in the sky. I knew they were planets because they weren't twinkling. I do know enough about the stars to know that. He looked up and pointed out, if I remember right, Jupiter, Venus and Mars. While I was looking up there he started explaining how those suckers are about to align on 8-8-88 at 08:00. I think it was '88, it could have been '08. (It doesn't matter.) He started telling me what people have said about that event. He inferred that men have predicted things of Biblical proportion will be happening at that moment and I said, "Wow, those guys have a LOT of spare time on their hands, don't they?" Then I started a bit about nutcases who leave their families to follow stars. He laughed about it, he wasn't offended or anything. But I made a mental note of his immense knowledge of such things.

He was a really, really nice guy and although I had no reason to do so, I found myself wondering if he could be a serial killer. I decided to be very nice and try not to challenge his belief system to much. Although I went out of my way not to give him too much of my personal information, he does know my father and where he lives. But as I said, he was just as nice as he could be so I'm sure he's not dangerous...but things do go through your mind, don't they?

I'll be right back, I lost something really important. I didn't erally lose it, I forgot where I put it. Now I have to find it before so much time goes by that I never remember where I put it.

YIKES!

OK...I'm back.

Cool.

Anyway, I saw some other people at the pool too. There were two young guys who both had really short hair with tiny little mohawks. they weren't any longer than it takes to make their heads look a bit malformed. I didn't mind, they were very nice young men. They were playing music and two of them who were sitting back to back and couldn't have possibly seen each other, were both playing "air drums"...it was pretty cute.

I wished I had a camera. My father's camera is really cool, it does video as well as still pictures. But neither one of us knows how to operate the stupid thing. I can figure out how to take pictures and there IS a memory card in there. But it says the memory full. I don't know why because all it has on it is 3 pictures and a 3 second video that was taken on accident when I was trying to figure it out.

That prophet dude said that he was going to print out a picture of the sky at the minute of my birth and bring it to me "some time". Don't you hate having such an unannounced pop in hanging out there? I don't know when that guy is coming by with my sky...I don't know what day, I don't know what time, I don't know if he ever really will. I certainly won't go get it...I may never be head from again. If I disappear, it's that guy who always brings his telescope to the pool by my dad's house.

Anyway, I was gonna hang out in my jammies for a while this morning but I was afraid to. I might have a guy pop in at any given moment. That just blows.

Yesterday my father went to the store and before he left he asked me if I wanted anything. I told him that I wanted hamburger buns. I told him to get the "smallest that they have...I don't want buns the size of Whoppers!"

But that's not what he heard. Somehow he heard, "Get me buns the size of Whoppers." I don't get it. But, I am hungry so I'm going to go make myself a hambuger. I don't think that we should eat harmless animals...but what the hell. They taste good.

YIKES!

My father let me oversleep and then he told me to get the laundry together so that we can go and do it while Jean's at dialysis. Of course I said that I had something to do on the puter and this is it. So, here I am!

Now what? Um...OK then. I didn't have a plan, I just came here. So, let's see if I can just start writing and end up with a post. Damn, I didn't suck enough coffee for this.

OK then, I'll tell you this...I wanted to go out last night but I ended up being too tired to do so. But that's OK, it's Friday now and I was thinking that yesterday was Friday. It didn't help that I was on the phone with someone who told me that yesterday was Friday. Of course, it was after midnight and perhaps she was right, but I don't consider it Friday at 1 AM unless I've slept. 1 AM on Thursday night is still Thursday to me. For all intents and purpose, it really is, isn't it?

That laptop that my father gave me needs 2 batteries. I went to BestBuy.com and found one for $150 bucks. So, unless I want to pay $300 bucks and hope that the batteries ARE the problem, I don't really have a laptop, do I?

Rick told me that one of the problems (The picture sometimes becomes smaller than the screen.) was caused by some sort of power problem. I would buy the batteries if I wasn't afraid that it would be something else. In my mind, I'm comparing the potential problem to something like an alternator in a car. You know, you think it's the battery and then it ends up being the alternator instead. I don't know how these things work but I'll figure it out eventually.

What I need is someone HERE who knows about such things. I need to call a friend of mine here who may know someone (Girl, I'm trying to find a chance to call you...I'm just so unbelievable tapped for time) who can help me out with this stuff.

Damn it...my father is speaking to me in his mean daddy voice that still takes me aback. I guess I have to go wash their laundry. That was NOT in our deal, by the way. NO one mentioned being the laundry lady when I came down here. Oh well, I'll do it.

I miss my house and my washer and dryer!!! I HATE laundromats. This one is particularly nasty and dirty but it's "cheap" according to my father who isn't exactly ready to part with a few quarters easily himself.

I want to go home. When I get a chance today, I'll install the camera and make a video. And then, I want to see if I can talk my father into either taking me to the beach this weekend or letting me drive there myself. He has a really, really good digital camera but it has so many stupid buttons and functions on it that I can't figure it out...but I will!

Sorry to be so quick and boring today...I'll make it up to you when I get the chance later on!

