Say It Isn't So

2011-11-11T17:04:00.003-05:00

MOTHS OR MYTHS ~ MONSTERS OR MYSTERIES

Once upon a time there was Mothra, convinced by mankind to leave it's home on Infant's Island to save humankind from the unrelenting attacks upon it by Godzilla. Mothra did not survive but died sheltering her eggs from the fiery breath of her reptilian opponent. These eggs went on to become known as mothballs.

Okay, total myth. Well, not even myth. More like Mouse gibberish.

The days of fall are getting colder and darker. A few days ago, as I was entering the basement from the garage on my way up to my apartment, the distinct odour of mothballs invaded my senses. This smell had not hit my nostrils in a very long time and it swept me right back to another time in my childhood where winter was a way of life 6 months of every year. The use of mothballs was a necessity for keeping your woolens from being eaten by moths over the summer storage season. I remember I was led to the discovery of these little white marbles by my own nose. Curious about that smell and hunting it down. I found a shoebox loaded with them in a clothes closet. I remember thinking they were so neat and fun and I started playing with them. Thankfully I don't remember thinking they were edible, but it is entirely possible that this encounter was not my first. It certainly was my first at getting caught playing with them. My Mom, bless her soul, made me part with my newfound treasure and impressed upon me the knowledge that I should not touch them. I have not done so since.

I wondered about my condition and this chemical pesticide. Of course, I wonder about all fumicides and my condition, but this particular one is on my mind as it's infusion of my olfactory nerves transported me to my childhood in a instant.

2011-04-09T23:02:00.002-04:00

I went to see my neurologist a couple of months ago. It had been a year and a half since my previous visit. There were really no new issues going on with me. I wanted to discuss my tingle sensations being excited by electrical storms. He said he'd never heard any one else report this. I asked if there had been any insight on whether MS was a disorder or a disease. To my dismay he said it was considered a disease. He then stated that it was thought to be caused by the Guillain-barre virus. Interesting to me that he never said that it was caused by but that it was thought to be caused by this virus. This can be the result of a case of Mononucleosis which is usually linked to the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), but can also be caused by other organisms such as cytomegalovirus (CMV). I do not believe that I ever had the 'kissing disease' but I do recall spending a lot of time in the 6th grade at home sick. I thought it was bout after bout of tonsillitus though. He went on to check my functionality.

I showed off my tremendous skill at balance by standing on one foot for a longer length of time than he was comfortable with. When his hammer hit below my kneecap I nearly kicked him off his stool. I could see that he was not expecting such movement and was startled. To tell the truth so was I. He then went on in his very diplomatic way to let me know that he thought that I had chosen the correct course of action for me. I asked if there was any kind of statistical data collection for someone like me. That is for someone who refuses to take the treatments that are offered by the neurological professionals. He said, no, there wasn't. That is a giant shame in my opinion. The only statistics to do with MS are for persons who are taking certain immune suppressing drugs or persons who think they are taking those drugs but are getting placebos. What about me? A person who just wants to keep moving by keeping moving. God willing I will not let this thing suppress me. He said that being active is now recommended by the medical community.

So I am not a statistic, but he took copious notes while talking with me. I liked that he was talking with me and not at me. Perhaps I like my neurologist now more than I did before. I am not sure though why I am dismayed at this MS thing now being considered a disease and not a disorder. Perhaps it's because that virus thing is resistant to all we throw at it and therefore feels more hopeless.

There is no such thing as hopeless. There is only hope.

It's time to do the walk.

Be well

2010-08-09T20:35:00.004-04:00

AS THE SUN SPITS

I know that the earth got bombarded by a solar flare last Sunday the 1st of August. The electomagnetic pulse seemed to wreak a little havoc with some computer systems. At least the one where I work, the nucleus of which is centered in Minnesota, was down and out for 36 hours. Nobody said why so I am assuming. I am good at assuming. Despite the many times it has done that thing it is noted to do by making an as... out of me, I still carry on the tradition. I'm too old to change now.

Many of my friends have been experiencing unusual times. Aches and pains, highs and lows are running a little more frequently than the norm. It could be the economy, it could be the weather, but I assume it is the sunspots.

Personally my current unusual experience is with tremors. At times it is almost as strong as in Parkinsons. My innards, for which I mean, my nerves are all feeling intesified. My molecules are agitated in a manner akin to boiling. At least that is my sensation.

I know we MSers are supposed to stay out of the heat, but I am a woman who likes to be outside and active too. I have been taking golf lessons. That gets me outside in 90 degree weather with the humidity hovering at 80-90%. Perhaps it's not good for me in one way, but from my perspective it is very good for me. I learn, I move, I conquer exhaustion. There is no better feeling than winning. Well I exagerate, I know there are many better feelings than winning. It is the feeling of overcoming the enemy when the enemy is thyself.

So my tremors are due to sunspots. Call it denial if you will. I will call it joy. Perhaps I will be lucky enough to even see the Northern Lights as they whip across the night sky in phosphorescent splendor. We are to have a meteor shower soon too. My spirit is happy. After all, I am a golden ray of sunshine, allowed to dance upon the earth for a time!

Be well.

2010-07-14T19:07:00.004-04:00

The Little Witch

Onwards and upwards, I meander through time. Another memory has escaped the black hole in my brain, thanks to the photo above. It does not have any bearing on the MS thing that I can think of but I'm going to share it anyway.

Back when my young partner in crime and I used to surrepticiously do all things we were told not to do, see post of July 07, 2005, exploring the neighbourhood was mandatory to our gang. I had other friends, but they were much better behaved than myself and so they shied away from our shenanigans. As intrepid explorers we knew all the community so sometimes it was necessary to venture a little further to find new things of interest. So we wandered a few blocks away. We had stayed on the side of the lake drive that we were supposed to in that we were not allowed to cross it to visit the lakeshore. There was a very unusual house with a turret made of stone. We were convinced that a witch must be living in that house. It was thrilling and frightening to be near that house, and we'd creep up to it, getting only as close as we dared to, before hightailing it out of there. I would dream of this house at night and the witch that lived within it. She never came out to catch us and take us inside to put us in her large cooking pot, so I decided that I must also be a witch and was able to protect us.

I can now quite vividly remember as I sat in that rocking chair on my front porch, I was thinking.... I am a witch.

2010-07-01T13:24:00.002-04:00

SUMMERTIME FUN

While living in southern California friends and family would often come down from up north for a visit. If they had children with them, Disneyland was a must. I never went there. It is too vast a place and I don't do well in that kind of a space. It is too busy and overwhelming.

However, I can venture into the smaller parks. Ones about the size of a state fair are very suitable to my temperament. Well, a friend and her son were down from Vancouver. They had done the mandatory Disneyland already and this day we went to a 'put put' golf course. E's son was may be 13. He wanted to go on this roller coaster. It had the steepest drop he had ever seen. Nobody wanted to go with him and his mom didn't want him to go alone. So, I always liked the coaster when I was a kid. I volunteered.

We get the front seat. If you are going to ride on the steepest drop you've ever seen you want to be in the front, eh. We are strapped in. The carriage slowly hauls itself up the first incline. Clickity clack, clickity clack. However, I'm not thinking of trains here as we rise. I have come to my senses and have started getting nervous. My father had had a quadruple by pass. My brother has had one as well. My sister has had a bypass too, although hers was not the mega quadruple type. It dawns on me that perhaps I should not be here. I am over the hump in the aging department. I am about to go over the hump on the first rise of this roller coaster. We are cresting the top and the carriage slowly starts pointing us at the horizon, more rapidly now it is starting to point earthward. I swear, we were then into g-force speeds and were as close to vertical descent as I could ever imagine.........we........ SCREAM!!!!!

It was wonderful.

Hot fun in the summertime. It's the very best thing about summer. It is not my favourite season. The other 3 take higher rank on the like scale, but amusement parks (and drive-in movie theaters) make summer all right!

2010-05-13T16:35:00.003-04:00

VAMPIRES OF TIME

STUCK IN THE MIDDLE AGAIN

I was visiting over at Erik's site and read an interesting comment by one of his followers. It was about an MSer that the commenter had been socializing with who had the ability to render watches inoperable. This struck a chord with me. I have had that problem for twenty years or so. When I would tell people about how I don't wear a watch because I kill them, they'd look at me strangely. I do then explain that I don't drop them on the floor and jump up and down on them. No, I wear them and they just stop working. Takes about 2-3 weeks and they are rendered helpless. I am certain that most people, whom I have mentioned this to, silently think I'm a lunatic. They would never say that to my face of course, just in case I really am stark raving mad. Who knows what I might do. So consequently, I quit mentioning it. Whenever anyone is talking about watches though I just want to shout this fact out, quietly, in my head. It is not like I can rejuvenate the things either. Replacing the battery gets me another 2-3 weeks of time. It is not cost effective.

I have often felt that I am just sucking the life out of these watches. I have half a dozen or so hanging around in a little display case. Perhaps one day, if my descendants hang on to them long enough, they'll be able to recoup all the money I have spent in trying to make these watches work for me.

So I am stuck in the middle, between the north and south magnetic poles, sucking the life out of watches.

2010-04-29T12:21:00.000-04:00

I WAS IN THE RIGHT PLACE

BUT IT MUST HAVE BEEN THE WRONG TIME

I WAS IN THE RIGHT SPACE

BUT IT MUST HAVE BEEN THE WRONG LINE

The MS walk went well. The weather cooperated. The shoes cooperated. My body cooperated. It was a great day. The only thing that went wrong was, upon leaving the event, I took the wrong lane when approaching the interstate and ended up heading north instead of south. Of course, it was a looooooong stretch in that direction before there was an offramp so I could turn around. On my way back south again, my mind wandered some and when I approached the place that I had exited to get to the MS Walk site the first time I became a bubblehead. For a moment it occurred to me that I must be going the wrong way. I mentioned this to my friend and she reminded me that we are now going in the right direction. That provoked a great deal of laughter, which prevented me from dwelling on the inequities of aging, until now! HAHAHA!

2010-03-11T11:56:00.000-05:00

Walk Don't Run

As I get ready for the next annual MS walk, it occurs to me that I have been using the same pair of running shoes for the previous 3 years. I also remember a bad case of blisters last year. This year I have been walking with some friends on a fairly regular basis just to get some fresh air and exercise. There has been no pain associated with these outings. Nevertheless, I went out and bought some new running shoes. There are so many to choose from. My niece, who is a jogger, recommended a pair. They have gel, a term for some new fangled cushioning I guess. The first pair I tried on felt like I was walking on rocking chairs. Weird! The second pair felt good The third pair felt good and looked good - I liked the colours - so I purchased them. The following day I put them on to break them in. No, that should be, to break my feet in. I have always had trouble acclimatizing my feet to new shoes. Generally, this would involve several weeks of placing bandaids in the appropriate positions until I had built up callouses. After about an hour in my new footwear, I realized these shoes and my feet were not going to get along. I took them back and exchanged them for the second pair I had tried on. These got the same 'indoor' break in and they remained comfortable the entire time. Eureka. They are really light and very wide, look a bit like 'Clown' shoes, as they have the appearance of having been run over by one of those steam rollers used out on the highways.

2010-03-01T22:52:00.000-05:00

Wow, this place has changed. I haven't been here in a while and hardly recognize the place. It's been a long, hard winter. Spring is just around the corner and it's time to come out of hibernation.

It will soon be time to walk the walk for MS research. It does amaze me how it can take so much time and so much money and they don't seem to be able to come up with a solution. I refuse to call it a disease until they find the root cause is a virus. Disorder works for me as this condition seems to have me feeling internally dishevelled. How one half of my body feels all cockamamie in relation to the other side. I look perfectly normal. I feel wierd.

When I was a young(er) lady, one winter some time ago, okay decades ago, I had this incredibly fashionable "de rigeur" winter coat. I lived in Montreal after all. You had to dress the part. It was a long coat, sort of in the shape of a military officers overcoat. Double breasted gold buttons, full belt around the waist and it extended to just above the ankle. It had a shiny coating that gave it a nice reflective sheen; a kind of film that encased the fabric. Well, this film was not built for the cold and it soon cracked and peeled right off, just like your skin would a few days after that sunburn.

Well, being adventurous, and wanting to get away from that cold, and the FLQ (see Oct 10 2005 post), I went out west. It was like living in the tropics. A decade there and then I went south to California. That is where things started going south for my health too. Before I was ever given a diagnosis, I can remember thinking that something inside my body was crackling like the surface of that coat. I keep thinking about that coat while I was living in a land where 100 degrees was a normal day time temperature. To make a long story short, unlike that short lived coat, it took two years of tests while they ruled out every other possible cause and gave me my diagnosis. I am happy to report that no big change has happened since then. My abilities seem to be normal. I will do the 3 mile walk for the cause. 5 is now out of the question, but not due to MS, rather the lack of practise. I just don't walk as often as I used to. However, I really feel that I should make an effort to do more of it. That old saying "use it or loose it" comes to mind.

If you can, please walk for the cause. If you can't, please pray for the cause. Let's get to the root of the matter.

2009-09-16T15:34:00.000-04:00

In Galveston the sidewalk has buckled where the wind tried to blow a tree over. The tree is still there, just leaning out of the picture.

I have done a bit more travelling since my last post. Pittsburgh, Galveston and Houston where my nephew was getting married. The wedding was great and I was glad to be there because there were not many on my side that were able to attend. That is the great trouble with one's family being scattered far and wide. It is, of course, the way it has always been with my kin. We have not got the pioneering spirit out of our systems yet. Still, I love adventure. I could wish to be younger and visit the International Space Station, or perhaps, even Mars! I did get to visit the Johnson Space Center while I was down there in Houston though. On the 40th Anniversary of our landing on the Moon. Wonderful! I also saw Galveston, a town that has been a favorite of mine, and for which I was worried about what remained after Hurricane Ike last year. It is with great relief that I saw the signs of a come back. The old stately homes, the ones that harbor so much history, are not being razed but are being restored. All is well.

I am back into refining my skills and knowledge as a tax preparer. It seems that I spend more time learning about tax laws than I do preparing tax returns. Many changes happening this year that should be of benefit to those of us (most of us) who are facing hard times. I am also working as a temp now and then, here and there. All is good.

2009-07-01T09:04:00.000-04:00

TRIP INTO THE PAST

There was to be a memorial for my dear sister in May and I decided to do the 7 hour drive to get there. Flying would take just as long because it takes an hour just to get to the airport then you wait a couple of hours once your there, yada, yada, yada... At the last minute, relatively speaking, I decided that life is too short and as I did not have a job to rush home to because tax season was over, I was going to make long overdue visits to old friends and family. I especially wanted to see my Mother's sister who was still alive, having survived breast cancer back in the 60's. A miracle that was not part of the belief system of my wonderful sibling. Her memorial was beautiful. Her 4 daughters, all the grandchildren and great grand children were there. She now lies in a plot under a tree beside one of our brothers who predeceased her.

My second stop was Toronto, a city that I lived in many years ago. A friend previously mentioned as 'Squakinbush' in earlier posts, still lived there. As day to day living can keep us so busy, I had not seen her in many years. She and her husband treated me like royalty. I lacked for nothing. My wish was their command, so we visited the 'Art Gallery', the 2 homes that I occupied while living there, we walked the boardwalk in an area called 'the Beaches', went to the movies and saw 'Startrek'. When it was time for me to head off to Montreal, I was proffered a bag of trail mix, cheese and crackers and an apple to keep me healthy and vitalized. Truly, I can't wait until my next visit. Hopefully they will come my way soon!

Next stop, Montreal. Most of my family had vacated the city where I was born in the early 80's when my father retired, but some were still there. It is still a wonderful city. Big, beautiful and bustling. The only drawback was the traffic. In a city with such a terrific transit system, it is amazing how many people are driving. An activity they do with the intention of getting to their destination as rapidly as they can, at the cost of ignoring anyone else on the road who does not move quite as decisively as themselves, i.e. tourists like me. Still I love them. I stayed with my sister in law who is no longer married to my brother, but hey, I didn't get a divorce from her. We had such a grand time catching up on life. It had been 30 years since my last visit! It was as if all that time had not elapsed. Sisters even still, stauing up all night talking! We only realized how old we had become when trying to function the next day.

AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT!

Anyway, she had to work the next day, so I went to town taking photographs of all the homes I had lived in during my formative years. Gazing upon one of those homes brought back a memory long since forgotten. I lived there between the ages of 5 and 8. The memory flash was like lightning. In fact it was of Lightning! I was standing just in front of the steps to the entrance, facing the entrance, when I believed that a flash of lightning had just passed between me and the brick wall. At the time I felt very lucky that it missed me. The picture above is the home where this enlinghtning moment occurred.

This memory was forgotten once again until the other night. I was asleep when I was abruptly woken up by a very loud and sharp crack of thunder. The building was shaken. I was shaken. I realized that the entire left side of my body was tingling, as if all the molecules were excited and moving around like boiling water! At that moment the memory of me standing beside that brick wall staring at my front door grabbed hold of me again. It took about 3 days for that tingling sensation to finally subside. I must use the word subside because in fact that sensation never completely goes away. To date, all of my symtoms related to MS have been located on my left side and I really have to wonder if there is not some connection to this event on a hot summer day back in Montreal!

2009-03-12T22:17:00.000-04:00

Time Marches On

It is March and St. Patrick's Day approaches! I am of mostly Scottish heritage but the Irish do have the feeling of kinship to me. Perhaps it's the celtic tradition. Endless knots, the Book of Kells and whiskey bind us. Guinness is grand too!

Much has happened since my last post. My sister passed away just after Christmas. At least I got to spend that holiday with her. She was stuck in the hospital. Her daughters and I did the best we could to make her feel special and we got her to smile a time or two. She is free of any pain now. We will miss her.