Meggers

Good morning!

It's a lovely day here in Florida. I see that it's not so nice around the country what with the flooding in the heartland. That's too bad. I wonder how much of that is our fault? How much of that flood is there because we messed with Mother Nature? It'd be nice if Georgia could take a bunch of that water away from those poor people, nice for Georgia as well as the Midwest.

I swear, sometimes I think that my kids get together and say, "OK, how long has it been since YOU'VE asked Mom for money?" I can just hear them bickering over who's turn it is to hit me up. It never occurred to me to ask my parents for money but that's only because I knew that it wouldn't do me any good.

I had friends whose parents wouldn't let them work when my parents were saying, "If you want new clothes for school this year you had better get yourself a job!" My parents were from some school of parenting that taught them to let the kids take care of themselves. But I watched and paid attention. The friends of mine whose folks helped them didn't end up bums...they were just fine. So, I decided to help my kids when they needed it.

I wouldn't let them work during the school year but I did give them an allowance so that they would have a few bucks to spend. They could work all they wanted during the summer but during the school year, their job was to go to school and do well. I can't say that I did anything wrong, I have decent kids.

My father thinks that I help the kids too much but that's OK, I don't think he helped us enough. Not that I blame him for anything...as I always say, good or bad, parents do the best job they can on any given day. Sometimes the best they can do absolutely BLOWS but they are trying. I know that my father was a considerate parent and it would have been easy for him to give his kids cash but he thought that his way was better for us. I happen to disagree.

When my kids need help, I want to help them. I would hate to think of them so desperate that they would do something illegal, immoral or just plain stupid. It'd be different if they were assholes or drug addicts or even if they were just taking advantage of me. I know that they hate to ask me for money and they only do it when they're in a tight spot so I don't mind.

In case the kids are out there...Annie just had her turn. I think it's William's turn now.

I wanted to go out for a while last night but I didn't because I was just too tired. The night before Jean had a bad episode and then she had to wake up early to go to dialysis so I got about 3 hours sleep. I had her sleep on the chair in the living room last night so that she could be in more of a sitting position to help her lungs expand. I slept on the couch so that I could hear her if she got up.

That was a good idea except for one thing...that lady snores worse than any other female that I've ever met. Of course, I haven't slept near too many women in my life so I wouldn't know how badly they snore. But I do remember trying to fall asleep before Rick so that I didn't have to listen to him snore. That rarely worked...he would be asleep as soon as he was horizontal. I wish I could fall asleep that quickly.

Rick's son was probably the worst snorer that I've ever heard. I never slept in the same room as he. That boy could be in one corner of the house and I could be as far away as humanly possible and I would STILL hear him...even with doors closed between us. He's living with some poor female who probably doesn't get much sleep at all.

Anyway, with all the snoring, I couldn't fall asleep for a long time and then, this morning while it was still dark outside, I heard a loud, "Where are my cigarettes!?" I hid the carton and she emptied her pack so I had to get up and look for the carton. I tried to go back to sleep but it didn't work. Once I'm up, I'm up and there's not a damn thing that I can do about it. I'm not a nap person so I don't take naps during the day.

Anyway, the lack of sleep is nothing compared to the hideous stench of the constant smoking. I asked my father why he didn't get one of those smoke-eater ashtrays and he said that he tried that once but after 3 days the ashtray itself reeked so badly that he had to throw it away. This morning the smoke was so bad that my eyes were burning. I didn't get this much nicotine when I DID smoke...I don't know how my father deals with it. He quit in '64 when the Surgeon General proclaimed cigarettes bad for you.

I had to open the windows to clear the smoke out and that meant that I had to turn the AC off...ain't that a bitch? I have two options...I can sweat and breath or I can be comfortable and suck smoke.

This reminds me of why I started smoking in the first place. My mother, my best friend and my boyfriend all smoked so I basically started out of self defense. If you're smoking yourself, it doesn't bother you when someone else does. Even if I were still smoking now, I couldn't keep up with this one. And I don't understand something...when she's in the hospital, she doesn't smoke and she doesn't bitch about not being able to. She loves to go play bridge and she can't smoke there. But I can't get her to go for 20 minutes without another cigarette because she doesn't remember that she just smoked one and if you tell her that she did she gets mad, calls you a liar and says, "Don't treat me like a baby!"

I found a box fan this morning and set it in between her and the sliding glass door so that it would suck the smoke and blow it out of the condo. I had been sitting further away from her and I watched as the smoke constantly drifted into my father's face. I think that should be considered an assault...don't you?

I told my father that we shouldn't buy them at all but he doesn't want to listen to her bitch about it. I also told him that he should get an air filter for the living room. I hope that he does. Any other ideas out there? It's not fair that two people who quit smoking years ago should be taking in more smoke than most smokers. I don't bitch at people who smoke...I actually think that society is being ridiculously harsh with some of the smoking bans that I've heard about. But this is one new and improved smoker person...I've never seen anyone smoke so much in my life.

If and when she goes into a nursing home...she'll have to live with maybe 4 fags a day. And that's only if they have the help to take her outside to smoke.

She smokes in her chair so my father put a big plastic thing under it to try to save the carpet. But the plastic thing, the chair AND the new carpet all have so many cigarette burns that you would think that a bunch of drunks in a bar had been using them. Her clothes have tons of holes in them yet the woman NEVER burns herself! Of course when she falls asleep with a square in her hand, my father or I take it before it has a chance to burn her. But still, you would think that sooner or later she would burn herself. Oh well...they say that God looks out for drunks and fools.

Oh! I just found out that my father has 2 laptops! He could have been playing Solitaire on one of them and I could have been here! He doesn't know how to hook them up to go online and I haven't had a chance to look at them yet. If I can remember to call Sol tonight...maybe she can talk me through that. She is a computer expert extraordinaire!

With any luck at all, I'll figure out how to get one of them up and running so that I don't have to wait for my father to finish playing games on this one. He gave me one of the laptops...all I have to do now is talk to Sol or someone else who knows about such things and I'll have a nice laptop!

OK...I must go into the smoke filled room now and see if that fan has helped. It surely couldn't make things any worse.

Oh! My father and I went to Home Depot while Jean was at dialysis yesterday and we bought some paint for the living room. I get to paint it. I'm basically using the same color...white. The walls were painted white before but in the short time that Jean has been here, they've pretty much turned yellow. Ick, ick, ick.

Watching the fall out...

...from Obama's lapse in judgement has been interesting. I've watched a great orator turn into a stuttering back talker. A comment by one of those radical thinkers who espouses "critical thinking" yet cannot participate in a political debate without making personal attacks has shown that the politicians of personal destruction have set the standards quite low.

Unless something changes...and quickly...this campaign will mark another turning point in race relations...and it won't be a good thing at all. In 1973, a movie called Blazing Saddles was a major hit and All in the Family was the most popular show on television. By today's standards, they both appear to be quite racist but at the time, they marked the high point in race relations. It's been downhill ever since.

Neither of those iconic entities could be created today...why is that, what has changed? Has society become more restrictive in general? Nope. Society has become much, much more liberal in just about any other area that you can mention...other than race relations. Why is that? What happened since then to make race relations so bad today?

Some of you might remember the early 70's...as the young people of the time, we knew that bigots were a thing of the past. We laughed at Cleavon Little and Archie Bunker because we knew something they didn't know...racists were a dying breed and we were going to make this nation a better place for people of all color.

But instead...a few people learned that they could make quite a nice living by calling white people racists. They manipulated a couple of generations since then into beings who would believe the statements made by Reverend Wright accusing the United States of infecting the black community with the AIDS virus. It doesn't even make sense. Why would America choose a virus transmitted sexually just when American society began allowing whites and blacks to date publicly if they wanted to infect just the "black community"? That would have been suicide.

I'm not taking away the nation's history...America did a few things that opened her up to such allegations by infesting a group of black prisoners with syphilis. But that was in a time when a white woman could have been hung for sleeping with a black man. Why worry about sexually transmitted diseases carried by people whom you would never sleep with, nor would your children? It was also a very, very long time ago as was slavery. But it must be said that blacks do not have the market on being the targets of racism in this country.

The likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have "preached" to their congregations for decades that the blacks are "victims" and that white people owe them something for things that happened 150 years ago. They have created a group of Americans who would believe the likes of Reverend Wright when he makes such slanderous and nasty (not to mention untrue) allegations.

Today marks the low point of race relations in my lifetime and it seems to be getting worse. The Reverend Wright incident has shone the light on a segment of the black community. We now see that many of them not only hate white America, they take their children to church on Sundays to teach them even more hatred.

If Reverent Wright wants to preach hate, he can. This is America after all. God Bless him. If he wants to hump the pulpit, more power to him. If he wants to use his pulpit to bash the first "black President", he can knock himself out. But if Obama wants to be a president of ALL the people, he must do more to disavow himself of the comments by Reverend Wright. Before I vote, I want to know if Obama actually believes that America infected her citizens with HIV.

Now I see WHY Obama's wife hasn't been proud to be an American until last month. She sits in a pew every Sunday listening to Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

If there are any more white people out there feeling guilty for what their great great great great grandparents did, I hope they see now that they aren't appreciated. They aren't even given the respect of consideration. The black community has sought "equality" for some time now. They have it. They now have the right to be just as racist as any white person that I have ever met...AND they have our permission to do it...as long as hypocrites keep letting the black community get away with things that would totally destroy a white person's credibility.

"Nappy headed hoes" ain't got nothin' on "America infected the black community with AIDS".

Good morning!

What an interesting day! Let's see...who has screwed who...or is it whom?

Yesterday I watched as New York's new gov was sworn in. I saw a handicapped man who had overcome much adversity. Today, I see a regular person with faults as he admitted to an affair or two. But...at least he had the courage to come forward himself and to take the ammunition out of the hands of some sleazy skank who screws married men.