I have been working doing taxes for people who don't want to do it themselves. It is very interesting. I get to sit down with complete strangers and ask them a lot of nosy questions. The early season customers are those that expect a refund and of course they get one unless they have forgotten some critical obligation such as making their child support payments. Man they get disappointed in a hurry. Now I'm starting to prepare them for persons who owe money to the tax department. This comes with a little more stress as they are usually business owners or landlords. Some are more complicated than I am allowed to handle because the company wants me to have more experience under my belt first. That's okay with me but in all my years, no decades of working, I have found that hands on experience is better than book learning the subject matter. However, this summer will be dedicated to book learning the subject matter to amuch deeper level

Tai Chi is still going well. I am working on Level 5 now. Peace becomes me. I become Peace. My doctor is impressed

2008-11-24T11:42:00.000-05:00

THE EYES HAVE IT!

I had my annual eye exam last week, and for the second year in a row the vision in my left eye has improved. That's the eye that suffered the bouts of optic neuritis in the past. I am very happy about the news that my vision in that eye is now 20/20. So the question is just what does it mean. I could go one of two ways. Could it be due to the fact that I'm in the remitting phase of relapsing remitting? Could it be that my daily regimen of Tai Chi moves and study is causing this improvement.

The last bout of vision loss was 5 years ago. The bout before that was 9 years ago. This means that the distance between episodes was 4 years and now I have gone 5 without. I had another incident 7 years ago that was not involving the eye but rather the whole side of my face. That is the event that led to my diagnosis. The numby, tingly sensation is still there as well as the hearing problem in that ear. It is easy enough to hold the phone to my other ear to avoid the excruciating pain that is felt if I hold it to the problem ear as the sound reverberates at an alarming volume. Oddly, the hearing test indicated hearing loss in that ear! BTW the use of headphones in listening to music or hemisync recordings does not bother my ear. Telephones just don't have the same sophisticated connections. Hmmm, perhaps I should try listening to music over my phone.

As it stands, I vote for the Tai Chi. There are other events that are not related to my diagnosed disorder that help me to come to this conclusion as well, but I'm not going to get into them here, as they involve my neurologists, both past and present. Time will tell. I will keep up the work out with the Tai Chi. It infuses me with spirit and peace.

2008-10-26T19:59:00.000-04:00

REJUVENATION

It was two years to the day of my dearly departed husband's passing. The Autumnal Equinox. I think the doorway to a new season is a fitting day to leave one's earthly bounds. There were many flowers and plants at the funeral. Some I held on to, and some I gave away. My green thumb for houseplants never worked as well as the one I had for outdoor garden plants. Of all the plants that were accepted into my household, I managed to lose all but one.

But on this last autumnal equinox, two years after my love's passing, I saw a bud on that little plant. It sent a rush of euphoria through my very soul. And now four weeks later, there are four flowers in full bloom. Perhaps, it's because it is an African Violet and it thinks it is spring. Perhaps it is my late husbands way of saying that it's time for me to bloom again. At any rate, I am overjoyed!

2008-10-21T14:33:00.000-04:00

DEAR ABBY,

I'm back home now. It was sad to leave my sister, niece and nephew but I am happy to be home. Sis seems to be feeling better, although her last chemo was the 4th and the next is this Thursday. So she'll have one good week and then it's back to no energy, no appetite, and subsequent depression as the treatment does what it is designed to do:- kick those demon cells back to hell! My niece was happy to see me too. After talking to Sis about the spa thing and learning that her daughter would not find that relaxing, my niece and I went to the local mall. We were wandering in and out of stores and in Brookstone she was taking a fancy to a new long handled massager. So a few days later, I bought it for her. She was oohing and ahing as she tried it out. Then she had to run it across my back to show me how nice it was. It just might become an accessory to my current muscle relaxant collection of aroma therapy heating/cooling pads, which, btw, double as a great bed warming device. No water or fire needed as you would have needed to heat up those old fashioned devices; just throw the pad in the microwave before tucking it under the sheets and soon you will have warm and cozy tootsies.

I've been going to night school since I became unemployed and I have a mid term test tonight. Should be great because I missed the last couple of weeks of class. I did try to keep up with the course by taking my textbook and keeping up with the reading. I'll soon know if the results are great as in good or great as in ghastly.

Got back just in time to go to a Halloween party. Here's a pic!

2008-10-05T17:23:00.000-04:00

LADIES GET YOUR MAMMOGRAMS/IT'S BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH

I'm going to visit my sister who is going through a rough spot in her battle against breast cancer. My hope is to help lift her spirits because this treatment can really drag you down. She is living with her daughter, and unfortunately it's dragging her down too. I know my sis, and she doesn't want to be a burden even in this situation, but my niece says that her Mom isn't helping matters by complaining about things that she can take care of herself before they get to the point of irritation. Things like dry skin and dry mouth that require a squirt or rub with a product that sits right there on her bedstand. My sister had a brain tumour removed two months ago and that left her temporarily paralyzed on her right side. She had gone through some physio and is now able to walk with a walker but she still can't sign her name or other intricate hand manuevers yet. I think my niece really needs a break, so I'm looking into finding her a nice spa treatment place when I get there. Knowing from experience how exasperating it is in the caregiver role, I am hoping to take some of the pressure off her shoulders too. Unfortunately, I can't be there as long as I would like because obligations on the homefront need to be taken care of on a regular basis. My bills come in the mail and are staggered throughout the course of the month. I should have set up a pay online scenario but I don't trust my ability to keep track of more passwords than I already do. There is only so much that my little brain can hold on to.

MEN, YOU BETTER GET YOUR MAMMOGRAMS TOO, BECAUSE CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF, BREAST CANCER IS NOT SEXIST!

2008-09-30T15:16:00.000-04:00

AS THE WHIRLED TURNS

So my job succumbed to economic factors, although not related to the most recent national set of events. Apparently, a very large and powerful organization seized the accounts receivables for the company that I worked for. No income, no paychecks. After 3 paydays went by without a penny received, I decided to throw in the towel. Employees weren't reporting to their scheduled locations because they needed to work some where that a paycheck could be produced in order to feed and shelter their families. Customers weren't getting the services they had contracted for, so they had to go elsewhere in order to fill their needs. Unfortunately, I think this is a small sign of things that are to come on a much grander scale.

Where do I go from here? As is my custom when faced with a road block. I put my left foot forward and my right foot out, circumnavigate the road block, that's what it's all about.

May you all have no trouble getting around the road block!

2008-07-04T12:48:00.000-04:00

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY

THANK-YOU TO ALL THOSE WHO HAVE FOUGHT FOR OUR FREEDOM IN THE PAST, IN THE PRESENT AND IN THE FUTURE. MAY WE NEVER FORGET THAT FREEDOM ISN'T FREE!

2008-07-04T12:23:00.000-04:00

LIGHTENING STRIKES CALIFORNIA. HOPE EVERYONE GETS OUT OF THE WAY. HERE WE GO AGAIN! THE FIRE CAN SMOULDER UNDERGROUND FEEDING ON THE ROOTS OF TREES FOR WEEKS BEFORE SURFACING. SO MUCH FOR THOSE 'NO SMOKING' LAWS.

2008-05-26T08:05:00.000-04:00

PLUMB OUT A LINE

I have been having issues with my shower stall. It's a cute little cubicle of porcelain tile on 5 sides and a glass door on the other. That's where the cuteness ends. Lately, when I shower the base has started to fill up with water to about an inch. This scares me some but the lip under the door is higher than that so I just keep an eye on it as I scrub. It didn't always do this and I know that something is not right. This morning I woke up to find crud and water in the bathtub which is in a room on the other side of a wall from the shower room. I took to a very old fashioned method to try to clear the clogged drain. After I removed the cover from the shower drain, a feat which involves great brain wracking on my part as I chant lefty loosy, righty tighty and finally transpose that into physical reality by realizing that if it doesn't budge when you turn it one way - TRY THE OTHER WAY! In goes 1 cup of baking soda, followed by 1 cup of vinegar. When the fizzling has subsided in goes 1 quart of boiling water. Eureka! The water in the bathtub in the other room disappeared, leaving only the crud behind. That episode was only a temporary fix and I shall probably have to resort to calling an actual plumber. It makes me sad though. Said plumber will probably recommend a whole new system to replace the 50 year old one that exists. I love that little shower stall for exactly that reason. It reminds me of when I was a little girl, the youngest member of the YMCA and a water ballerina. A champion ready to take on the world. The showers were just like that.

It was a pretty stressful work week. The other scheduler came in complaining that his face felt tingly and strange. His eye was looking larger than normal and he said that he was unable to close the lid. My first thought was that fateful day when my face did the same thing. OH NO, MS. He is forty something so I recommend a trip to emergency. I end up taking him. After a CT scan that shows no stroke and no brain tumor, which brought a huge sigh of relief from both of us, he is told that he has Bells Palsy. Of course he knows nothing of this, but I do, having been down the road of the tingly face and an MRI and the relief of knowing there is no imminent danger of death. The research that I did following my episode delved into that which is labeled Bells Palsy. Of course I didn't have that but I still have the tingly facial nerve. In fact pretty much the entire left side of my body has the tingly thing going on. My cohort gets told to take a couple of days off work and is given several prescriptions, one for prednisone and one to fight the infection of the facial nerve. So I am left alone to do the scheduling and the juggling that is required when any one calls in sick or other. Thus the stress on me but that's another story.

I remember reading about facial palsy and the possible connection between that and Herpes Zoster, aka shingles, aka the remnants of the chicken pox virus. Of course, I had chicken pox as a child. Hopefully most children do. This got me to thinking about MS and the attack of our little white blood cells on our own nervous systems. Could it be something as simple as this virus inhabiting our wiring forever more that is causing this self canabalistic attack. One has to get those little white blood cells to cross the blood brain barrier in order to effect this and in normal people this does not occur. The ability to slip through this gate is somewhat peculiar to persons with MS. How that happens brings me back to the subject of plumbing. When I was a little girl I did have problems with constipation. My Mom would tell me, don't strain, just relax. Heh, that doesn't work in a timely manner for most of us who have otherwise busy lives to get on with. So we push and strain and that does cause an incredible stress on the cerebellum area of the brain, as well as the bottom. So, eat as much fiber as you can stomach. Your bottom line will thank you with your ability to eliminate the waste. If your system is older, your plumber will thank-you too.

2008-04-25T21:26:00.000-04:00

It was 85 degrees farenheit today! I decided to come out of hibernation. Four weeks ago we were digging out from under a foot of snow and now it's BBQ time! No complaints though. This roller coaster weather fits in nicely with this roller coaster economy. I blame Al Gore for all of it. The fat cat knows how to groom his bottom line. Are you afraid of the dark?

I have moved on to Level 4 in Tai Chi. Things have really sped up and I'm feeling quite dangerous. I've become quite brave too, going places where this lone woman would never have gone alone before. This might have something to do with being a widow and realizing that I will probably spend the rest of my life alone and not wanting to spend that life hiding in a cave, coupled with the fact that I am becoming a lean, mean fighting machine disguised as a little old lady. Have you noticed their are lots of 'Don't mess with us gray haired grandmas' in the news lately? They are chastising burglers and pointing shotguns at trespassers. A phenomenon first brought about by Granny Clampett of the Beverly Hillbillies.

I did the MS Walk last weekend. It started out really nice and half way through the course the skies opened up. It poured and poured. I kept on walking and arrived back at the base looking more like a mudrat than a mouse but it was worth it. I know that I must do some serious walking. I am so out of shape. It's been a whole year since I last attempted such a walk and the adage 'use it or lose it' is proving it's worth.

Hopefully I'll stay out of the cave until next winter.

2007-11-10T12:08:00.000-05:00

YES THAT'S A DEER MOWING MY NEIGHBORS YARD!

BACK TO THE FUTURE

I've been off line for a while now. Took a couple of days off work and went up to Buffalo and Niagara Falls to visit with my son and then my brother. It was great fun. It is so much nicer being on the same side of the continent as most of my family. If only I could convince the bulk of my friends to move back east as well. I say back east because all my west coast friends of the last 30 plus years are all originally from the eastern time zone. That'll never happen though. They're mostly all north of the 49th parallel and have government sponsored health plans:)

I too have managed to keep myself in a health plan. Once my incredibly expensive top-tiered cobra plan was exhausted, I was able to get accepted by the same big name health insurer. To my astonishment my premiums are lower now than before, although my deductible is higher. I'll not complain too much. I'm still in the driver's seat. PPO's allow for a certain amount of control over whom to consult with. I can see health care professionals who make me feel comfortable and walk away from those who don't. Perhaps, I'm a little spoiled.

My sister was on the northern end of her snow bird ways. I picked her up in Niagara Falls and brought her back to my place. She stayed long enough to get me through that very hard time of the anniversary of my husband's passing. What a jewel she is. Off course she flew the coop before the first frost appeared. Made it by only one week.

I'm through level 2 of my Tai Chi instruction and have embarked on level 3. This one is a little faster and more aerobic. Hope I don't get too dizzy. I'm so used to moving like a turtle!

2007-07-08T10:31:00.000-04:00

CONSCIENTIOUS CONCENTRATION

Painstaking attention can be one definition of the above title. It happens to me whenever I am performing an activity that I enjoy but requires thought in combination with controlled action. I first noticed this when drawing. An activity which I have engaged in since I was way way wee-er than I am now.

FRIED FOOD ANYONE?

My initial memory of a drawing happened as a preschooler. It was nap time and of course I did not want to take a nap. Nevertheless, I was sent to my room. Alone in my bed chamber I decided that I should run away from home. I got out this tiny little cardboard suitcase which was full of crayons, dumped the crayons on the bed and commenced to covering the suitcase in colorful artwork. This was very ventful and somewhat vengeful because I knew it was not a thing that I should be doing to this little carryall. In walks my mother and inquires as to what I am doing. Busted but still displeased at the audacity of being commanded to take a nap, I tell my Mom that I am getting ready to pack and run away from home. She says, "Here, let me help you!" We begin packing my teeny tiny things into my teeny tiny suitcase, and we both head to the front door where she wishes me farewell. Well I am stuck now, committed to an action that I really did not want to take as the front door closes behind me. I start my journey. Wandering down the street looking for something to take my mind off my current predicament. I came across one of my neighbors. I still remember all their names but I am not the name dropping sort. He is preparing a repast out on the grill. This looks interesting. "What are you cooking?", I ask. Lowering the cast iron frying pan that he was holding over the grill, he allows me to peer inside. "Fried worms" he informs me, "Would you like to have some?" They sure did look like fried worms, all curvy, dark and wiggly. "No, thank you", I replied and quickly made a beeline back to my own home where we did not eat worms! Naps were certainly not as bad as eating worms would be.

My desire to draw stayed with me though. When I was drawing, time disappeared. The older I got the more meticulous I was about my creations. Concentrating on the finest details. In high school, portraits were my thing. People's faces, especially the eyes, were all unique. I got my Father to sit for me once, and he was not too happy with the result, nor was I. I had, of course, put in every wrinkle that my eyes could detect. This had the effect of making him appear much older than he actually was.

CONSTERNATING CONCENTRATION

Drawing was the medium to bring me to the realization that when I concentrate so intensely on something that I am doing, I hold my breath. I stop breathing. This, in turn, leads to an adrenalin rush where my autonomous self goes into red alert status. As a teenager that was an instant awareness that I was holding my breath and I would simply take a gulp of air and relax some before leaning back into the drawing. As a woman of mature years this adrenalin rush takes on a different shape. Things start to heat up and the sweat starts pouring out of me until I snap out of it. This lack of oxygen can't be good for my brain.

2007-06-02T10:39:00.000-04:00

I'M ONE OF THE PALE FACES

Before we left California hubby enlisted his new Ohio Doctor because he had so many health issues that needed attention. The Doctor was highly recommended by his Mother as he was her practioner. His office was located out in a little town near where we were going to be living. Once in Ohio hubby had his first appointment with the good doctor the second day after our arrival. I was impressed enough to sign him up as my doctor too! Several months later, after I got a new health care provider because the old one did not have any links here in Ohio, my first appointment with my new Doctor went well. His first look at me and he said "you look anemic!" I looked at he who was born in India, and with a big smile said, "I'm one of the pale faces!" Nevertheless, he gave me a blood test in order to be sure. I was not anemic.

My previous doctor of ten years had the same reaction upon first encountering me. When the diagnosis of MS was made, I was encouraged to take a super complex B vitamin supplement. I did comply for about a month or so, taking them after dinner, but came to the realization that they were causing a burning sensation throughout my body which was disturbing my ability to get a good night's sleep. I started taking them right after breakfast and the same sensation occurred during the daylight hours. Not that I was trying to sleep during the day, I've never been much of a napper, but the on fire sensation in the inner sanctum was uncomfortable.

I figure that I get enough B vitamins through my intake of food. There's Bananas, Bran flakes, Brown rice, Brown eggs - actually color does not matter, Black or Brown Beer, Beans - especially Boston Baked Beans, Beef, Butter - to help process the B's, Marmite -Brewers Yeast, Black Strap Molasses, and Peanut Butter spread smoothly over a whole wheat pita pocket. Hmmmm, scrumptious goodness!

Another benefit from a lot of the above B sources is a hefty fiber content. The harmonious flow of input and output. You know it's still all about the Butt!

On another B note. We had a Blue Moon on the 31st! Did anyone stay up late enough to see it?

2007-05-19T10:14:00.000-04:00

SPRING HAS SPRUNG

At last it's here! Mother's Day is over and it's time to plant. I only have a small area in my tiny backyard to utilize but use it I will. Want a little lilac bush and some teeny tiny alyssum. The lilac probably won't render it's aroma until next year as I can smell the delights of other people's bushes already in full bloom. However, the sweet smell of alyssum should be good to go until fall. That is unless the local deer don't decide to make a meal of it. According to my neighbors, plastic is the way to go around here. I'm stubborn though and want to give these treats to my nosebuds a good try.