Of course, this guy's wife had affairs as well. They mention that as though it should buffer the blow when the hubby admitted to his indiscretions as though saying, "It's not just one of us, we BOTH screw around!", thereby making it OK. Whatever.

I don't know how I ever thought that one man could be faithful for an entire marriage...it seems as though fidelity is an outmoded idea nowadays. I have one brother who is married and I don't think he's ever cheated on his wife. Other than him and the Pastor of my church, I can't think of one man who I know who has been faithful to his wife for an entire marriage. I'm sure there are some...I just don't know them.

Then, McGreevy comes out and says that for "the sake of my daughter" he needed to come out and let us all know that the poor, pitiful wife who stood next to him as he admitted to a homosexual affair was right in the middle of the fray as the couple had sex with an aid to the gov of NJ. Of course, those 2 are in the midst of a heated divorce so I doubt that he was worried so much for his daughter as he was horny to make his wife look bad. Good job, dude...you did it! Your daughter can now go to school and face her classmates with the knowledge that both of her parents like to have sex with men they aren't married to.

I also saw 2 very famous cheaters...BJ Billy and tribal leader Brad Pitt...readying land in New Orleans for new houses. That's quite decent, to be sure. But how many good deeds does it take to wipe out a bad one?

I hope that the rest of the day can go by without anymore admissions. I'm not in the mood.

I'm here in Florida to help my father take care of his ex wife. The day I leave, she has to go into a nursing home. Now I'm feeling responsible. I'm starting to get closer to Jean and I know what goes on in nursing homes. Jean is a very difficult person and no one would bother taking the time to "talk" her into eating breakfast, taking her medicine or bathing. They would fill her full of Haldol until she pretty much just sits there staring into space.

If I had never come down here, I wouldn't feel anything, I would just know that my father did what he needed to do. Now that I've been here, I will feel badly when I do leave. The point of my presence here is to keep her out of a nursing home.

I can't keep her out much longer. Yesterday I left the room and she stood up and fell. She can't be left alone anymore and now it's getting to the point where even with me here, she can't stay out of a nursing home. It'll be irresponsible to keep her here without a bunch of people to take turns watching her so that she doesn't fall. I can't even sit in this room for any length of time on the computer because she can't remember to ask for help when she gets up.

She has her moments where she's quite irritating and during those times, I think, "OK, let's go to the old folk's home now!" But then 5 minutes later she's forgotten that she was a bitch. She smiles and says something nice and then I think, "Oh no...I can't let that happen to her!"

If I knew where her daughter was I would throttle her by the throat...no one deserves to be left alone like this. All the woman has is her ex husband and his daughter. There's not another soul on this planet who cares about her. She has a couple of bridge partners who are very nice to her...but other than that...she's entirely alone in the world.

Her daughter is an only child as is she. Both of them are extremely self centered and I see how the daughter got the way she is. But that's no excuse...you only get one mother and good or bad...once she's gone...you don't get another one.

I don't even know why I'm doing this. Maybe I'm trying to make up for not being there when my own mother passed away. I know I need to help my father...he should be out enjoying his golden years instead of being the nurse maid to an ex wife. But I want to go home and enjoy the peace and quiet of my own home. I want to sit in my room quietly and not worry that I'll hear a loud THUMP from the other room.

Right now she's in the other room hollering for me to light her cigarette. I refused to do it before. She was complaining that her right hand hurt her so I had my father get her a brace. She can't use that hand so she needs me to light her smokes and feed her unless I make sandwiches. The last time that I wouldn't light the cigarette (she had two in 15 minutes) she just started lighting them off of each other. That worked until she accidentally put one out.

Jeez...she's calling me again. I need to go before she stands up and starts to look for me.

See ya!

OK then...

...on the lighter side, a few words from Rita Rudner:

A man will go to war, fight and die for his country. But he won't get a bikini wax.

Before I met my husband, I'd never fallen in love. I'd stepped in it a few times.

I don't plan to grow old gracefully. I plan to have face-lifts until my ears meet.

I got kicked out of ballet class because I pulled a groin muscle. It wasn't mine.

I know I want to have children while my parents are still young enough to take care of them.

I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.

I love to shop after a bad relationship. I don't know. I buy a new outfit and it makes me feel better. It just does. Sometimes I see a really great outfit, I'll break up with someone on purpose.

I think men who have a pierced ear are better prepared for marriage. They've experienced pain and bought jewelry.

I want to have children, but my friends scare me. One of my friends told me she was in labor for 36 hours. I don't even want to do anything that feels good for 36 hours.

I was a vegetarian until I started leaning toward the sunlight.

I was going to have cosmetic surgery until I noticed that the doctor's office was full of portraits by Picasso.

I wonder if other dogs think poodles are members of a weird religious cult.

In Hollywood a marriage is a success if it outlasts milk.

It wasn't that no one asked me to the prom, it was that no one would tell me where it was.

Marriages don't last. When I meet a guy, the first question I ask myself is: is this the man I want my children to spend their weekends with?

Men reach their sexual peak at eighteen. Women reach theirs at thirty-five. Do you get the feeling that God is playing a practical joke?

Men who consistently leave the toilet seat up secretly want women to get up to go the bathroom in the middle of the night and fall in.

Most turkeys taste better the day after, my mother's tasted better the day before.

My boyfriend and I broke up. He wanted to get married and I didn't want him to.

My grandmother was a very tough woman. She buried three husbands and two of them were just napping.

My husband and I are either going to buy a dog or have a child. We can't decide whether to ruin our carpet or ruin our lives.

My husband gave me a necklace. It's fake. I requested fake. Maybe I'm paranoid, but in this day and age, I don't want something around my neck that's worth more than my head.

Neurotics build castles in the air, psychotics live in them. My mother cleans them.

Some people think having large breasts makes a woman stupid. Actually, it's quite the opposite: a woman having large breasts makes men stupid.

Some women hold up dresses that are so ugly and they always say the same thing: 'This looks much better on.' On what? On fire?

Someday I want to be rich. Some people get so rich they lose all respect for humanity. That's how rich I want to be.

The time you spend grieving over a man should never exceed the amount of time you actually spent with him.

The word 'aerobics' came about when the gym instructors got together and said: If we're going to charge $10 an hour, we can't call it Jumping up and down.

They usually have two tellers in my local bank, except when it's very busy, when they have one.

To attract men, I wear a perfume called "New Car Interior."

We've begun to long for the pitter-patter of little feet - so we bought a dog. Well, it's cheaper, and you get more feet.

When I eventually met Mr. Right I had no idea that his first name was Always.

Now I'm back at square one...

...and I'm not happy about that. I don't remember a more useless group of presidential candidates in my life. Usually they take office before we find out what lying assholes they are.

I didn't want to vote for McCain because he is too far off base on some of the issues most important to me. I won't vote for Hillary because I cannot abide a liar and she hails from the biggest family of liars that this country has to offer ever since the Kennedy's held power. That left me with Obama.

I didn't care that he was partially black, race doesn't bother me and besides...he's just as white as he is black. I didn't mind that he was married to a bit of a nut...as long as she doesn't run for senate, I don't mind a goofy first lady. I didn't even mind that he was inexperienced. No one has experience when they're sworn in as president...we just vote for the candidate with the best judgement and leadership skills and hope for the best.

But that man has lost my vote and perhaps the entire nomination because he seems to lack judgement and leadership skills, based on his reaction to the hate speech spewed by his very own preacher dude.

Obama has put out a statement here or there saying that he "wasn't there that day". That ranks up there with "The dog ate my homework" and "She's just a friend, honey...I swear!"

It's bad enough that the preacher was spewing bombastic magniloquence that is absolutely race baiting...but when he accused America of giving Black America the HIV virus...he entered the ranks of loony conspiracy theorists the likes of whom believe in Elvis sightings, Bigfoot, and UFO's.

Even Bono doesn't believe that bizarre and contemptible balderdash. As a matter of fact he says, "If we can turn the president's bold long term vision into near term results we're excited...The president's emphasis upon anti-retroviral treatment represents a true paradigm shift and is to be wholly welcomed...".

I have never met one single American who wasn't full of compassion for people infected with the HIV virus. I am an American and I've just been accused of purposely spreading the AIDS virus to the black community. That makes me a bit angry.

I waited to hear what Obama had to say. I was expecting something like this:

"I denounce everything that Reverend Wright has said...America did NOT infect the black community with AIDS and I do NOT support what he said. I apologize to the country for the abhorrent comments made by Reverend Wright and for any pain caused by them. This is not a theological debate over whether Mary was a virgin or just a very nice girl...this is an issue with a right or wrong and Reverend Wright was absolutely WRONG...it never happened. Reverend Wright should apologize to all of America for his reprehensible comments that are nothing short of hate speech...pure and simple. The loathsome comments are beyond deplorable and those who espouse them rank up there with Muslim extremists and their heinous hyperbole. Until the Reverend retracts his statements I will not be attending services anywhere that he may be preaching and I implore the fist pumping fools behind the preacher to find a real church to attend on Sundays."

Instead, I was lied to.

Now I'm waiting for Billary to take back the invitation they offered to Obama last week suggesting that he would make a great VP. Hell, the Clintons aren't stupid enough to put a man with such weak leadership skills on a ballot with their name on it.

The talking heads are discussing the lack of judgement shown by Obama but no one has mentioned the biggest issue of all, leadership. What kind of leader is afraid to call a spade a spade? It appears as though Obama is afraid to hurt Wrong Way Wright's itty bitty feelings. How in the world can we expect him to protect us from Muslim extremists if he can't protect us from his own "uncle"?

Unfortunately, most politicians today are afraid to tell us what they really think and that's why I have no candidate this year.

Hi there!!!


I want to go to bed but I also want to enjoy the peace of having the other 2 asleep. If I went to bed after they fell asleep, I'd wake up and be around them again in the morning. I want to go home so that I can be the one who makes everyone uncomfortable. This just blows.