Spring is not the only thing that has sprung around here. My orifices have sprang as well. I must keep a kleenex in hand at all times. Eyes are running, nose is dripping and my lungs are liquifying on a regular basis. I know that I should keep my windows closed and all that, but again my stubborn nature rules and I want to experience Mother Nature's rebirth with every sense of my being. A little inconvenience like kleenex is a small price to pay. Besides they're made by P & G so I'm helping my local economy as well.

I don't think that I'm the only MSer with an overabundance of mucus. It seems to me that many people have this kind of reaction to certain stimuli. It's pollen in the spring, air conditioning in the summer, dust in the fall, and chemical deodorizers all year round. Why do people think that a plug in device filled with chemical scents is cleaning the air? I don't even think they smell particularly good either! Some of them can run me out of a building because my lungs start to fill with liquid and I start losing my ability to absorb enough oxygen to function.

Some foods can do this to me also. Mixing wheat and milk seems to open up the flood gates to my inner aquifer of sputum, but I love my morning cereal. Frosted mini wheats are better than corn flakes. I don't care what Tony the Tiger says! And Raisin Bran tastes great and helps keep me regular. Who could enjoy life without Macaroni and Cheese. Alas, perhaps one day I shall become so annoyed at being phlegmish that I shall exert more control over my food choices than I already do. I remember my Dad telling me that as he hit the big 50, all the foods he loved suddenly started to not love him. Bananas, peanut butter, chocolate and milk! Chocolate can never be banished from my life. I am a woman and chocolate is essential to my well being! I did learn to drink 2% and 1 % milk with some great effort. It was kind of like quitting smoking! Now when I am subjected to whole milk, I find it somewhat greasy, like potato chips. Epiphany! Maybe if I go back to whole milk, I'll weed the scumdrum out of me. After all, I am the granddaughter of a dairy farmer, so I think I will give it a try. I have a half gallon of 2% to get through first. If the weather warms up a little more though I could start on some ice cream. Hmmm, pralines and cream, jamoca almond fudge, maple walnut. Come on sunshine!

Diary of a Dairy Princess - to be continued....,

2007-05-05T08:58:00.000-04:00

SHE WALKS THE WALK

Last Saturday morning I woke up at my usual early time, plus one hour. On a weekday my alarm goes off at 6:00 am. This allows me one hour in front of the telly watching the local news while drinking my most deliciously addictive two cups of coffee. Then I have the time and inclination to eat a good breakfast, take a shower, get dressed, tend to Spider the cat, and mosey on down the very pleasant trail to my workplace.

I am a masochist, so I set the alarm on the weekends also. Same time, same place. Perhaps it is not so very torturous, as once it goes off ,I turn it off, roll over and enjoy the best hours worth of sleep known to mankind! After one hour of the deepest, dreamiest sleep, I wake up, ready to face a lackadaisacal Saturday. That might not be the right word because it implies that I lack spirit. Not true, I just lack the desire to leap about. In fact, it is the great day I go to my beloved Tai Chi class and learn how to move at the speed of a turtle:)

Once settled into my very own lazy-girl chair, sized just right for little people such as myself, with my coffee in one hand and the remote in the other, I engage my mind with the local news. I find out that this is the day of the MS Walk and I think that I should go and do it! So I start to leap about in a very unSaturday morning like fashion. Stuff my face with a bowl of Raisin Bran, jump in and out of the shower, pile on some comfortable clothing and venture forth to a part of Cincinnati that I have never been to before. Sawyer Point is right beside the stadium where multitudes of people gather in ritualistic fashion to peer and cheer for their local teams. I have never been near it, unless zooming by on one of the Interstates on the way to and from the airport could be considered a close proximity. I manage to get there, albeit late, without getting on the freeway. What's free about them anyway? With map in hand I start my walk. A couple of blocks or so into it, I start to wonder why hoards of people are coming my way, some returning my smiles and hellos, some in a world of their own that does not include me:( I make a more detailed inspection of my map, and discover that I'm am going the wrong way. I do many things backwards so this is in keeping with my MO. So I turn around and get back to 'start here' and head on out once more. Some ways along the correct route, I come upon a sign. It states 1/4 mile. Already my head is a bit woozy, it has been well over a year since I have done any real walking (grocery stores and malls don't count) and I wonder what was I thinking, I will never manage to do 3 miles. Then I think about how ten years back I would walk around Lake Perris every Saturday morning with my dearly departed hubby. I plough ahead, picking up my pace with a determination that I will do this! My second wind came on strong and I actually enjoyed trekking through downtown. It is a city much like any other city and I happily finished Walking the Walk.

One day, when they discover why this demylineation happens to those of us who have this disorder, they will find a way to reverse it's course. Sometimes I feel like they are spending more time concentrating on finding ways, expensive methods, just to slow it down. I walk the walk in hope that some one, some group, is actually trying to find out why!

2007-04-21T10:35:00.000-04:00

ASSORTED ASSININE ASSOCIATIONS

A couple of weeks after putting up the New Year calendars and deciding to start my job hunt, the thought occurred to me to try to collect my UI benefits. So, I applied and was sent a letter telling me how much money and for how long my claim would be available to me. They started sending me the forms that I had to complete to record the facts that I was ready, willing, able and searching for work. I was doing all that was requested of me. There was a scheduled cross country telephone interview with me and a couple of weeks later, I was informed that my claim was denied. It appears that following my ailing husband back to his place of birth when he retired was not a just reason to quit my job of 12 plus years. I reacted to this like it was a slap in my face! How dare they say that it was not a good reason to quit my job. I suppose that it would have been better to divorce the man and join the over 50% of Americans who sadly end up that way. I appealed. They kept sending the forms, and I kept filling them out. Then an across country telephone appeal was scheduled. Before that occurred, I took a position and had started working. Still, I telephoned at the appropriate time and spoke with the judge. I was so mad, but in true mousey fashion, none of that came through. Probably a good thing that, just making the call was a vent, even if I did not rant and rave. I was sure that the appeal had failed but that did not matter because I was happily working. This was 8 weeks after I started my hunt and in my former country one was penalized 10 weeks for quitting and I expect that is the case here as well. About a week later I received a letter stating their decision had been reversed and it was just cause for leaving my previous employer. I don't expect any moolah, but I feel vindicated. Also, if for some reason this job does not last, I can reopen the claim.

My new employer is a small company with about 35 employees. They had just changed health insurance plans from the people I am currently with through my cobra to another company. There was an application that I had to fill out. The typical third degree type health questions were asked. I knew that this might be trouble. Sure enough, my application for health benefits was declined. It would seem that the hipaa laws only apply to employer plans with 50 or more employees. So my options are to look for another job with a bigger company that provides health benefits, or exhaust my cobra at which point my current provider has other options available to me. As my monthly cobra payments are high dollar amounts, I would expect that my after options will be even more expensive. When I think about all the money I could have kept in my bank account had I not had health insurance and just paid for doctoring as I went along I would be better off financially than I am right now. Then again, going through what I did last year with my husbands' frequent hospital visits, I know it is not auspicious to go uninsured. So, with regards to the current situation and my new employers health plan provider, I remain undaunted. Who wants to be insured by any company whose name starts out with 'ass'.

As my Tai Chi instructor says. "It's all about the butt!"

2007-03-19T10:04:00.000-04:00

If you thought kids have a problem -

try Adult Attention Deficit Disorder

I decide to water my lawn.

As I turn on the hose in the driveway, I look over at my car and decide my car needs washing.

As I start toward the garage, I notice that there is mail on the porch table that I brought up from the mailbox earlier.

I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car. I lay my carkeys down on the table, put the junk mail in the garbage can under the table, and notice that the can is full. So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the garbage first. But then I think, since I'm going to be near the mailbox when I take out the garbage anyway, I may as well pay the bills first.

I take my checkbook off the table, and see that there is only one check left. My extra checks are in my desk in the study, so I go inside the house to my desk where I find the can of Coke that I had been drinking. I'm going to look for my checks, but first I need to push the Coke aside so that I don't accidentallly knock it over. I see that the Coke is getting warm, and I decide I should put it in the refrigerator to keep it cold.

As I head toward the kitchen with the Coke a vase of flowers on the counter catches my eye - they need to be watered. I set the Coke down on the counter, and I discover my reading glasses that I've been searching for all morning. I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I'm going to water the flowers.

I set the glasses back down on the counter, fill a container with water and suddenly I spot the TV remote. Someone left it on the kitchen table. I realize that tonight when I go to watch TV, I will be looking for the remote, but I won't remember that it's on the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back in the living room where it belongs, but first I'll water the flowers.

I pour some water in the flowers, but quite a bit of it spills on the floor. So, I set the remote back down on the table, get some towels and wipe up the spill.

Then I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do. At the end of the day; the lawn isn't watered, the car isn't washed, the bills aren't paid, there is a warm can of Coke sitting on the counter, the flowers don't have enough water, there is still only one check in my checkbook, I can't find the remote, I can't find my glasses, I don't remember what I did with the car keys, and my neighbor called to tell me he turned off the hose that was flooding the driveway.

Then when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I'm really baffled because I know I was busy all day long, and I'm really tired. I realize this is a serious problem and I'll try to get some help for it, but first I'll check my e-mail.

Tomorrow I start a new job. My first gainful employment in 54 weeks. I took a position as a Secretary/Receptionist . Note the use of the term Secretary and not Administrative Assistant. That word actually attracted me to the position offered. This post was a good exercise for my typing skills. This job shall be a good exercise for my brain. Halejula, I will have a two and one half mile commute. The shortest that I have ever had.

2007-02-28T11:18:00.000-05:00

CARB's

It's a relief to know the truth after all those conflicting medical studies. For those of you who watch what you eat, here's the final word on nutrition and health.

1. The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

3. The Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

4. The Italians drink excessive amounts of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

5. The Germans drink a lot of beer and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

CONCLUSION:

Eat and drink what you like.

Speaking English is apparently what kills you.

FROM THE MOUTH OF BABES

When I was somewhere between the age of 5 and 7 the school that I attended paid a tremendous amount of interest in the health of the children. Hygiene, that consisted of fingernail inspections for which I was never prepared. Being the inveterate explorer that I was meant that at every available opportunity I was digging into everything encountered, even on my morning walk to school. This of course caused me to almost always have dirty fingernails. So when the teacher started inspections I usually had to do a rapid grooming by inserting fingers into mouth. Good thing that I wasn't sitting in the front of class. Apparently there were diet interrogations about mealtimes at home that I do not remember. Perhaps these were not as stressful to my little psyche. However, it does turn out that they were very stressful to my Mom because she got called in to school and raked over the coals about my diet! I can only imagine that when they asked me what I ate, I must have told them what I liked to eat. Hotdogs, pistachio ice cream, pancakes and grilled cheese would have been on the list. I recollect going through phases where I would not eat certain things. As the granddaughter of an old dairy farmer who grew attached to his cows I can remember periods of refusing to eat any red meats! Then the event occurred where I really took a good look at a chicken leg and compared it to my arm. The skin and hair follicles looked so similar that I was suddenly refusing to eat any fowl as well. Sorry Mom as I know not what I attested to. I guess you could say that I was watching what I ate even as a youngster!

2007-02-14T11:41:00.000-05:00

BULLS, BIRDS and BIKES

Not long after my luncheon with "I am a walking animal" Mata K, the transit system decided to go on what seemed to be an annual ON STRIKE campaign. That left me unable to get back and forth to my job at the hospital without the aid of friends with automobiles, or the use of my legs. I was working a swing shift and didn't relish the idea of walking the streets between 10 to 11 at night. The thought that someone might think that I was out there in pursuit of a different line of work would be an unpleasant interruption in my three mile journey to reach the switchboard where I might be able to help save a life or birth a child.

It came to my attention that a friend of a friend had 2 bicycles for sale and I was welcome to buy one. A nice used 10 speed would fit the bill nicely and for only $40. So I happily forked out the dinero. I always had a bicycle up until I was about 17 when I decided that I was too grown up for such a toy! Now I was 22 and was happy to be able to pedal to and from my work station with relative ease. Of course, once the transit strike was over I did go back to letting the streetcar wheels propel me around, I especially liked sitting in the seat right at the back because the swing effect was like that of a roller coaster going around a curve! However, over the next couple of years that bike took up the slack when the transit went down.

After a few years I decided that it was time to move on. Many friends had moved out to the west coast so that is where I headed. One of my friends, SS, had taken up with a man, FF, who lived in a log cabin up on a mountain just east of the Okanagan Valley. They were looking for someone to keep the place warm while they went down to Mexico for a month or so. There was no electricity or running water, but there were about 30 chickens and 1 very young bull named Burt. I talked another friend who had a 1958 VW bus to go with me and we drove across the country in the merry month of October. The bus had no heat so the passenger, mostly me, would sit on the bench seat scrapping the ice off the inside of the windshield as we travelled west. We got to the mountains south of Rock Creek and settled in with my friends, learned the ways of the outback and in late November the happy homesteaders left us city folk to tend the farm while they relaxed in sunny Mexico.

It was peaceful to say the least, but having none of the usual amenities certainly can keep one busy. Bread never tasted so good as when baked in a woodburning oven. That was the only cook stove. It also was the hot water reservoir for dishwashing, etc., as it had a large well/compartment. There was a franklin stove for providing heat during the night, but it was always cold by morning. The outhouse was about 300 yards away. FF had the innovative idea to cover the toilet seat holes with styrofoam so they were always warm. Not for the sanitary minded but extremely comfortable. It was an outhouse built for two which was puzzling, perhaps constructed for emergency use. The door to it was more like a gate because there was no top half to it. It provided a beautiful view of the mountains, but I liked to do my contemplations on the throne alone, often wondering just what I would do if a lynx, a bear or worse, a skunk were to show up.

Burt the bull lived out in a large field surrounded by a fence. Only trouble was that the well that provided all our water was right in the middle of this pasture. It was no modern well either, just a hole in the ground with with wood shored sides and a bucket on a rope. Fetching water was a twice, or thrice, daily ritual. Luckily I was still accustomed to the Canadian winters back then so, after piling on the usual 10 lbs. of 'ward off the cold' outerwear, I would trudge out into the snow covered field with bucket in hand. Now Burt was a feisty young bull, and as anyone familiar with farm animals would know, the bovine is incredulously curious, and always hungry in this particular case! After a couple of water hauling ventures, realizing that I just might end up at the bottom of this well if Burt continues to be butthead nosy like that, well, I needed a new water bearing strategy. So from that point on Burt's feeding time became synonymous with agua hauling ventures, and a pitchfork would be my constant companion.

One day Burt did break his bounds and off he trotted about 2 miles down the road to Eke's farm. So spring must be on its' way. It was now January and the rogue had romance on his mind! That little VW bus had to do the job of the shepherder/tow truck. Oh, what fun to zig zag through the snow with the greatest of unease, while the lusty young bovine was not very pleased. It would not do for us to have lost the bull while the land barron was away. So we journeyed back up the hill in short bursts of stuck and go.

So the snowbirds came back at the end of January to us, Burt, and about 25 chickens. 2 months and 5 chickens was not bad. After all that hard work required some meaty sustenance. We couldn't blame the entire loss on coyotes! I am hear to tell you though. The most disgusting thing was not the beheading of the bird after which it continues to leap about the place. No the most disgusting thing was the smell when removing all those feathers! Double yuck yuck! I will always be thankful for my local butcher after that!

My friend wanted to go to the Yukon after that and build an 8 by 10' log cabin. I said; "Have fun!" and headed off to the not so big city of Vancouver. It was time to go visit some of my less industrious but more industrial friends. A place where I could turn on the tap and run a bath. Where I could go to the local supermarket and get that chicken already plucked and quartered. I went into the woods, I survived, I conquered, and I ran like a marathoner into the modern world. That is where I met the man that would become my husband, my companion in outback adventure who would always bring me home to running water and indoor toilets.

I had wanted to get back to the old homestead not just to visit my friends but to partake of the feast that was formerly known as Burt the Bull. Alas, I was too late as it took about 8 months before I could return and he was already dinner times a kazillion. Probably a good thing because in some sort of quirky way I had actually developed an attachment to him, just like my grandad did to all his bovine on his dairy farm.

A few months after I got together with the man that would become my husband, we were at a party. One of the other guests at this soiree was the man, a psychiatrist, who had sold me that bicycle back in TO several years earlier. Turns out my husband had sold his two bicycles to this man for $20.00 before he moved to the west coast and made him promise that he would not resell the bikes for any more than that amount. When hubby found out that I had paid $40 for just one of those bicycles, he let the good doctor know just what he thought. It was amusing to see this psychiatrist grovelling like a bad dog. What goes around, comes around. Especially if it has to do with bicycles!

2007-01-21T12:54:00.000-05:00

The Birds

One evening, way back when I was working my summer job at the Banff Springs Hotel, "The Birds" was showing at the movie house in town. Scary flicks are not my favourite thrill. I am a chicken for that kind of thing unless I'm with my man at the drive-in theater where I can pull the blanket up over my head when things get too spooky! So I declined the invitation. The following day was my day off so I decided to take a stroll around the abundant grounds of the resort. The day was fresh, the paths were fragrant and the trees were towering. It was delightful. Suddenly I heard a 'crack-caw' in the direction that I was meandering into. A moment of apprehension followed by a minor self imposed chastisement and I'm back into my amble. I approach a very tall fir of unknown name and note the Raven perched high upon a branch. It made that kind of growly yet purring kind of rattle that I have grown to love in my more adult years but at that moment caused me to scurry on my way. The scurry soon turned into a dash while ducking as the enormous avian, winged with talons spread, swooped down upon me again and again for at least 200 meters. One of the hotel groundskeepers was working in a rock garden up ahead and I did not stop running untill I was in his presence. "Did you see that?" I asked, with what little breath I had left. He just chuckled and went back to his garden. I was back on my path once again, rattled, my step more rapid, alone and slightly miffed that the groundskeeper didn't care that I was a damsel in distress. Perhaps that's why he was laughing! So I saunter on. Keeping an eye on the tree tops, I soon became calm with my inner self again. Then I saw a squirrel high on a limb and it leaped off that perch and flew through the air a good distance before alighting on a branch of a different tree. Life was good and I continued with my ramble.