I'm sort of getting to the point where I feel as though if I left and Jean went into a nursing home, I would feel guilty. This may have been a mistake. At home I was living in ignorant bliss. Now I feel some degree of responsibility and that's no good. I miss my dog, my cats, my fish and even my son. I also miss my bedroom which is sitting there empty...and I bet my dog is lying down at the door waiting for me to come out.

I'm pretty sure that my father is asleep and now I'm a bit warm so I think I'll put the AC back on. I made things worse instead of better by installing the new thermostat. Now if I want to turn it up or down, I can but if my father turns it OFF...I can't really turn it back on. It was different when the old thermostat was there...I can't explain that but it was. Now I'm gonna go risk his ire and turn it back on.

BRB.

Damn. I just turned it on and ran. The stupid thing makes a pretty loud noise when it kicks in and there I am, tip-toeing on the carpet...and CLICK CLICK...the AC comes on. Crap...I'm back to being all worried about waking people up again. I need to get away from this place for a while. It's been two weeks and I haven't done anything except take care of other people. I should know better than to ignore my own feelings but most of the time I do ignore them until I'm in a really, really bitchy mood. Damn...I need to have some fun and soon.

On top of that, I ran out of toilet paper in my bathroom and then every time I went in there, I forgot to get a new roll so I started using the Kleenex. Then, I was sitting there dripping and I reached back and the Kleenex was gone. I looked around and saw nothing but a pair of dirty jeans. I actually considered it for a minute and then decided that it probably wasn't a good idea. You would think that after that I would remember to grab a new roll of TP but I didn't.

I was smart enough to walk into my father's bathroom a few times instead of mine (I was in a hurry) and then I finally remembered to put a new roll in so now I'm good.

That's pretty much my day. I changed the toilet paper in my bathroom. I may clean the bedroom sometime but I don't get to spend much time in here. I wake up and have to make breakfast and before I know it, I'm making dinner and trying to clean the kitchen. Then, the 2 old fogeys fall asleep and I try to keep the decibels down until I decide to go to bed. I walk into this room and think, "I should clean this room up in the morning." Then, morning comes and I have to make breakfast again and the entire day starts over again.

YIKES! I hear someone walking! For some reason I make a lot of noise when I type and now I think my typing may have woken my father up. Shit. He just came in here and asked me a question. I answered it and now I feel like I need to go out there and clean something. Am I the only one who feels that way around their father?

I just stopped typing and stared at the screen for about 3 minutes hoping that he would fall back asleep quickly. It didn't work. I heard him clear his throat. I'm glad that I shut the door before he woke up. I had opened it to clear out some of the smoke from Jean's constant smoking and that's why he turned the AC off. I can either be hot and breathe or I can be comfortable and inhale second hand smoke all day.

Now I'm getting into one of those bad moods that my father was in earlier today. He finally did get over it, by the way. I did just act all sweet. I don't know if that was what did it or not...but his bad mood is gone. I just fear that it could come back rather quickly.

Damn it. No one worries like this when I get in a bad mood.

I have an idea...

...but I don't have the lab to test it in. I want to invent a computer that has infrared sensors on the corners aimed at your eyes that read the movement of them. I bet the eyes could control the cursor better than the current things they have that read winks. I've seen people who can control an entire HOST of things with the blink of an eye. I bet more than one sensor would make a bunch of other stuff like that available to everybody. Then I wouldn't have to deal with mouses.

You know, my father seems to be in a bad mood and I found myself wondering why. I went over all the stuff I had done in my head but couldn't come up with much. If anyone looks hard enough they can always come up with something that they did wrong. But I really couldn't think of anything that I did to change his entire affect. Then, as I was trying to figure it out (as was Jean who was wondering the same thing I was wondering...what did I do wrong?), it occurred to me that the feeling was quite familiar. That's pretty much how I grew up. Interesting isn't it?

It isn't me or Jean...it's my dad. He gets in a bad mood and no one else can stop it until he's ready to stop it. Not only can't you stop it, you can't even stop it from STARTING because you didn't do anything wrong in the first place. No one has that much control over another person's mood and state of happiness. So...if he thinks that I'm going to sit around here and walk on eggshells like I did when I was 7, he's thinking about the wrong me. I don't do that anymore.

I can be happier than a felon nabbed by Eliot Spitzer if I want to be. And that's just what I'll do. I'll be pleasant and that'll freak him out. No one who wants to bitch likes to be around happy people, it totally blows their entire ticket to nastiness.

So...that's what I'm going to do. I wish I had one of those infrared cameras attached to my brain...then I could rerun the scene for you. But since I don't...I'll just take notes and tell you about it later.

OK then...

...the wedding is over, I'm back at Daddy's house and no one else in the house is awake. I like the solitude but the fear of breaking it keeps me constantly trying to maintain it. Ain't that a bitch? It's sort of like being alone, but if I drop something, kick something or sneeze loudly I'll wake someone up. And they don't wake up in ones...they wake up together. So the peaceful evening is very pleasant...as long as I don't enjoy it too much.

My sister did a great job with the wedding. She's younger than I am and she's a grandma...and I'm finally a great-aunt. It's nice to be called great, I don't care how it's meant. People can now refer to me with the word great and I like it. Of course it's one of those pesky little signs of aging...isn't it? But you can't be great one way or the other unless you have attained some number of years on this planet. You never hear about great toddlers. None of them really do too many great things.

Some parents may say, "Ah! But my Jimmy can name all of the presidents in order and he's only 7 months old!" OK...that might be pretty neat...but it isn't great. It doesn't even imply greatness. But don't worry, if he doesn't do anything great, he can always be a great-uncle when his siblings have grandchildren.

I keep hearing people say that 40 is the new 30. There's even a commercial that has something to do with "The Big 4-0!" I wonder how that relates to the big 5-0? What is that now? The new 40? And what does that make me when I turn 50...the OLD 40? I hope the old 40 is as much fun as it looks in the commercial. I think that's right...if they're the new 30, they must be the old 40...right? I don't know for sure but those are some downright exuberant middle aged folk. They're almost as vivacious as the 80 year old's in the retirement community commercials down here in Florida. Those are some spry old fuckers. I get exhausted just watching them swim, golf and square dance.

Oh well, I guess everybody needs to feel ebullient and sportive. But if you CAN'T perform up to snuff...there's always Cialis! The couple in that commercial frighten me. Cialis promises an erection on demand so if you get interrupted you can say, "Back Thor...give me time to handle this emergency like the MAN that I AM and then I shall return to you. I expect you to be at attention...stout and potent enough to reach our destination without fail so our woman does not go elsewhere for some satis....facshuuuun."

In the commercial the couple is interrupted when the kitchen sink starts squirting water all over the place. I want to know what the hell those people were doing in the kitchen in the first place...and was the little squirtie hose thing involved? Whatever. Do you suppose there will come a day when people will say, "Do you remember when they couldn't even show blow-jobs on Cialis commercials?!" I do.

Alrighty then...I must go watch Andy Griffith while I have the remote, the couch and the room to myself. See ya in the morning!

:):):)

OK then...

...Jean and I are going to get her hair done (against her wishes but it has to be done...this may be the last time she EVER has a chance to dress up so nicely in her life. I'm gonna make her look good if she fights me tooth and nail.) and find shoes for the wedding tomorrow.

I just spoke to my sister, the mother of the bride, and she was on her way to pick up my brother who is flying in from Texas. I have two other brothers who can't, for one reason or another, come down for the wedding.

So...tomorrow I will ask if any of you have "any requests for me on this day of my nieces wedding?"

This should be fun. We're also getting manicures today...neither one of us needs a pedicure so that should be a quick trip. I ALWAYS get my nails done in red. I like it so much that no matter how pretty the other colors are, I end up with red...usually a deep red. Today I may get crazy and do something different...an American manicure. I don't care for the French manicures, they look too fake. I'm lucky enough to have hard nails that grow as long as I let them so I don't need anything that looks fake.

Before fake nails started looking so real, people would comment about my nails all the time. Now they just assume that they're fake. Oh well, the red is chipping so I have to do something today or they won't look nice for the wedding. Right now I'm leaning toward the American manicure...maybe I shouldn't even look at the red nail polish.

I have a bag of nail polish and almost every single bottle in there is some form of red. From bright red to deep red, pearly red to creamy red, with or without sparkles...they're at least 5/6ths red if not more.

Then, we have to go buy shoes. I don't care WHAT she says, we are NOT shopping at Nordstrom's today. My father isn't paying for it this time so I'm on the lookout for the nearest Payless. And to think, the only reason I didn't get shoes Sunday was because I thought over 200 bucks of my father's money was ridiculous. Suddenly 20 bucks of my own money seems worse.

:):):)

Today I have eaten...

...one entire box of Pez refill candy. There's a small problem...I left all of my Pez heads at home. I can never find refills so all of my Pez heads are sitting at home empty and I've found a treasure trove of refill candy here in Florida.

I even found two kinds of Pez, regular and sour. I ate the sour Pez today. I feel like a pig.

Whatever.

I broke one of my arms years ago and as a result, I have increased range of motion with that arm. Together with my other arm...the one that isn't broken...I can reach every part of my back. That's cool because I haven't had anyone around to wash it since before Rick left. I haven't known any guy long enough to bathe in front of him, much less ask him to wash my back for me.

My father told me that I should get married. He said that, "Some people would feel better if you were married." I didn't know who the hell he could be talking about so I figured it must be him. I don't know why he wants me to do that, except for the back washing thing...I can't think of a good reason to get married.

I miss cuddling but it leads to farting around each other and I'm just not ready for that sort of commitment. It's nice to have the free labor but with the time I save on laundry, cooking and sex, I can just fix shit myself and still have time to watch South Park with the remote all to myself. There's no one to talk to but Mr. "I'm not thinking about anything." wasn't much of a conversationalist anyway. Basically, this is like being married. If I position my blue chair just right, I can imagine my ex sitting behind me on the couch as I watch TV.