Years later, while working at a hospital, I had made friends with an older woman. She was probably at the age that I am presently assuming, not really old but at the time that was my slant on things. She was intriguing to me. She was from Estonia, a single mother, widowed, who had fled her homeland after the Soviets started their occupation in the Baltics. She had stories about the duress of life as a working single mom that make current complaints seem like nothing in comparison. You got through it only for the grace of your fellow man and woman. Her name was Mata K. and I used to fantasize that she was really Mata Hari. I had been reading a lot of fantasy back then, as well as Dostoyevski, and I had just finished reading one of Carlos Castaneda's books in which the narrator has an experience that caused him to become a crow for a while. Well, Mata wanted to read this book so I gave it to her. Several days later, when I next saw her, she demonstrated how she had tried the experience of being a crow by standing on one leg with the other leg cocked up perched in a corner of our little switchboard office. I cracked up! She was so delightful. One day I invited her to my apartment for lunch. She lived very close to the hospital where we worked, but I lived about 3 miles east of there. I told her which streetcar to take to get to my place and she replied. "Oh no, I am a walking animal!" She walked there, we had lunch and after that we took a walk on the beach. I lived in an area called "The Beaches". On the way back we passed a spot and I told her she could get the streetcar here when she was ready to go home and she once again repeated. "Oh no, I am a walking animal!"

As I am doing my Tai Chi exercises there is a step that involves a little kick of one leg, a cock of the same leg, another kick and a step forward. I always think of Mata doing the crow and vehemently emphasizing that she is a walking animal. Walking is so good for us. We don't do enough of it. Perhaps if we walked more, we would not have so much trouble in effecting it. It is surely much much harder to become a crow!

By the way, I am through Level One and onto the next stage next week. My butt is sore. The teacher said it was all about the butt. I've been using muscles that I didn't even know I had. I'm still a bit wobbly but I'm working on my focus.

We had 3 plus inches of snow this morning. I'm not going out in my car until the roads are clear. Maybe I should walk the mile to the store. Naw, I think I'll hibernate!

2006-12-30T10:18:00.000-05:00

PEACE

THE FINAL FRONTIER

My Tai Chi beginners' class is at the halfway point. We had gone through the reverse breathing, meditation, holding the ball, and bend over stretches and I thought that my left and right sides were working pretty well together. Then, last week, we got into the steps. One foot off the floor with a slow straight leg stretched out in front. Then a curl of the outstretched leg back to the knee and then straight out again with the heel coming back down to earth in a specific position. Another bend over stretch, step weight shift and the whole procedure starts over again with the other leg. Here is where I discovered that I'm pretty wobbly. I find myself teetering back and forth like a dangling traffic signal dancing in the wind. Ever since my diagnosis I had been trying to gauge my position on the Disability scale by standing on one leg to put on each of my socks. Some days were better than others, but I always managed to feel quite good about the results. Doing the leg stretch/kick walk in the Tai Chi exercises, I was feeling like I was walking on a sail boat or atop the CN Tower, where mother earth seems to be in a different position with each foot fall. Still, I feel great about what I am doing and what it's going to do for me. I think of it as a great way to turn the page over into the New Year.

As my left and right sides come together slowly, may all human beings realize that they are not so very different after all and come together in a fashion. Some differences are the bane of life. Like poison to our souls. Some differences are the spice of life. Like jubilation to our spirits. I feel such joy that I guess my hope is that so will everyone else. I know I am a dreamer, but

Happy New Year, one and all!

2006-12-01T10:40:00.000-05:00

PERPLEXUAL MOTION

I'm down to about a dozen boxes. They're all lined up against the dining room wall. That being the chosen room because we had given away our old dining room set. There are 3 boxes that have been opened but they are filled with computer parts. 3 keyboards, 4 mice, some old hard drives and lots of wires. I find this intimidating. I shouldn't find it so because I used to be the buyer for a company that actually built controls, aka computers, for automation systems. Controls being the stuff that allows the Human machine interface. However, this consisted of the engineers telling me what was needed for a particular job, the shop foreman telling me when it was needed, and for me deciding where to buy it to get it into the shop at the last possible moment and for the very best price. So even though I was purchasing CPU's, I/O modules, memory cards, cables, wires, male connectors, female receptacles and gender benders, I was stuck in my office on the phone and banging out purchase orders, so I really don't have much of a clue about what is what when I'm pulling it out of a box. So I procrastinate. I have the same problem with tools. There are so many allen wrenches, screw drivers, drill bits, etc., and they're all coming out of a 200 lb. tool box that I need to sort. At least I know the difference between a Phillips and a slotted screw driver but that's about it.

On another note. Do you ever feel like one of those dolls whose limbs can be removed from their torsos? Sometimes I feel that way. Only one of my legs has been reinserted backwards. Do you think that we are some childs toy in another dimension?

Indian summer is over and winter is trying to blow the house down. It's not snowing yet but the rain is making hard metallic sounds as it hits the windows. I must be finally getting acclimatized though. Yesterday I actually found 70 degrees to be balmy and tropical. A few months ago, I found that temperature to be downright freezing. Sweater weather. So I'm somewhat terrified and thrilled by the prospects of my first real winter in 35 years!

I was soaking in the tub the other night. I used to love to soak in the bathtub. Back when they were all huge and clawfooted. You could really relax in one of those. I stopped doing that a couple of years back because it would actually drain me. I mean I would get out of the tub feeling fatigued instead of relaxed. Someone who does not have MS or Chronic fatigue syndrome might not realize that there is a difference between relaxed and fatigued, but there certainly is. The other night though, I got out of the tub feeling invigorated. So maybe it was the heat of Southern California that was enhancing the dragging feeling. I must report that it was not a clawfoot tub that I was lying in so my head was cocked at a 90 degree angle to the rest of my body. This does not condone relaxation and my thoughts fell upon the fact that my cerebellum was leaning against the rim of the tub. The cerebellum, the place where the white matter was first spotted that helped lead to the eventual diagnosis of MS. For a second, I wondered, if this could be one of the causes. Only for a second though because for the first time in a very long time an actual bath refreshed me.

Tomorrow I start a Tai Chi class. Going to get my left and right sides back in synch. As least that is the plan!

2006-11-25T10:16:00.000-05:00

IN AND OUT

So many boxes. Every time that I open one of them and remove its' contents, I am unraveling history. Kind of like how digging down through a layer of earth will take us back in time, or peering through a telescope will show us the near and distant past, each box holds a multitude of memories. Some are recent and some are long ago.

When I was nearing time to graduate from high school, it was time to think about an even higher education, but I was only sixteen and did not have a clue about what I wanted to do. I liked to draw and could disappear for hours or even days perfecting a picture. I also liked the sciences, particularly any thing that had to do with geology or astronomy. My big little brother, big because he was eleven years my senior and little because he was shorter than I, recommended that I take Fine Arts because he had done the science thing after he had faced the same dilemma as I was facing then. So Fine Arts it was. To even be considered for this course, I had to take a volley of tests and deliver a portfolio of my artistic endeavors. There were 2,000 applicants and only 60 were going to be accepted. I was delighted to be one of the chosen few. As this was Fine Arts there were mandatory courses like English grammar and literature that had to be taken in league with Painting and Drawing. There was one elective allowed and I took natural science. My art teachers were like apples and oranges, worlds apart, and it would turn out that I could only get along with one of them. Mr. Gaugain did not like me, and I did not like him. It's amazing how that works out. Of course this was University and their goal was to turn me into someone who could earn a living after graduation in order to pay for this higher education. In the field of painting and drawing, this means crafting up a picture, or three, every night. I wanted to learn how to paint like Vincent Van Gogh and this was not what I was being prepped for. This was forcing me to churn out stuff that I was not happy with.

However, my other teacher did offer encouragement. He himself was a madman. He wanted his students to communicate with him about the works that they produced. He would give us a theme to work with and let us take it where we would. This was something that I could enjoy.
One day the theme was just to do something monochromatic. My colour of choice was purple. I created a picture of cubes showing only 3 sides to each cube with every side touching another side. To obtain the three dimensional effect that would actually make the objects look like boxes, each side was a different shade of purple. When you stared at these boxes you could envision that you were looking inside a box, or you could imagine that you were looking at the outside of the boxes. It was as if they were moving in and out.

I had always been fascinated by the depth of outer space. I was always fascinated by the depth of atomic structure. How all matter was composed of these atoms, and on the grand scale of things there were vast distances between the protons and those electrons that were orbiting around them. The universe is as vast within me as it is without me. Indeed it is everywhere. Moving in and out. Just like those boxes in my painting.

There were 2 little skunks that had to walk to school everyday. One was named 'In' and one was named 'Out'. They always went home for lunch. Going to school was different way back then. They were of different ages so they did not share the same classes and did not always walk home together. One day 'In' was very late getting home and Mom was worried. She told 'Out' to go find him because it was nearly time for dinner and she was concerned that he was not there yet. A short time later they both arrived back home. Mom said 'Out', how did you find him so quickly. It was easy said 'Out'. 'In' stinked!

I'll go back to the ins and outs of my unpacking now.

2006-11-18T08:46:00.000-05:00

AS I LOOK OUT MY WINDOW

The other morning as I am peering out my big picture window, sipping on my morning mug of coffee, I see a squirrel out of the corner of my eye. I have always liked squirrels. Must be the mouse in me, but they have always peaked my interest. I am also very fond of nuts of all kinds; cashews, brazils, peanuts, humans.

There is quite a bit of traffic rolling down my street during rush hour. It is normally a quiet avenue with a 25 mph speed limit, but it offers a 2 mile east-west stretch with only 1 stop sign linking 2 major north-south thoroughfares. Of course at these times, nobody pays any attention to the speed limit. They just barrel on up and down the road. Racing through their hectic days. Watching this, I feel so lucky to be able to not have to go anywhere in such a manner. At least not for the time being anyway. Once I get my house in order, a purposefully slow process because my head is still in a fog, I will look for employment.

The squirrel that I am watching starts to climb up a telephone pole. Yes, they still have telephone pole like structures here in the midwest. I am a bit puzzled as to why the squirrel would venture up this pole. Does it have a stash of nuts up there? Does it not realize that this is not a tree? There are several good sized trees in my yard. This critter steps onto the wire and heads out over the busy road to get to the other side where there is an abundance of trees. I was astounded by a level of intelligence that I was not expecting to perceive in a rodent. Then I was embarassed by my inability to see it's intent from the very onset.

As a child back in the great white north I lived in an upper level unit of a four plex. It backed onto a convent grounds where there were gardens and orchards and a plenty of squirrels. During the 4 months of the year when there was no snow on the ground I used spend a lot of time in the trees of the apple orchard munching on those delicious morsels of fruit. When not actually in the trees myself, I would often go out on the back porch with a handful of nuts and call to my squirrel friends. One would always come bounding out of a tree, over the fence, up the long wooden stairway that led to my back porch, then sit up on its' haunches and give my an inquiring look. I would give it a nut. Sometimes, I would hold the nut up above my shoulder, and the squirrel would climb me like a tree, perch on my shoulder, I'd let it have the nut and away it would go. It would never eat the treat on my back porch, but would take it all the way back over the fence to safe and hallowed ground. Did I mention that we had a dog. A black labrador retreiver whose sole mission in life was to render useless any small 4 legged critter that moved.

It came to my attention later in life, as a leader of a fire lookout tower in the San Bernardino National Forest, that squirrels frequently carry the fleas that carry the black death called the bubonic plague. The most active time of the year for these fleas is in the heat of summer. So I suppose that I have to consider myself lucky. I am still very fond of squirrels. Walt Disney has something to do with this side of me I am sure. Thank-you Walt.

2006-11-09T19:14:00.000-05:00

BACK TO THE BEGINNING

What's that famous line? Nothing is sure in life but death and taxes? Dealing with a parent's passing is one thing. You come to expect it will happen one day. Dealing with a child's passing is harder still. It doesn't even have to be your own child and it is a horrendous experience, so I can't imagine the depth of my brother's despair. Somewhere in the middle is the passing of your mate. Difficult to deal with but deal with it you do.

So now I move on. Even though I'm not actually going anywhere. He brought me to this beautiful place so I will stay and experience it to the fullest.

I bought a condo here. It's not like my old one in California. This is a brick four plex. The walls are actually plaster and the floors are all hard wood but covered in carpet; which I like because it's easier on my legs. The bathrooms are white tile all across the floor and halfway up the walls. There is a shower with a marble seat and has the same white tile but it extends all the way up the walls and across the ceiling. Marble mantles line all the window sills. It's got a basement where my laundry room is and access to my garage. It is just up the street from that temporary corporate apartment that we stayed in for 6 months. A nice area with a tremendously comfortable feeling. I can't believe my luck in being able to negotiate a purchase offer that got me into this place.

It is also so great to be surrounded by my own stuff. I know it's just stuff, but it's my stuff. Not someone else's. And it has a sentimental value far beyond anything that money could offer. And it's all, well mostly all, still in boxes, waiting for me to find the time to unpack it. The kitchen is pretty much set up and I can cook again; once I unpack the box that is full of cookbooks. The box labeled spices is empty and the spices are in the cupboard. It's amazing to think that I can now put something together using coriander, cumin, cardamom, cinnamon and the wonderful turmeric. I guess I'd better dig out the cookbook box.

As I sit by my big picture window, drinking my morning coffee, watching a family of deer munch their way across my front lawn, I am at peace with the world.

Now I've got to get my butt in gear.

Well, maybe tomorrow.

2006-10-03T14:48:00.000-04:00

SUCH IS LIFE

Take some soil, mix it with a little water and add a spark.
He was much larger than that, he was huge, he was a sparkler.
Those who stood beside him would often be seen grinning from ear to ear. He was sparkling.
The soil and the water will return to the earth.
The spark will go back to from whence it came.
Such is life.
He was the light of my life.
I will miss him terribly.
Yet, he will always be with me.

2006-07-08T09:03:00.000-04:00

BERRY
WONDER
FULL

My mother was raised on a farm. This gave her a tremendous back yard to play in. However, play was always tempered with learning skills. A kind of education that not many humans get today, unless you join one of those "Survival" schools. So when I was a youngster we would roam far away fields in search of berries.

Strawberries and raspberries grow close to the ground in a bouquet of greenery. We would journey, hunched over, filling little baskets with the scruptious delicacies. Once home again these treasures would become pies, turnovers, crisps, or just placed in a bowl with a dab of ice cream. This is the way it was in the real world before the onset of superstores.

In my childhood adventures as a city girl I recreated these little sojourns by exploring my neighbourhood in a like fashion. Though I never found strawberries and raspberries, I did find lots of other interesting berry looking things. Things that I was admonished never to eat, but what is the word "no" to a youngster except another way of saying "go ahead and try it". It's kind of like "I dare you." So the bush with the little white bubble berries had to be sampled. They were kind of pasty and sour, indeed not delectable, but made a wonderful little explosion when you popped them between your fingers. I can't remember what this bush was, if it made the little white bubbles before or after it bloomed, but the bush grew all over Montreal. There was the Honeysuckle. That one is easy to remember because it was so sweet to suck on. Just the name of this bush was an invite to suck on it. There was a tree called the choke cherry tree. Of course this was an ominous sounding name but included the tantalizing word "cherry". Rumour was that it would kill you to eat those little choke cherrys. But did that stop me. No! I was an idiot child who never listened. Into my mouth goes this little cherry. Oh so bitter it was. It was an intriguing kind of bitter and I ate a few more. Surprise to CG, my adventure pal, I didn't immediately croak on the spot. In fact, this little mighty mouse lived. This little munchkin liked it. CG then tried it but she wasn't so sure she liked it. But after that, every time I passed this tree, I had to sample it's wares. It is easy to remember the way my mouth puckered when I ate it. I was hooked on the bitter fruit. Indeed, as is obvious, I still think about even today.

2006-07-04T13:09:00.000-04:00

Below is a map of American casualties in Iraq/Afghanistan. I don't want to spoil our celebration, but I don't want us to forget those who can't.

2006-07-04T08:23:00.000-04:00

2006-07-04T07:44:00.000-04:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY U.S.A.

230 years of fine tuning democracy and honing the rights of mankind and womankind alike! There is still a lot more to do, as all are still not equal; but we are lucky to be in this place where we are closer to equality than most other lands in this world. This is a time to celebrate and be proud. I am!

2006-06-29T07:56:00.000-04:00

ANOTHER NEW CHAIR

When I found out Hubby had to go through chemotherapy, I decided to buy him a new chair. None of the furniture in this temporary apartment is what I would call comfortable, except perhaps this chair at the computer desk. So while he was in hospital for Round One, I went to the local Lazyboy and bought him the Atlas chair. After all he is a large man! It suits him to a "Z".