Oh! I found out why my father wanted to keep the AC off. The thermostat was broken and his AC would either be ON or OFF. There was no way to set it. He had even bought a new one but never switched them out so I did it. I was pretty pleased with myself that I could handle a "man" thing such as that. I had to use THREE different types of screws just to get the old one OFF!

At one point I wasn't sure if you should be able to see the wires at the bottom of this little boxxy thing. I couldn't push them down far enough to see them so I just pushed them down as far as I could, screwed the screws in, threw that circuit breaker thingie and hoped for the best. It worked. I was shocked.

So, once again, I could use a nice back scrubbing but all in all I think I'll keep things this way. If I can handle screws AND wires...there's no tellin' what else I might could do!

But, for now, I need to do something else...I need to sleep with me. I'm not at all that difficult for me to sleep with. As a matter of fact, I kind of like it.

:):):)

Hello there...

...I'm back but I forgot why I came here. As I was walking into the room my dad asked me where I was going. I said, "To the bathroom, then I'm going to computerize." (That's another one of my own made up words...feel free to use it if you like.)

Basically, I "called" the computer. When I came out of the bathroom, he was on the stupid thing playing Solitaire again. That's all he does on the computer and he does it a LOT! I've walked in here about 3 times today to go online and found him here playing that silly game. This time I couldn't take it. I had to toss him out on his ear. I don't know where he is but I bet he's answering the same questions over and over again.

The mind is an amazing thing. Jean can't remember that she just asked for the food in front of her but she can go play bridge all afternoon. Apparently she does it well enough to get partners to play with her. She has always been a seriously good bridge player. That's how she met my parents. She uses that to "prove" that she isn't confused. I guess if a hand lasted longer than ten minutes she wouldn't be able to do that but she can.

Then, the other day she went to the DMV to get a new license. Hers "disappeared" one day when she threatened to drive. She has to at least have identification so my father finally took her to get a "new license".

We were both quite secure in the fact that she would fail any test that they could give her. After all, she can barely walk for more than 10 feet without holding onto someones arm. If you throw a curve at her like, "What day is it?", she has a one in seven shot at giving you the right answer. If you pay attention, she shakes so much she can barely feed herself. She can't make eye contact for very long and she can't carry on a conversation longer than 3 sentences. But you'll be happy to know that the State of Florida has given her a license anyway.

It's a provisional license for her to use while they run it past the Medical Review Board but it's a license to drive. I'd rather have a 6 year old behind the wheel than this woman. The 6 year old gets the basic idea...move without hitting stuff. Jean was hitting things long before she got this bad. Her insurance in Illinois was so high that she could have paid someone to drive her around but she still paid the insurance. I forget what it was but it was something outrageous like $10,000 every term...six months or a year.

I don't understand why they have to give HER the benefit of the doubt, there's no constitutional right to drive. Every State has a handbook with that very notion expressed on the first page. We do, on the other hand, have a right to be protected from incompetent drivers and I think Florida dropped the ball on this one.

It seems as though there are so many old people down here that they don't want to take their privileges away injudiciously. But I think that they could have at least asked her to take the written test over again anyway. The really bad thing is that when they noticed her shaking and asked what medicines she was taking, she said, "Blood pressure pills." My father had to tell them about the Alzheimer's meds.

Oh man...I hear her calling for may dad. That means she's in there alone and that's not a good thing. I think I'll go watch TV with her. It's no fun at all, she can't get into anything so she changes the channel when she gets lost. That doesn't take very long so we watch about 20 minutes of a show and then we watch 20 minutes of another show. I wonder what snippets I'll be able to watch this time?

See ya soon!

:)

First of all...

...let me thank the nice guy who sent me the full name, address and phone number of the freak who is stalking me. That was quite decent of you considering you don't know me. But you're right...he is quite psychotic and I don't deserve it.

Anyway, I have completed my fictitious wish list of the top ten clients of The Emperor's Club. Here it is:

1. Prince Albert of Monaco. Number one has to be a royal john and one that is sort of goofy looking. I chose this guy:

2. Roger Clinton. His brother stopped giving him his own leftovers when he found out that Roger was paying for pussy with the cash he earned selling pardons.

3. Gary Hart...the John Emeritus of the hooker world.

4. Steven Hawking. He has his own harem at the club, the Special Needs Team.

5. Janet Reno.

6. Frank Gifford. Of course, he denies everything until the pictures are developed but we know he's involved.

7. John Bobbitt. That operation wasn't as successful as his movies would have you believe. It's really sort of sad.

8. Ted Kennedy. The hookers just won't get in a car with him.

9. Spitzer. We can't take his spot away, even in a fictitious list.

10. Brad Pitt. He doesn't understand why he's ranked so low here when he's number 6 on most lists. But, alas, he does get the last spot.

OK...do you have any other suggestions?

:)