He is almost completely recovered from Round One. His appetite is back and his legs are almost steady, although not quite sturdy. So he decided to take the drive with me out to our future rural homestead area where his family resides and where our mail box exists. I drove the pick up truck. We have two vehicles and need to drive both of them on a regular basis. He is not driving at all right now so it is up to me to give them both a work out. What is especially nice about driving the truck is that it has cruise control, The car does not. We were both enjoying the days' outing, it had been a long time, and I happened to mention just how nice it was to have cruise control for this lengthy drive. He then spent the next 15 minutes talking me into buying myself a new car. Okay, maybe it only took 5 minutes! So on the way back to the apartment we made a little detour to the local Ford dealer and I bought a new Five Hundred SEL. Oh, it's a beauty! The seating is much higher than the average car, so you are elevated like in the pick up truck. What is amazing is that it has a V6 but it gets about the same gas mileage as the little 2 liter 4 cylinder contour did. 30mpg highway, and 24 city. Not bad for a full size sedan. And it is such a smooth ride too. Ohio has some of the bumpiest roads I have ever encountered, and this car just glides right over them. So now hubby has a new seat with a view. If only he can learn to relax while I'm driving!

2006-06-20T08:29:00.000-04:00

ROUND ONE

Well, Round One of chemotherapy was finished, the husband was released from hospital and about one week later he comes down with pneumonia. I had left him alone in the apartment for about four hours while I ran some errands. He had just started to get his appetite and his energy back, so I left him sleeping. When I got back he was up and dressed and hungry, so I gave him some food. Food at this point is small portions of very easy to eat stuff because everything tastes like cardboard and his throat is sore which are normal side effects of the chemo. He eats a little bit and commences to relax in his LazyBoyChair. Soon, I notice that he is not responding to me. His face has a blank looking stare to it. I feel his forehead and it seems warm. I call his oncologist who reminds me that my patient is a diabetic and that I should feed him some sugar. Duh, that had never occurred to me. He also said that if that didn't work I should call 911. Well it didn't work! I called and four very nice Fire Dept. members arrived as the Emergency response team. They took all his vitals and of course all came back incredibly normal. They asked him the usual questions such as what day is it and he answered okay. Occassionally, however, he appeared to just ignore them. They asked me if I wanted him to go to the hospital. I replied that I was not the medical professional but that this was not normal, so yes I wanted him to go to the hospital. They then called the ambulance. He was so weak he could not get out of his chair and it took two of them to get him up and on the gurney. The doctor called back again to see what was happening and said that he would see him there at emergency. I told the EMT this and they said that doctors don't do that, so I figured that I must have misunderstood the good doctor. Off they went. I went to my car, they had offered to give me a lift but I also wanted a way to get back home so I declined. Of course this huge fire engine was blocking me in so I had to wait on them to manuoever this behemoth out of the curved driveway. What was unbelieveable to me was that I actually got to the hospital emergency before the ambulance. I swear that I did not speed. I took the long route because it does not have as many signal burdoned intersections and has more freeway. When hubby finally arrived, about five minutes later, his temperature was up to 103! Blood tests showed that his little white cells were in fact nonexistant, another side effect of chemo. He got his own room even in the emergency department. Never saw that before. They worked to get his temperature down. This consisted of cold air and IV antibiotics. Low and behold, the most excellent doctor arrives. He lets me know that hubby will be readmitted to the hospital. They put him in a room with a sign on the door that one must wash before entering and upon leaving. So I guess he was contagious to boot! Five days later and I've got him back home again. Now he gets a week of rest before we enter Round Two. The good doctor related to us that he cannot give a full dose each time because of underlying kidney and liver problems that existed before this cancer. We are both looking for a TKO at about Round Four, with hubby coming out on top!

2006-05-30T14:21:00.000-04:00

IT WAS THE BEST OF TIMES, IT WAS THE WORST OF TIMES

Well, they haven't got to the bottom of my love's current health problems, but they are taking the reins anyway. Last week his doctor said the biopsy of the week before showed that he has cancer. They could not tell if it was a primary or a secondary cancer. He scheduled a visit to the oncologist for Friday. We weathered our first two tornado warnings on Thursday night. This huge horn started up softly, building to extremely loud and lasting an incredibly long time. They reminded me of the sounds I had heard as a child to warn us of an impending nuclear attack. Not fond memories. They also reminded me of the movie the Time Machine when the Morlocks would summon the Eloi to the safety of the underground. Very eerie. In the dark because the power had gone out, with the sliding balcony door open, the lightning flashing and the trees moving endlessly; we sat there watching with rapt attention. We were probably the only people in Cincinnati that enjoyed that thrill. By Friday's appointment time the oncologist said that they had been able to do further tests, and that it was a secondary cancer. This means that it originates somewhere else in the body; but, they don't know where. He also said that rather than taking the time to do more biopsys to determine the source - the California way I'm sure, spoken with my best "Valley Girl" intonation - they were just going to use chemotherapy to eradicate it all! So, this very morning he was admitted to the hospital for a five day stay. After this, he will need a month to recuperate, then they will check him to see if they need to give him more treatment. The upshots are: other than the cancer he is a very healthy man, and the oncologist and the hospital are within 5 miles of our temporary apartment. So even though escrow on our California home finally closed on Friday, we are not going to look for a new home until this episode is played out.

2006-05-19T08:09:00.000-04:00

WEATHER WONDERFUL WEATHER

The sky is a pale baltic blue with flecks of beautiful billowing cumulous clouds. A darkness flows in and suddenly a flash of brilliance cracks the calm of quiet contemplation. The air starts to churn and roil and the trees start to sway in a rhythm that only nature knows. Rain begins to fall, starting slowly, and reaching a crescendo only to sink back into a pitter patter, like a child taking their first steps. Suddenly it is over. The pale baltic blue once again takes over and my mind retreats back into restful repose.

The air is clean and fresh. Gone is the grit and dust that were a part of my life for so very long. My lungs seem deeper, perhaps because they are now more willing to take a breath. The world is in bloom and smells delicious.

There is a deer munching grass in the backyard of our temporary corporate apartment in the city of Cincinnati. We are on the sixth floor, nestled into the side of a rather steep hill. The picture above shows the greenery covering this knoll. In California I would have been intimidated by this hill. I would fear that it would come slipping down. Here I am at peace with it. The soil is as different in this place as the air is. We are still waiting for escrow to close on our house. Selling is just as paper burdoned as buying is, only we are doing it over long distance. We had a purchase offer the day after it went on the market and had hashed out a deal the next day. Now we wait.

The husband is much improved. He called his new doctor the second day after we arrived and received an appointment with him the next day. Two days after that he was in the hospital getting excess water drained from his abdomen. It is so very different here. There is no such thing as a 2 month wait and everyone treats you like the human being that you are. He has had about 3 procedures in four weeks, the last of which was a biopsy of a polyp on the adrenal gland. We are so happy. Things never happened that fast in the west. My health insurance doesn't allow me to have an Ohio address because it's only for California. So I have to switch to another company that my previous health insurance provider works with in out of state locations. It is still an "of California" plan, and it's name is otherwise the same as my husband's plan, just a change in the state adendum, and even though I am almost 10 years younger than he is, my premiums are 3 times more costly. Go figure!

We went fishing the other week. I caught my very first catfish. It was about a 12 lbs. blue. Big and beautiful at 24" long, and fiesty too! I was thrilled. I haven't actually hooked a fish in about 40 odd years. Yes, they were odd years! I also found a 4 leaf clover by the spot where I was sitting when I snagged that fish. So I pressed it in wax paper and now I carry it with me everywhere. The fish was lucky too. He/she went back in the water after we took the hook out!

Other than living out of 4 suitcases because all of our stuff is in storage, life is so very good. If I didn't need an income to pay for my health insurance I could happily retire. Until we get to the bottom of my love's current health troubles and a home of a permanent nature (more escrow) I am not going to look for a job.

2006-04-13T18:53:00.000-04:00

ROLLING ON DOWN THE ROAD

We are on the road, spending the night in the state of Missouri. Weather's been gotod and the vehicles, and the cat, are behaving! Motel 6 is great for the price and for letting you keep your small pet in your room. They are half the price of other motels and the only thing that you don't get is the coffee maker that makes a lousy cup of java, the teeny weeny bottle of shampoo, and that one step up from the continental breakfast, or is it really a step down. This one is more like the Holiday Inn with HS Internet. We are not getting the 450 miles a day under our belts that we planned, but we've opted for plan B at 300 miles. Hubby's health is still too fragile to try to do more, and my driving has been limited to a 4 mile commute for the last 7 years so I'm finding 300 miles a long haul. Doable, but unpleasant on my legs, although my eyes love it. So much to see in a part of this land that I've never been in before. Sort of like a working vacation. We'll land at our destination in about 2 days. So I probably won't be online again until I'm in my new home with our old connection. We get to keep the same service by putting the old one on vacation status until we get settled. Apparently that will save us time and money. Time will tell.

2006-04-06T20:06:00.000-04:00

PUTTING THE BACK COUNTRY BEHIND US

The day is finally upon us. My Doctor tells me to stay away from stress but I have found that to be impossible lately. Worrying about hubby's health and making sure everything get's packed are quite taxing. And then cobra didn't kick in in time to take care of the excavation of the offending rock so I had to do some juggling to get that paid and now we have to fight the hospital to get them to submit the paperwork to the Insurance provider. They've already been paid so we had to get in their faces in order to get them to do something about it because they were ignoring our calls. I also could not believe that 6 hours in the hospital and a little laser beam could run up a bill of over 8 grand. Heck, we could have taken a European vacation flying first class and staying first class for that kind of dough.

Saturday we hit the road and Thursday we plan to arrive in Ohio. That is barring any quirks of nature that could conceivably create a roadblock. This is my very favourite time of year in Southern California. Winter has finally arrived. Winter here is like summer anywhere else north of the 33rd parallel. Green and fresh and vibrant and very wet! It is a good time to leave. Oh, and the Desert at this time of year. Sheer beauty. It just springs alive! Of course, you have to get down on your belly to see some of the flowers. But it is worth the trip.

Don't forget to check out the full moon on Wednesday or Thursday. Show your children. The Easter Bunny is there with basket in hand waiting to come down to earth and deliver those Easter Eggs. It's there every year at this time, so don't forget to look for those big ears. Enjoy the bounty too!

2006-03-29T21:00:00.000-05:00

Well, we have decided to stick around one more week. Hubby has not quite recuperated enough to make the long journey. They did successfully blast the planet sized rock out of his system but they had to insert a stint to help the remaining particles pass. The stint was just removed, but they still want him on the painkillers for awhile which means no driving. As he drives the moving truck with my car in tow, and I drive the pick up, we've set it all back a week. Maybe winter will actually be over by the time we leave.

Happily, I get to spread the torture of the next two days, making sure that all is packed, labeled and ready for storage, while keeping the daily, weekly and monthly needs readily accessible, over the next nine days. Oh Joy! I am glad this is happenning now. I remember when my parents last moved they were 67. I was on the west coast and couldn't help them. It must have been hell! At least now I know that I will never become one of those pack rat people that your read about. You know, the ones that the rescue squad can't find in time because they have stacks and stacks of magazines all over the place so you feel like you are walking through a maze when you visit. I have learned my lesson at a young(er) age. From now on it's just not going to get saved for any reason. Zilch! Unless it's a book. Can't throw them away. I just may read it again some day. Haven't yet, but I might. The 20 years worth of National Geographics went to the local library. They don't do much other than let some child do some exploring of this world the old fashioned way. The same way that I got my curiosity tweaked and piqued. Did wonders for that! Pictures that speak a thousand words, and easy to read print. Great stuff. Computers are creating a dinosaur there and I am very sad about it.

I never post this late in the day any more. It seems that when I do the spam like comments show up. Oh well. I'm in a time warp right now so I'll have to take my chances.

2006-03-18T15:42:00.000-05:00

2006-03-18T14:17:00.000-05:00

SHORE LEAVE

Well, it's only 2 weeks to this day that we plan on packing up the moving truck and hooking up the car and heading to Ohio! That is the plan anyway. The husband has some hopefully minor surgery to be performed on the 21st where the Doctor will go in with a laser gun and try to blast this rather large kidney stone out beyond the blogosphere. If the laser doesn't take it out then some kind of stint gets placed in an appropriate position, to help the boulder pass naturally with somewhat of a lesser pain than the usual giving birth analogy. He also has had a problem with water retention and his Doctor put him on some diuretics. He lost about 25 lbs of water rapidly and thought that was great. We (me) were watching his sodium intake as the Doctor had requested. I had to nag a bit because he loves eat those processed meats like ham and polish sausage, etc. Next thing I know he is tired all the time. He refused to get out of bed one Friday morning to go to his appointment with the urologist to see about the rock. I managed to talk him into going and rescheduled his appointment for a later time that same day. Come Monday he was really out of it and I drove him to his regular Doctor's. His blood pressure was so low that they sort of panicked and he was told to stop taking the diuretics. I was told to make him drink gatorade, which he hates, to get his electrolytes back up. He is back in fine form now. Man that was scarey. And so we move along.

During the aforementioned 'my husband's fallen asleep and he won't get up' panic, I busy myself with packing and cleaning, cleaning and packing. I took the Murphy Oil Soap to all the kitchen and bathroom cabinets. Then I went over them with some stuff that is called Re Stor and smells like nail polish remover. Brings back memories of why I stopped painting my nails, way before I read that the stuff (polish and remover) was so bad for them. So far I have only done the kitchen cabinets with the Re Stor and they look really good. The smelly stuff works!

Another project that I have been working on is the shredding of documents. There are some things that I hang on to for sentimental reasons and some things for documentation back up purposes. I suppose that once I was Naturalized I didn't need to save things like bank statements, rent receipts, gas and electric bills, etc. etc. I have these things going back to twenty years ago. I am shredding them all. Take my word for it and don't save too much crap! It's never been needed and it's a tedious process to deal with it en masse. Shred as you go. It's much easier to deal with it as it happens. You've got to save those important receipts for things that add to your home equity, like that new garage door or hot water heater, or for things that might break, like the shredder, or things that you might want to take back because you couldn't figure out how to make them work, like that new router:)

Once we are out of here, the painters and carpet layers get to work, and the house goes on the market. We know that is backward to the approach that most people take to moving but we feel that if we get all our stuff out and make the place turnkey it will ultimately sell faster. That is the idea and our Agent is quite okay with it. We trust him to do the best that he can for us and as he is the guy that found us this house in the first place we want him to share in the proceeds.

So any day now this computer will get shut down and packed up and probably won't be back in action for several months. I will suffer a slight withdrawal crawl and then I shall be on the road. We have a laptop too so I may check in from time to time, if we stay at an up to speed hotel. We won't have a connection in Ohio until we buy our new home which will probably be after our old home sells and closes escrow. Unless I manage to take advantage of my exceptionally good college grades and get a good job with good health benefits first.

2006-03-10T19:05:00.000-05:00

I DIDN'T SEE THE OSCARS! ARE THEY RELATED TO THE PIT BULL?

I've been waking up every night at about midnight in a hot/cold sweat with the same song going through my head. Johnny Cash singing "And it burns, burns, burns, that ring of fire, that ring of fire." So I lye awake listening to the rain falling on the roof. It's the kind of thing that doesn't happen often around these parts. I try to do my meditation exercise of slowly putting my body to sleep. I do this almost every night. Have done since I was about 18 when I learned the technique from my friend, Squakenbush. Start at the toe; no it's actually more like start in the toe, and let my whole mind sink into the very essence of what, why, when, and where it is to be my toe. One at a time, telling them to go to sleep, as I slowly work my way through each toe. When I get to my little toe - and believe me, my little toes are extra short - not even half the size of their neighbour toes, when I get to that little toe, I feel the work out that I give them every day. I swear this little toe does the lion's share of keeping me upright and moving all day. They are totally wiped. I can feel the effect of relaxing them going clear up the outside muscles of my calves. Suddenly the mellow turns into nightmare as I hear "I fell into a burning ring of fire, I went down, down, down, and the flames get higher". So much for mind control. Even the self-imposed kind is not working. I decide to enlist the aid of the falling rain and the Beatles. I call to mind "I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in, and stops my mind from wandering, where it will go oh".... "and it burns, burns, burns". Alas, I am doomed. It didn't work. So I try another Beatles number. "When the rain comes, they run and hide their heads, they might as well be dead" This, I am happy to say, actually did the trick, and I fell to sleep until morn.

2006-02-18T11:44:00.000-05:00

SALVATION MOUNTAIN

DOWN BY THE SEA

The Salton Sea, an accidental sea caused by the breaking of the aquaduct that was under construction to bring Colorado river water to the Los Angeles basin back in 1903.

The San Andreas fault line is a crack in the earth's crust that stretches from the eastern edge of the Salton Sea until it heads out into the ocean off the northern coast of California. Salvation Mountain quite possibly sits on top of the start of this notorious and tumultuous line.

Leonard Knight, who used to be a snow shoveler in Vermont, came to this site from the air. His hot air balloon crash landed here. He decided that, because he wasn't dead, it was a sign from God and he should stay. And stay he did! In thanks to his good fortune he decided to create a tribute to his love of God. He worked with the earth around him and turned it into an adobe type mixture so that his mountain has a smooth and solid surface. He added paint and sculpted the adobe into glorious colours and shapes of flowers, hearts, doves, streams and biblical messages. As you travel down the 111 highway you can see it in the distance. A brightly coloured hill in the distance, resembling a giant petits fours! When your curiosity gets to you, you find yourself heading off in that direction. When you arrive Leonard is there to greet you. Paintbrush in hand, he offers up the entire story. He lives in an old trailer that sits at the base of this hill amidst a pile of scrap, including empty paint cans. His paint is constantly being supplied to him by visitors, and I must admit that when I said my Good-byes to this delightful, polite, gentle and eccentric man, I thought that I should one day return with a can of paint and a brush!

These pictures do not do much justice to the spectacle of this place. The mountain covers 5 acres. You can walk to the top with Leonard and receive a beautiful view of the Coachella Valley and the Salton Sea. Environmental groups might see this as very detrimental to the Colorado Desert, and I am amazed that no discord has followed. Perhaps they were fortunate enough to meet Leonard and lost their train of thought. I feel lucky to have made his acquaintance! A treasure to behold!

2006-02-11T10:37:00.000-05:00

NOW AND THEN

YOU STRIKE GOLD!

Tomorrow, the husband and I celebrate our 30th Anniversary. Who'd have thought we would manage to pull this off! Apparently the odds are against us, but we were never normal anyway. We've been through lots of ups and downs, feasts and famines, good times and bad times. Maybe we didn't always agree, but it's all a matter of give and take. You win some, you lose some. That's what marriage is all about. I've got to say I feel like a winner!

When we first met he had a girlfriend and I had a boyfriend. Just acquaintances who met through mutual friends. He and his gal moved to the west coast after dropping off a set of speakers embedded in a barrel as my take of their stuff that they didn't want to move with them. I would spend hours listening to Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, Bob Dylan, Grateful Dead, King Crimson and Emerson Lake and Palmer on those speakers. When friends came over they would double as a chair. Cool stuff!

About 2 years later, I moved out west! We met again while I was visiting and he was no longer entrenched in his previous relationship. As free agents, it didn't take long for the arrow to his us. We have been together ever since and I don't regret a minute of it.

Years ago I wrote a poem about my love. I told him about it, that it was in a box with all those poems that I wrote when I was in the youthful throws of adolescent angst. That he should take a look at it if anything should ever happen to me, but I never showed it to him. Somehow, I feel that he would never look at it if something did happen to me. That he would need to find someone else to go through all my stuff and so it would be lost. That's my adult angst talking! So I will post it here.

To You, the love of my life!

If I should die tomorrow
My love was true sublime
Do not dwell in sorrow
There is no end to time
As there is no real beginning
I shall be there in your mind
Always laughing, always grinning
Always there for you to find.

Without a doubt, you've given me the happiest years of my life, and I am looking forward to many, many more.

2006-02-02T09:12:00.000-05:00

I don't have any space shuttle pictures in my computer but these guys are living dangerously and are incredibly brave as well!

COLUMBIA REMEMBERED

It's been 3 years now since that very sad day. The husband and I were heading east to Desert Hot Springs to visit with the West Coast Snowbird side of the family. As we were cresting the pass in Banning California I noticed a very strange jet trail. It was very curly and lengthy. Not at all like the slip fault way the wind normally breaks up those trails. I was mesmerized! It was so strange.

We arrive at the mobile home park that my cousins stay at every winter when Saskatchewan is too deep in snow and cold for their old bones to put up with anymore. After the usual catch-up talk fest we sit down to a game of Mexican train style Dominoes. We do this every year and look forward to it. When the game is over and the scorekeeper has won (the scorekeeper always wins) we don our swimming trunks and head for the 3 natural hot spring tubs that are the centerpiece of this mobile home park. After a pleasant soak in each of the pools (each one has a different temperature) it's time for dinner. We head off to the little restaurant at the park and partake of the daily specials offered at quite reasonable prices. Then we head back to my cousins for a cup of tea and some of the Date Squares that I brought for our visit. We sit out on the patio and wait for one of the resident road runners to show up for a bite to eat. My cousin is a hunter in the fall and almost always bags a deer. To my surprise the road runners really like to eat venison. I always thought of them as vegetarians!

Time to head home. Back over the hump of the Banning Pass where the San Andreas Fault line squeezes between the San Bernardino and the San Jacinto mountain ranges. We once saw a rocket take off from Vandenburg Air Force base while crossing this pass and we always hope for another treat like that whenever we travel through this area.

The next day is Sunday morning which brings the LA Times to the garage door. I read the news about Columbia. My heart bleeds! What I had thought was a beautiful phenomenon of wind and jet stream turned out to be disaster for seven brave souls and the space shuttle program. I know these seven were aware of the dangers and they were honoured to have been chosen for the journey. Still I am sad! I always wanted to take a ride into outer space. As a kid I used to have this weird fantasy that if I knew I was dying anyway that I wanted to be sent in a spaceship toward the sun. I planned to relay back information as I travelled to the sun for as long as I was able. Now that I have matured I know that instrumentation would do that task much better than I ever could. I am happy that the Space shuttle program has found it's legs again. Those seven astronauts would have wanted it that way! May they rest in peace.

2006-01-29T17:18:00.000-05:00

NERVANA!

It was a normal day. Like any other day I get up, make some coffee, get my cereal prepared, plunk myself down in my lazy girl chair and watch a little news on the telley. Once I'm saturated and revved up, it's time to get ready for work. I climb into a nice hot shower to wash and limber up my muscles so I can do my exercises to ease up the pain and improve the movement in my problem left arm. It has been working so well that I can roll the car window up and down without any pain. I can also reach into the drop box at the Post Office to mail a letter, and pluck the cannister out of the pneumatic tube at the drive through banking center to make a deposit without having to open the car door and stand so that I can get this arm into the proper position to perform these tasks. So to increase the already improved mobility of my left arm I continue with the morning stretches.

On this day fate decides to throw a wrench into my little system. I perform my exercises. Upon completion, I realize that my back is sore. It does not want me to be the homo erectis that is my birthrite. I am crooked. I am in pain. I am praying that this problem is not going to last the 9 months that the left arm disfunction has now ascertained. I am praying that this is not MS. Just an overzealous body wanting to attain nervana. I go to work. I climb the stairs the numerous times that are required to get to and from the Purchasing Office and the shop floor. I carry large catalogs up and down. Everything is bearable except the getting up from a seated or crouched position. That seems to be the most difficult and painful movement. I either push up from the desk or, if I have squatted down to get to that parts catalog on the lower shelf, I climb up my own body by pushing up on my legs to get lift. Man I'm feeling old!

I remember a similar event when I was 25. That would be 29 years ago now. My back went out doing a simple 'lift with the legs' manouver that went askew. I could not stay upright for more than 10 minutes without the need to lay back down again. At the time I thought this must be what it feels like to be old.

I am thankful that this current event is not that bad. It is now day 4 and I am moving better than I was. I am not that old yet. Maybe in my search for nervana, I will find Nirvana!

2006-01-22T16:12:00.000-05:00

This picture is an earlier version of an air mattress. A more portable style.

I 'VE GOT MY
NUMBER!

The husband and I decided to get ourselves a new SLEEP NUMBER BED for Christmas this year. He had been on about them for some time. Every magazine that had the ad, that would be every magazine we receive, and probably every rag in the country, would have him excitedly pointing it out to me. I, of course, would balk at them and mention how it was just a glorified air mattress and that the motor must make a heck of a noise every time you had to pump it up.

We had just got a new bed a couple of years back. A huge California King Pillowtop, that I liked quite well. There was one problem for me though. The pillowtop must be made out of foam rubber. It would get very hot in the summer, and my summers were already filled with enough hot flashes to power up a locomotive! But the roominess was superb.

One day just before Christmas we were at the local giant Ontario Mills Mall to pick up a new pair of eyeglasses from the optometrist. As we weaved our way through the masses of shoppers and passed all the shops trying to lure them in we walked past a Sleep Number bed store. Man, hubby was so excited that I agreed that after we picked up the glasses we would stop in so we could check them out. So after the eyeglass are paid for and adjustments are made to ensure they will not fall off my face, we head on back to the sleep number store.

There were about 6 beds of varying sizes set up. There are the 3000, 4000, 5000, 7000 and 9000 models all available in the usual sizes of twin through California King. So the first one we try out feels quite comfortable and the salesclerk has us each work out controllers to find our numbers. A loud humming vibration ensues. I jump off the bed commenting on how I thought they make a lot of noise. I banter about how he'll be adjusting the thing half a dozen times a night driving me crazy with that loud hum. The salesclerk explains how this is the least expensive model. Okay, here we go. We are led to another mattress, same size as the previous one but a pillowtop. On we go and grab the controllers and the thing is totally quiet! Now my interest is peaked. The settings adjust themselves quite rapidly. Not at all like pumping up the air mattresses that we camp with. Effortless, fast and quiet. It comes with a 30 day try it, like it, or return for a full refund. A money back gaurantee! So we purchase a queen size one for the guest room. It arrives via UPS about 2 weeks later, in 4 giant boxes. Some assembly required! Always fun, never as easy as one expects, but not too difficult either, especially after you actually take the time to read the manual.

So mission accomplished. The seller recommends that you stay with your selected number for 3 days before making any new adjustments. Well, neither one of us paid much attention to that. I set mine for 65 first off as it was nicely flat and firm the way I like it. Hubby at 235 pounds and 6'3" likes his really soft and sets his at 35. I try it for 2 nights, and decide it's too much like sleeping on the side of a mountain with no ledges to level off with, and set my number down to 50. The husband decides that 35 is too difficult to get in and out of because it's like climbing out of a bowl and sets his to 45. I the eternal skeptic cannot believe that it's true, but we are both sleeping incredibly well. I have to admit that it is the best, deepest sleep I have been getting in a long time. And on a queen size! I had to wait until I was sure it was really that good before I posted about it. But when we get moved to Ohio we are going to get one to fill the shoes of the California King bed too.

2006-01-16T21:31:00.000-05:00

EEK!!! I'VE BEEN TAGGED (and I have no idea what I am doing)

4 TYRONIC QUESTIONS OF THE BLOGOSPHERE

4 Jobs that I've had

1. Chambermaid
2. 7-11 Salesclerk
3. Switchboard Operator in a Hospital (very exciting at times)
4. Production Manager of an Embroidery and Silkscreen Printing Factory (my personal favourite - pretty logos, pictures,etc. great artform)

4 Movies I watch over and over again (there is no such a film but I'll give you some favs)

1. Independence Day
2. Men in Black
3. The Princess Bride
4. One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest

4 TV Shows

1. CSI Navy
2. Globe trekker
3. As Time Goes By
4. News

4 Places I've been on vacation

1. Grand Canyon
2. Niagara Falls
3. Mission Control NASA Houston
4. Dubrovnik

4 websites I visit daily (there is not a daily four, too much to do)

1. Steel Turman
2. Mdmhvonpa
3. Erik
4. Pris (Songs to a Midnight Sky)

4 of my favorite foods

1. Salmon
2. East Indian (curries, especially lamb)
3. Middle eastern (falafels, hummus, and tabouleh)
4. Steak (if it is cooked right)

4 Places I'd like to be right now

1. At the health spa having a massage
2. In bed with hubby having a massage
3. On a deluxe first class steam train ride across Australia
4. Pummelling mdmhvonpa with a wet noodle!

4 Bloggers I would tag if I knew how to (links are not my specialty)

1. Steel
2. Pris
3. Katja
4. Kim

2006-01-16T09:03:00.000-05:00

DREAMS CAN COME TRUE

When I was a youngster, I used to get 2 months off from school every summer. My Dad would get the usual 2 week vacation. Every summer we would go stateside. The favourite place was Cape May, New Jersey. Sometimes Rye Beach, New Hampshire and one time Virginia Beach, but usually Cape May. We would stay in a campground and go to the beach daily.

One summer our neighbours at the campground, who had the same last name as ours, became kind of buddy like. They had a daughter my age, about 12, and her father was a policeman from Philadelphia. I would hang about with the daughter and our folks would play cards together.

One day we were having a barbeque together. One of the campers near us was a black family and the head of that family was a Doctor. This policeman said something disparaging about this black man and I got really upset with him. I laced into him about how this man was just as good a citizen as he was; this man was a Doctor who looked out for his fellow man just like you as a Policeman were supposed to do. You weren't supposed to say bad things about people that you didn't even know. That I now had more respect for this Doctor than I did for him. The Policeman was kind of taken aback, and my parents were very quiet. We weren't so buddy buddy after that.

Later, they confided in me that they were very proud of what I had said.

Now I have all kinds of respect for the professional policeman. I have always thought of them as there to help me in times of trouble. I still feel that way. I believe that there motto is "To serve and protect" and I think they mostly do a good job of that. This man just kind of rattled my cage.

We still have a long way to go to realize the dream that Dr. Martin Luther King had. There is inequality all over the place. It is still prevalent in the minds of many people that blacks are inferior, that women are inferior, that latinos are inferior. When will we come to realize that different is not inferior. That different is merely different. There are always two sides to every story and now you have one of mine.

Happy Birthday Dr. King!

2006-01-15T15:31:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone. This is Mary's husband (lucky me) and I've been attempting to get this picture of Mary and her "hot rod lincoln" on her blog for about 30 minutes now. The original was way too big (mb's) so after several manipulations and a little luck (mostly luck) I have managed to get her pic to upload. She's out galavanting around town right now but I'm sure she'll have more information about pic on a later blog. Sorry for the pic quality but it's an old pic. Bye for now, Mary's Hero

2006-01-15T14:08:00.000-05:00

2006-01-07T15:26:00.000-05:00

BITE ME I

I've been wallowing in my latest relapse for about 9 months now. That may not be the correct term for the unending pain in my left arm and perhaps I should just call it an exacerbation. About 6 years ago, before my diagnosis, I had a similar occurrence in my right arm. At the time they called it a Frozen Shoulder, and sent me off to Physical Therapy. They call it therapy. I call it torture! There really wasn't much to this activity. First the problem area is warmed up by a wee bag of pop corn that is warmed up in a microwave to just short of the popping point then it is applied to the aching area. After this warm up you partake of some stretching exercises, which become more intense at each successive visit to the clinic, but really you perform these exercises all by yourself. The staff just cheer you on, or scold you, periodically. After you've gone through your paces you get a massage. Very nice!

Last summer, when I went to my Doctor to complain about the pain in my left arm, I was told there was nothing they could do about it because it was the MS. I guess I am in their bad books because I have refused to endure one of, no make that any of, the CRAB medications. As I told my doctor, I am in my 50's and I have just been diagnosed with MS. If I were 20, 30, or even 40, I would seriously consider taking this line of treatment, but at this stage of my life I am not at all interested in depressing my immune system, or in depressing my life. At 50 something I am not depressed, I am actually a happy person. Crazy, but happy. Being over the hill has it's advantages.

If you follow my blog you might remember my post of Sept. 19, 2005, about electromagnetics and my problem Towncar which is not pictured above. The download process, which connects that particular picture in my computer to this blog, was taking way too long and making me nervous so I cut it off. Of course, because of that car, my current car is devoid of any cushy attributes, i.e., it doesn't have power windows. This has been a further pain in my left arm, as I want to drive with my window down now that the weather has cooled. So I endure the occassional pangs of pain and roll my window down anyway. So, I find myself missing all those bells and whistles, aka, cushy attributes. And my next car may have a few decadent virtues.

By the way, I have been doing my own version of the torture chamber and it is slowly improving the movement in my arm. I do the warm up in my morning shower. Then I get the cane that my husband needed 12 years ago when he had a herniated disk. I use the cane and do repitions to push the arm up, and to pull it back and forth behind me. The only thing I am missing is the massage. Things could be worse. Thank goodness it has never interfered with my ability to type. I know that I am one of the lucky ones. As my Mother used to say "Stubborn as a mule, and strong as a bull. "

BITE ME II

The whole reason that I came up with that heading in the first place was to talk about my self cannibalistic tendencies.

When I moved to Southern California the air was dry and my lips kept drying up. There were these big flaky bits hanging off them. I would succomb to the 'nibble this' siren and make them disappear. I never wore lipstick or any other makeup. As a teen I heard that it was made from pigs fat and that was a turn off. It really tasted awful as well. After a few winters of enduring flaky lips peeling off my face, I discovered that I could handle Blistex and that it does a decent job of keeping them pliable.

There has been a hangnail dangling from one of my fingers for about a week now. It beckons to me. Come on, bite me. Make your finger look pretty again. It has been a lifelong habit. An odd method of grooming I must admit. But I am standing firm in declining the call of the 'nibble this' siren. And I wonder if the process that is causing my own immune system to attack the myelin around my nerves could in any way have been created by this past self cannibalism.

2006-01-02T10:57:00.000-05:00

AULD LANG SYNE

My Mother was born in the Eastern Townships of Quebec in the early 1900's. Her parents were born there as well. Her grandparents were born in the Outer Hebrides off the coast of Scotland.
They came over in the mid 1800's to eke out a living, birth and raise their children. At the time the area was full of Scotsmen. They would pull up all the stone out of the earth, till the soil and build walls and things with all those rocks. Her grandparents went back to the old country to end their days, and leave their remains with the soil from which they came.

My Mother did not learn to speak English until she went to school. Her native tongue was Gaelic. She used to sing me Gaelic songs when I was a little girl. I can only remember some words: Sommalaytha (phoenetic spelling, and I don't know what it means, perhaps something about sleep) and Kayla (pronounced Kay-huh-la) which means doll. It is a very gutteral language reminiscent to me of a Germanic tongue.

By the time I had come along she had lost a lot of her memory of this language, but I wish that I had taken the time to learn what I could of it. It is my understanding that it is an endangered language. I know that all language evolves but it is a shame when it just whithers.

The following is in English and is taken from the Burns Country website:

The 'exceedingly expressive' germphrase has been taced back to an anonymous ballad in the Bannatyne Manuscript of 1568, 'Auld Kyndnes foryett'. The last of the eight stanzas goes:

"They wald me hals with hude and hatt,
Quhyle I wes rich and had anewch,
About me friends anew I gatt,
Rycht blythlie on me they lewch;
But now they mak it wondir tewch,
And lattis me stand befoir the yett;
Thairfoir this warld is very frewch,
And auld kyndnes is quyt foryett."

From that anonymous old poet's complaint of man's ingratitude, we move on to a slightly later ballad, probably by the courtly poet Sir Robert Ayton (1570-1638) who accompanied James VI and I to England, though sometimes attributed on little evidence to Francis Sempill of Beltrees (d. 1683?). First published in Watson's Choice Collection of Scots Poems, 1711, the anthology upon which the whole of the 18th Century Scots Revival was based, Ayton's poem begins:

"Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never thought upon,
The flames of love extinguished,
And freely past and gone?
Is thy kind heart now grown so cold
In that loving breast of thine,
That thou canst never once reflect
On old-long-syne?

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne.

Personally, I like to remember the past. I think that it is good to remember what went before. It is good to learn from the past, especially what we know to be our mistakes. Yes we should remember. Just don't dwell in it!

Happy New Year!

2005-12-18T14:49:00.000-05:00

ABOU BEN ADAM

Abou ben Adam (may his tribe increase!)
awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight of his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
an angel, writing in a book of of gold.
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adam bold,
And to the Prescence in the room he said:
"What writest thou?" The vision raised its head,
And, with a look made of all sweet accord,
Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord."
"And is mine one?"said Abou, "Nay, not so,"
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerily still, and said, "I pray thee, then,
Write me as one who loves his fellow men."
The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again, with a great awakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blest,
And lo! Ben adam's name led all the rest.

- Leigh Hunt

(1784 - 1859)

2005-12-18T13:16:00.000-05:00

Twas the week before Christmas and all through the house not a creature was stirring except for a cat and a mouse.

My American Legion's Annual Children's Christmas Party. This Santa arrived on the back of a Fire Truck. As Sargeant-At-Arms it was my job to keep the children in line.

There is a trunk that we keep our Christmas decorations in. It is a large metal one that stays out in the garage until this time of year. I have been lugging this trunk around since it was given to me in 1969. It carries more than lights, bulbs and ornaments. It is loaded with memories which come to the surface as I open it up to decorate our little plastic tree. This trunk was to carry my belongings out west to the Banff Springs Hotel. I had obtained a summer job there that would last until University started again in the fall. At the time the hotel was only opened for the summer. Students came from all over Canada, first to clean it, then to open it up and help it operate smoothly. It was a grand hotel. I was a chamber maid who lived in a dorm with about 30 other chamber maids up on the 13th floor. We had our own cots and the trunk sat at the foot of mine. I worked from 8:00am to 4:00pm, five days a week, and then we each had to put in an evening shift from 6:00pm to 10:00pm one night each week.

The town of Banff sits at an elevation of 5,000 feet or so. I don't know if it was the altitude, or the attitude of being without parental supervision, but I had a tremendous amount of energy. Even after spending the day making beds, vacuuminig carpets, emptying trash, cleaning out bathtubs (some still full of water - yuck) sinks and toilets, when the evening came along I was raring to go! My best new friend, Squakinbush, was a waitress in the dining room (she got more in tips than I made in a day) and when her shift was done we would walk the mile to town. There was a folk cafe (no alcohol) that operated out of a church basement. We would go there and listen to the Dylan wannabees (both the poet and the singer). I met a guy there who was just travelling through on a summer's adventure. He and some friends were camped about 5 miles out of town on the Bow River. He invited me to visit there camp. So on my next day off they gave me a ride out there in an old GMC truck/van. The river was off the road a ways and we hiked on down there. I was treated to a barbeque lunch and some guitar and jaws harp playing. Unfortunately, it was my night to work so I had to get back to town. To my disappointment there was no offer of a ride back and of course as an independent cuss I didn't ask for one. So I commense to walking. A car passes and I think about sticking out my thumb but decide that is too dangerous because I am alone. Another car goes by and the same thoughts run through my mind. About 5 minutes after that car passes me I am confronted by an animal in the road ahead of me. It's a wolf and it is standing there in the middle of the road between me and my hotel. We stand there staring at one another like a showdown between gunfighters in the middle of town. Except I am not in my element here. I'm a city girl. Up till this moment my idea of wild life is the dirty old man whipping open his trench coat as I walk down the street. This is a whole new world! This face off lasted a few minutes when the wolf jumps back off the road and into the forest. Now I have a choice I can backtrack the short distance to the campsite in the hopes that I can find it again, or keep heading to town. I figure there is a good chance that I wouldn't find the campsite because it was off the road, so I march forward past the spot where the wolf dove into the woods. I realize that this is bear country and Yogi and Boo Boo are not of this world after all. I am extremely nervous and am now actually praying that another car would come along so I can beg a ride. I find myself a really big stick and carry this with me down the road as my eyes dart back and forth left and right. It took forever to finally get back to the hotel. Time was moving on a different plane for me on that day. I was so very pumped to boot. I found Sqaukinbush and let my adrenaline pour out on her pour little ears. Soon I was back down to earth. The next night we were heading off to town again. Back to the little Coffee house for some R and R. We have to cross a little bridge to get to that part of town and as we are doing so, a rather large gray and white dog comes charging across the bridge bounding right by us. It comes to me that that was a wolf! What I had seen the day before was actually a coyote. City girl gets an education!

This little adventure replayed through my mind as I'm decorating the tree. Trees in a forest full of bears, wolves and coyotes.

2005-12-11T11:14:00.000-05:00

SAYONARA RICHARD PRYOR

You made this Honkey laugh, and even though your Jennifer says you left with a smile on your face, you made this Honkey sad.

Rest in peace!

2005-12-10T13:00:00.000-05:00

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

When I was in high school one of my favourite subjects was geometry. My instructor, Mr. Horsnall, used to always give us our homework assignment about 10 minutes before the end of class. I would always manage to get all the problems solved, but one (out of ten) before class was let out. I wanted to get them all done before time was up, because then I would not have to lug the books home. It was a 3 mile trek to home and there were other subjects that I was not so proficient in that required actual homework on my part. So volumes were hauled, at first in a loose stack, then eventually, in a vinyl case that zippered around 3 sides.

The first thing to occur when arriving home was the snack. Something to tied me over until supper. Then I would take command of the dining room table and commence to being studious. It was all mine until the dinner hour when it was my job to set the places. My eldest brother and sister were already out on their own: my brother, in the Air Force in Baden Baden, Germany, and my sister, married with children. So it was usually just me, my other brother, Mom and Dad. I know we all say this, but my Mom was the greatest cook in all the world! Oh how I miss her cooking. I try and try but cannot duplicate the taste, but I must admit, after 35 years I am getting closer. Anyhow, I digress.

All my homework would be done but that one geometry problem. At bedtime, I would first sit in my window and stare up at and ponder the Universe. Then I would reread the unyeilding deduction before turning out the light. When I awoke in the morning the problem would be solved. Written on the notepad that I always kept by my bedside. The amazing thing was that it was always written in my writing, along with a poem or two, or perhaps a dream, that I would never remember writing in the night. The methods of deduction must have sunk in though, because at final examination time, I managed to get 96 out of 100, and I didn't have to sleep through the test to do it.

Well, it's only taken me 5 months of this blogging thing and I actually managed to get my blinking linking ability engaged. It was only my third, or fourth attempt to make it work but, by Jove, I think I've got it! I will be adding more to this link list once I'm am sure it is for real!

2005-12-04T17:01:00.000-05:00

TRAVELLING WHEELS OF FORTUNE

My very first set of wheels, pictured left, and I had absolutely no control over where they took me. Suffice to say that I believe I enjoyed every minute of being pushed around in it! This picture was taken outside the apartment that we lived in at the time of my birth. The street was named Begin.

The next vehicle was one that I managed to power myself. A tricycle. I don't have a physical picture of it but I do have one in my mind. It toured my neighbourhood on a regular basis. By this time we were out in the burbs. There was a nearby highway that connected Montreal to Toronto. One day I decided to take my wheels down to the shopping mall. The only way that I knew to get there was via this highway. So that is exactly what I do. I did have sense enough to stay on the shoulder and I make it all the way to Steinberg's, the grocery store. I liked it there, because when you got your shopping done and went through the checkout they would purvey your bags or boxes out to an area where you could drive up to it and they would load your booty into the trunk. This elaborate delivery system consisted of a line of metal rolling pin like devices that would spin as the objects moved along it. Utterly fascinating. Of course, I had no money. I was just there to watch. The next thing I know, a policeman arrives and loads me and my tricycle into his policecar, and carts me off to my house. It was a small world back then. Things were simple. The reprimand was loud and clear. My little mind however, immediately went to work on imprinting another route to the mall.

We move out of the burbs and back to the city, because my Dad did not like the long commute. This is where I get a new set of wheels for my 5th birthday. Two wheels which require a great deal of effort to keep upright when your feet are off the ground. Never the less, the task gets mastered. From that moment on I was a bicycle rider, clear up until I started going to University. Somehow it seemed to childish to be 17 and on a bike. However about 6 years later I had moved to Toronto and was working at a hospital. The Transit system emplyees go on strike. I buy myself a bicycle so that I can get myself to work everyday. Works out beautifully. So I stay with the bicycle, move out west and discover the mountain bike. Love at first ride. The supreme adventure. This bike moves to California with me, where I would ride it for hours each day because I was not working on anything but dealing with the INS. There were so many reports of people being hit by automobiles out here that I had to stop. It was a regular occurrence. Drunks don't drive very well and they sure as Hades don't stop. From then on in it was a matter of loading our bikes into the van and going to the beach or a State Park in order to get some riding in. The frequency dropped to about once a week, then once every 2 weeks, then once a month, then not much at all, then not at all. And then it hit me.

MS

Some part of me says that all that exercise, of which bicycle riding was a part, helped to keep the monster at bay.

I just gave my mountain bike away to my neighbour, and I am sad about the parting. It is like losing a limb, or something. I guess that is not a good analogy because I have never lost a limb, and I would not want to insult any one who has, but it creates an ache. As for the recycle, I hope she enjoys the bike even half as much as I did.

2005-11-24T14:06:00.000-05:00

THANKSGIVING, A TIME TO GIVE THANKS!

It was 21 years ago in British Columbia. It was raining. It was always raining! Of course, that never stopped us from doing anything that we wanted to do, so we went camping with friends. There were some beautiful, natural hot springs located 50 miles north and west of Pemberton, BC. All told about 200 miles north of our home in Vancouver. The highway to our little known camp followed the Lillouette River about 30 miles where it turns into a dirt road, then we branch off at another dirt road that follows Meager Creek. We cross several old wooden bridges and arrive at a wide spot that will be used as our parking lot. The hot springs and camping area are below this parking lot, down in a ravine by the creek. This is not an official government or privately run campground. It is actually a logging camp created for picnics, etc. There are some picnic tables and outhouses. The hot flowing springs have areas that are boarded up to create warm and hot pools. It is not raining here, in fact it is glorious weather. We set up our tents and commence to eating, drinking, soaking in the pools under the starry night sky, and in general, making merry. The pools were warm and cozy, the effect was refreshing and relaxing, both at the same time. Our friend suggested that we walk about a mile up the road the next day to go and see the glacier that feeds this meager creek.

I don't remember crawling into our little tent, but I do remember waking up the next morning completely soaked. There was a little rivulet running right through our tent. Now I love geology but we never thought about the lay of the land when setting up this tent. This was the last time we did not pay attention to this detail. Being drenched we hiked up to the parking lot to get into some dry clothes in the van. I left the husband, still climging into his clothes, to go make a pot of coffee and bring him back a warm mug. As I am walking down the road to get to the path that leads down to the river, I hear a cracking sound. I am used to life in the mountains and suspect a landslide. I look up and down the valley we are nestled in, while scanning the mountainsides looking for moving trees. I see no movement and tell myself that I am being paranoid and hearing things. So I head on down to the campsite. The coffee is not ready yet but my husband appears. He tells us a story that we cannot believe. He was half into his trousers when the van started shaking. There was so much moisture on the windows that he couldn't see out. He thought we were playing a trick on him. Then the van started moving! He wiped the window and saw that he was surrounded by water, trees and very large boulders, all moving swiftly around him. The van had rotated so that it was pointing down the hill. He jumped into the drivers seat, started it up and threw it into reverse. If it didn't move he was going to have to pick another strategy, but he was lucky and he managed to drive it back up the hill and onto dry ground above this deluge. This new river destroyed the very road that took us back to civilization. It had cut a channel right through it. But that very same road had saved all us campers. It had been banked just right. Whether that was by design or not, I don't know, but it diverted this new river away from the campground about 100 feet below. Many of the vehicles in the parking lot were now in various positions (upside down, sideways, in trees) much further downstream. We were stranded! I was happy that I had brought a giant can of Boston Baked Beans, even though it was intended to be a joke! I was very happy that I had decided not to linger on that road looking for the source of that cracking sound!

About two hours after this encounter with Mother Nature a helicopter approached and a couple of hard hatted Search and Rescue heroes dropped down and told us we had to get out of there now. We learned from them about the glacier falling apart and how a large chunk of it had landed in the creek, causing the water to divert into new rivers. It was also having a damming effect and we didn't want to be there when it blew! We were instructed to hike about two miles down the road, where there were buses parked and ready to take us back to Pemberton. I had never had to ford a river before in my life. That morning I crossed four! We made it to the buses that took us to Pemberton, where we were put on a train to take us back to Vancouver.

The next day we found out that a large part of Pemberton was under ten feet of water! We felt so bad. The town that so promptly rescued us was now in need. My husband went right back up there to lend them a hand. He stayed about two weeks. Shovelling hay and mud, scrubbing anything and everything, doing what had to be done. The insurance company (run by the provincial government) decided to airlift any vehicles out that were movable. Winter was encroaching and the bridges were washed out. If you had comprehensive coverage you were okay, and if you did not (we didn't) you were going to have to pay about $500/hr for the lift. We got a call later from the ICBC to say that my husband had created such a good name for himself in Pemberton that they weren't going to charge for the airlift of the van that had our gear in it. You see, it wasn't our van, it was our friend's van. That was very nice too!

So I give thanks today, to God's Good Earth, and to the Grace of Man.

2005-11-14T09:14:00.000-05:00

ON A GRAND SCALE

We've all heard the line, "When I was in school I had to walk ___ miles to get there". It was a way our elders had to tell us how easy we were having it. Well, my journey was about 3 miles. Down hill going, up hill back home. Sometimes I would ride the skate board that my Dad made for me out of an old pair of roller skates that my sister didn't use any more, and carry it back home. Mostly I walked it. Down Cote St. Antoinne Blvd. and by Murray Hill Park, winding my way into the flatlands and on down to the ledge that the school was built on overlooking the St. Lawrence River.

I had just started High School. I was 12 years old and very excited. They had put me in the music class, which was reserved for kids with an ear as well as a scholastic aptitude. I had a bit of musical training in the way of 1 year of piano lessons (I will always regret not having done more, but it was my choice to opt out) and 1 year of recorder. I wanted to be in the strings section. The violin made such beautiful sounds. They put me in the wind section. Once there I wanted to play the saxaphone, I already loved Jazz (thanks to Peter Gunn). They gave me a french horn. I stuck it out for about 6 weeks, always begging for the saxe. Then I asked to transfer out.

So I ended up in a singing class! Coming from a family of crooners, I did enjoy that form of music making. Although I don't think I sing very well, it was passable and pleasureable. One of the songs that I learned to sing was "Fair Cuba" the cuban national anthem with English wording. It was 7 months after the Bay of Pigs. It was a beautiful song.

Fair Cuba
Sits enthroned in an ocean of light
Where the dawn comes in splendor
And the stars in the night
Shine with radiance bright
Shine with radiance bright

Enchanting
Are her fields and her forests of green
And the beauty they lend her
Oh fair Cuba tis thee
Land of flowers and of trees
Land of flowers and of trees

Those are just some of the lyrics. I remember it well because it was so beautiful.

Not long after learning that song President John F Kennedy went to Dallas, TX, where he met with a fateful end. Everyone was in shock, even in Canada. That school, that taught me how to sing the Cuban National Anthem, flew their flag at half mass until the President was buried.

2005-11-08T09:12:00.000-05:00

WATER WORLD

When I was 7 years old, I joined the YMCA. Yes, I was a girl! It was about a mile from the house and just up the street from my school. It was a place to go swimming (so I didn't have to wait for summer picnics to roll around)!

That same year I had taken ballet in school. I wasn't very good at it. One needs to be graceful to be a ballerina, and graceful I was not! But put me in the water and watch out, I joined the Water Ballerinas. We would dance in the water, doing twirls and dives, swimming underwater and on the top. Some of you might remember TV shows like Jackie Gleason and the dancing girls who performed with the camera looking down upon them from above. It gave a wonderful kaleidescope like effect. I felt like we looked like that when we were dancing in the water.

The Y had a banquet that year and I was invited to dine at the head table. Apparently, I was the youngest member to ever join. I had to give a (little nervous speech) about why I joined the Y. My whole family attended. They were proud as punch and so was I.

Years later I was still a member of the Y. After school (high school) and on Saturdays I would head over there to train on their swim team as a racer. I was built the right way for it. Kind of triangular shaped, broad shoulders (no pun intended) and narrow hips. 40 laps a day was the routine. 10 laps doing the crawl, 10 laps doing the breast stroke, 10 laps with our hands tied and another 10 with our feet tied (never were both the hands and feet tied at the same time!). The side stroke and back stroke would occassionally be thrown in there also. We learned to do the turn as you reached the end of the pool and our dive into the pool was perfected for maximum speed and minimum drag. The training I loved. The actual racing, I hated! I have no desire to beat the other guy. Now, if I could have raced against my brothers, that would be another story. For some reason I was always trying to outdo them! One was 11 years older than me, and the other, 5. Sibling rivalry, you think?

Later, after attaining a quasi-adult status, I started smoking. A habit which had no basis in the mature thoughts of a quasi-adult mind, but in the tumultuous thoughts of a latent teenager who had just been dumped. But I still went to the swimming pool to do my laps. And as a smoker, that first cigarette after a swim tasted so weird! It tasted awful. Of course, that is not enough to deter an avid rebellious quasi-adult/latent teenage smoker. But the mind gets to working, sometimes whether you want it to or not, and I knew that it was the chlorine in the pool that was ruining the taste of that rebel fag (fag as in cigarette, not fag as in queer). And so my fear of chlorinated swimming pools began to foster. My fear of cigarettes began before I started smoking. That chlorine was getting into my skin, into my tastebuds, into my body and I was not happy about that. So I quit swimming in those cemented swimming pools. I stuck to lakes, rivers and oceans after that. It was much easier to quit those swimming pools that it was to quit those cigarettes, but eventually I quit that too.

2005-10-31T09:35:00.000-05:00

HAPPY
HALLOWEEN

2005-10-31T09:08:00.000-05:00

RIM OF FIRE

It was two years ago that Southern California was burning. This is a shot of the "Olds Fire". It came roaring across a 20 mile stretch of the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains in one night. This particular fire took out hundreds of homes. It was raining ash for days.

There were other fires burning all across the southland. My cousins in San Diego were evacuated. They were lucky because the "Pines Fire" did not quite make it to their home. In all, thousands of homes were destroyed. I love those mountains, but at the time, I was glad to be a flatlander.

Mother Nature throws everything at us. Earth, Wind, Fire and Water. The resilience of man shows up in the ability to pick up the pieces and rebuild, or in some cases move on.

2005-10-24T20:45:00.000-04:00

MY FAVOURITE UNCLES

When I was growing up, I had two favourite uncles, amongst several wonderful uncles. One was my father's brother, and one was my mother's brother. Both were veteran's of the second World War, and both were quite the characters. They had a knack for making me laugh.

Number One Uncle was a victim of what they called "shell shock". It seemed that he went off the deep end, the full details of which I was never privy to. I wasn't born until after this war, so when I first got to know him he was in a sanitorium just outside of Montreal. I remember when we would go out there to visit with him we would pass by the Lachine Rapids. This is how young I was. My mother would say "Look, see the rabbits", and I would see those white rabbits out there in the water, thinking that they must be hanging out on the rocks out there.

They gave my favourite uncle a lobotomy! Cut a nerve in the front of his brain that dissected the right lobe from the left. This was information that I was allowed to have, and even at that time I thought it was horrid. But, it got my uncle his freedom again, and for that I was happy. He went home to live with Grammy and Grandpy. They lived 500 miles away, in the Maritimes. Granpy died shortly thereafter, I don't think there was any relationship between my uncle's return and my Granpy's stroke but you never know. I remember visiting when he was bedridden, and I know he was happy to see me, and I was happy to see him. It was deemed however that I was too young to attend the funeral. He departed this world on Christmas Eve. My uncle looked after Grammy. He worked at the local hardware store and would take her to Church every Sunday. He could play the piano like he had years of training but it was all in his head. You could hum a tune to him and he would start playing it with all 10 fingers called into action creating cords and all. When he finished playing, it would be time for dinner. He would have the same stories to tell. Everyone else would be telling him to be quiet, but I would just sit there listening in total rapture. His stories were always the same with a few subtle variations. He was the bastard son of King George the VI, banished to the M(ouse) family was a recurring theme. Occassionally, he was the bastard son of Franklin D. Roosevelt, but that one was rare. He used to write letters to the Royal Family complaining about what they had done to him. When he wrote to the President with similar complaints, he became a person non grata at the border. This did not last long though, all the border guards knew him. His sister, my aunt, married an American (a large number of the women in my family marry Americans :) so he was a frequent guest. Another favourite theme was how he would sit on satellites. He would talk to aliens while sitting on these satellites looking back at the earth. What was amazing was that this story started long before there were 1000's of them up there! He let me, as a 14 year old, drive his 1965 Chrysler Newport across the world's longest covered wooden bridge. He let me take it up to 105mph on the transcanada highway while he and another of my crazy uncles sat in the backseat. I let off on the gas some, when I felt the wheels leave the earth. My best friend was in the front seat and we all had a hoot! He was insane, and I loved him for it. For a long time I thought that this lobotomy had caused him to be permanently insane, but then came the 70's. Drugs were everywhere, and they had them for schizophrenics too. Voila, my uncle was normal after all. It was kind of depressing, while at the same time wonderful. He is still playing the piano!

My mother's brother was the boyfriend of my mom's best friend. They were expected to get married. My uncle went off to war. Came back when it was all over to find my mom's best friend married to another man. So when the Korean war started he came stateside, and enlisted. It had to be better than being miserable in Canada, eh? When that war was over he stayed in Vermont. He became an antique collector, something he sort of got into over in Korea. I remember he had a really nice old Model T. It was just one step up from riding a horse, and lots of fun. He went back to Canada around retirement time, but he didn't retire. He would travel around all the old farmsteads in the Eastern Townships and offer to clean out their barns and sheds. The antique business carried on. My mom's best friend (they remained close) became a widow, and after a time she started in after my uncle. Pursued him relentlessly. Well, he finally caved in, and married her. He was 65 and finally happy. Life is good!

2005-10-16T19:48:00.000-04:00

THEN IT HIT ME

The year at school when the first bomb went off turned out to be one of the sickest years on record for me. I still have all my report cards, which is another kind of sickness. Maybe it was psychosomatic, due to the fear now associated with my potentially lethal education. I believe that I had a much bigger fear than that though. As in "Daddy, why don't we have a bomb shelter built in the basement?" kind of fear. The Bay of Pigs hadn't happenned yet, but back then everybody was acutely aware of the impending possibility of instant obliteration. Bombs in mailboxes were small potatoes in comparison. That greater fear was probably one of the greatest lead ins to the "Make Love, Not War" school of thought. Anyway that is for a future blog, maybe.

I got the chicken pox, a most unpleasant condition. This attack of the varicella-zoster virus confers a lifelong immunity (good!) but remains dormant within nerve tissues and may cause herpes zoster, aka shingles, later in life (bad!). Also came the German measles, aka rubella. This was really no big deal physically, except that I was too sick, or should I say contagious, to go and spend the weekend with my cousins in the Eastern Townships. It was more of an emotional blow which was also easy to get over.

The worst of it all was the tonsillitus. The doctor would come, give me some penicillin and some sulfur stuff to ingest. My Mom would have to hide these pills inside of mashed bananas because I could not put a pill in my mouth and swallow it. I had some kind of mental black about that. Even used to chew aspirin which I loved the taste of. Anyway, the tonsillitus would go away and then it would come back a few weeks later. The doctor, still making house calls, would dutifully dole out the same medicine but try other ways to get it inside me. Like needles. Ouch! Everybody was telling me that I needed to have my tonsils removed, but I was having nothing of it. "God gave me these tonsils for a reason and I'm keeping them!" was my response.

All in all, I was absent 20 days from school that year. But I do remember it as a good year. I was in a new school, with new friends. My Mother let me have a hallowe'en party that year. I invited all my new friends and other neighbourhood pals. I got dressed up in a rather strange costume for it, sort of a 'princess meets chipmunk' outfit (see photo). I went out the back door when people started to show up and I walked around the block, rang the doorbell, and arrived at the party. We were all sitting around the living room and every one kept saying "Where's Mary". I had to keep quiet because my voice would be a dead giveaway. My voice has something to do with the nickname "Mouse". My Mom kept saying " Oh, she's around here somewhere." But I had to give up the ghost soon enough. Even a mouse can only keep quiet for so long.

2005-10-10T09:18:00.000-04:00

IT ONLY TAKES A FEW

The first bomb went off outside my elementary school when I was 11 years old. The terrorists phoned someone and told them about a bomb being placed in a mail box one block away from the school that I attended. We only knew that they would not let us go home for lunch which was the normal place for lunch way back then. We sat in our classroom, wondering, anxious, starving and waiting to go to lunch. Then KABOOM!!! About an hour after that, we were allowed to head home.

The FLQ (Federation pour la Liberation du Quebec) were upset because they were living in a province that was 80% french speaking but the economic power was held by the 20% that were english speaking. I was one of the "Mon Dieu Anglaise" even as an 11 year old in the 6th grade.
These bombs and some bogus bomb threats continued to follow me throughout my high school years. Always placed in mail boxes and across the street from the school. You see I was lucky enough to go to Westmount High School in the city of Westmount. It served an area where the upper crust lived. I did not come from the upper crust, but this school was the closest to where I lived at a mere 3 miles away. I did not go home for lunch while attending this school, and for 5 years straight I ate a lot of Peanut Butter sandwiches. Our most famous student would have to have been William Shatner, aka, Captain Kirk. He was long gone on to Hollywood by the time I got to high school. We got so used to the bomb scares that it became routine. Every Wednesday afternoon we would just go home at lunch time because there was going to be a bomb scare event. It happened every Wednesday like clockwork so I am certain it was a student taking advantage of the situation.

Back then it could be said that these were "gentlemen terrorists". They always phoned in a warning first. There was only one death due to these bomb threats that I can remember. That very first one detonated while a man was trying to disarm the thing. After that the bomb squad got much better at their trade.

This part of my life comes to mind only because of the recent devastating earthquake in Pakistan. It is so easy for us all to readily blame an entire people's for the actions of a few. We hold such great grudges, like the Hatfield's and the McCoys. We believe Usama is hiding out somewhere over there and that people over there have been harboring him and holding dear his intentions. But we cannot and we should not blame them all, and I am happy to see that we are over there to lend a helping hand.

I pray to God that Usama and his cohorts have been dealt with and are finally laid to rest.

2005-10-03T21:17:00.000-04:00

This is one of the Fire Lookout Towers called Black Mountain. We are preparing it for a new season of action packed staring at the beautiful San Bernardino National Forest. Just to the west of it lies the flat lands of hustle and bustle where most of us live. Just to the east of it rests the nearly 11,000' peak called San Jacinto, with the Pacific Crest Trail (which stretches from Mexico to Alaska) nestled in between. To the north lies San Gorgonio, the snow covered peak in the photo on the right. To the south lies the pleasant little town of Idyllwild. A place to reward yourself with a slice of pie after a tough day of admiring the sun moving across the nooks and crannies of mother nature's finest.

The thrill of actually spotting a smoke is something else. We discovered one that was started by a hiker on the Pacific Crest Trail. Somehow a pack of matches that he was carrying in his knapsack caught fire. So of course he threw the sack off his back and it landed on the ground (I would have done the same thing) but it started a fire. The forest service took the entire day to put out that fire. It was amazing to watch from our eagles' nest. Fortunately the hiker was okay. When the fire was finally extinguished a small plane headed straight for the tower we were manning. It was actually below the cab that we sit in. As the plane got closer it started dipping it's wings first to the left, then to the right, over and over again. We were being waved at by an airplane. What a great feeling!
This is the first year since 1999 that I have not done this service. It is not a hard thing to do. It is really a piece of cake. But you have to be able to climb 20' of stairs that are situated at an elevation of 8,000'. So you must be fit.

2005-10-03T09:30:00.000-04:00

FIRE LOOKOUT

When I first came to Southern California I was in awe. Then I was in shock! Culture shock! It was arrid where we lived. And oh so hot. The husband (I have to get that in there because I have heard "the wife" so many times) would take me up into the mountains to ease my homesickness. There were trees and visible running waters up there. Going up in altitude was akin to going up in latitude. It would relax me. The pace in the flatlands was full throttle, all the time, 24 hours a day.

One time when we were exploring in the San Jacinto Mountains our hike took us to a structure on the top of a peak. It was a Fire Lookout Tower. It was shut down so we could not even get a look inside. Years later we read about a program in the local newspaper that was looking for volunteers to staff Fire Lookout Towers in the San Bernardino Forest. We decided that it sounded like our cup of tea and enlisted. We went through some serious training to learn the rules and the operation of the equipment. The Forest Service operates with a military like regimen.

The lookout towers used to be plentiful in California and in fact all across the USA. They were mostly shut down in the 80's because satellites could do the job. By the time the mid 90's came around the Forest Service was proposing to raze these structures to the ground. Most of them were quite delapidated and dangerous by this time. A group of people in the Inland Empire (western San Bernardino and Riverside counties) got together and proposed to save these structures. They got them declared as Historical Buildings. They were refurbished one by one in the manner required to have the status historical. After we got our training we were allowed to man the towers. At the point that we joined up there were 8 towers.

We were called Fire Lookout Hosts, because these buildings were allowed to be open to the public. They belonged in fact to the people. We would watch for smoke. It was a room with a view. 360 degrees of windows that we had to keep clean. We had ancient devices called Osbournes (may be related to Ozzie, I don't know) big wheels with sights and markings which were used to give the forest service a line on the smoke report. Most often another tower could give a reading on the smoke and a triangulation thing would pinpoint the fire. We were allowed to spend the night in the tower as long as we registered and had been duty that day or would be on duty the following day. It was glorious. More later.

2005-09-24T21:06:00.000-04:00

This is a picture of my Father and the biggest fish he ever caught. It won him the prize at the Lake Ontario Walleye Fishing Contest back in 1994, 2 days before his 79th birthday. He was a happy camper that day.

2005-09-24T20:15:00.000-04:00

HOOK, BAIT AND SINKER

Okay I'm not quite done with the worms yet but I am going to lay them to rest.

My Father belonged to a fishing club. A group of guys who all went in, kind of time share like, on some land with 3 lakes on it. It was nestled in the middle of nowhere near a place north of Montreal called Mont Tremblant. They had a big log lodge built on a point that separated 2 of the lakes. It was an immense thing with a top floor that was one huge dorm style bedroom filled with single beds/cots. Downstairs was the kitchen, a dining room, a lounge and a game room. Once the fishing day was done the drinking and poker games took over. They hired a couple to look after the grounds, etc. and keep the place stocked and of course do the cooking. There were about 100 of them and it cost them each $100.00 canadian a year for their membership dues. It was so well liked by these men that one could only get in when another one died. You could say they were life members!

Every one would have a meeting and hash out (book) their week and/or weekends when they would have their lodge time. There was a rule that no one was allowed to break. NO WOMEN OR CHILDREN ALLOWED except during the month of August! So my Dad would get a week when he and his buddies (other members) and my brothers had the lodge, then he would book another week when we women could go. I looked forward to it every year. This place was fabulous!

I learned to fish. This entailed taking a wriggly earthworm and affixing it to a hook. I was a little squeamish about this (not as much as the worm was) but got the deed done. Of course I never caught a fish until I became a teenager, but I got in lots of practice. The best part was being out on the lakes in a motor boat (small 5HP engine) and exploring. There were beaver, bear and moose along the shores. This was Canada! This was the North! This was the middle of nowhere! (I forgot to mention that the only way to get to the fishin' lodge was by boat.)

We kids had more to do than just fish and explore. There was a dock that we could swim off of. The water was not shallow, so there was a little ladder to get back onto the dock. The water there was covered in spiders. Water spiders. They actually walk on the water. They weren't too small either so it was kind of intimidating when just your head is level with the top of the water and these arachnids are waltzing around in front of you. Luckily, no I think they knew what they were doing, they always got out of the way. There was also a big wooden box on the platform. It held salt, massive quantities of salt, and a scoop. You'd wonder why they would need all that salt. It wasn't winter - it was only August - winter was next month. But you knew what it was for the minute you crawled out of the water and your body was covered in these squirmy, writhing little things that looked like chicken livers!. You knew what it was for when you realized that you could not pull these little creatures off your body. You knew what it was for when your father laughs at your attempts to rid yourself of these little suckers and shows you how to take the scooper of salt and remove the critters one by one. Leeches, an ancient form of medical wonder, lurking in the deep dark waters of northern Quebec.

Fascinating place. My love of this world we live in was further enhanced by this place that I will never forget.

2005-09-19T09:10:00.000-04:00

ElectroMagnetics

Am I the only one who drains the life out of batteries? I can't seem to wear a watch for more than one or two months before the battery needs replacing. They just go kaput on me. It was so annoying that I quit wearing one. Even a Timex would frequently say Time Out.

Another thing that bugs me is static electricity. I cannot touch, no make that get close to anything metal without that little bolt of lightening leaping across the airwaves to find me. All those metal filing cabinets at work are a source of constant dread to me. I keep my keys in my pocket so that if I must get into a drawer I grab a key and approach the metal and watch the little lightening bolt leap to it. That way the shock that I get is greatly reduced. Still it is a scary thing. Especially if the keys are not in my pocket. My hand will reach for the cabinet, and pull back over and over again, until I get the courage to just bite the bullet and do it. When I have to open something that is wrapped in plastic, watch out. The plastic will cling to me. I can move the stuff from hand to hand without actually doing anything but let the one hand get close to the other. Sometimes this can interfere with my work as I must experiment with it because I feel that there is a point where if I keep my hands at the correct distance from one another I could suspend the plastic in space and time. Alas, the only thing that I suspend is work time, but there are those times when the experiment is more facsinating than the work.

The car I had before this one had electrical problems too. It was an 1984 Lincoln towncar which I got in 1995. My former boss was the previous owner. It had all the bells and whistles that a luxury car should have. It would not start for me on a regular basis. I would have to pop open the hood and jiggle the wires and eventually the beast would start again. It also got frequent trips to the mechanics to try to troubleshoot the problem but I never got any satisfaction out of that. Then one time the car decided to die right at an intersection where I was waiting to make a left turn. It would not start. I was on the famous Route 66 and I was in the way. A police car came along and pushed me around the corner and into a nearby parking lot. When this boat had no power it was difficult to manuever. Steering and braking without that help is very hard on a 5'3" wee body. Back to the shop and a new thick film ignition thingy was installed. Hooray! Problem solved at last! Then my husband and I were out for a cruise through the great Mojave Desert and the door locks start going on and off. They were just clicking away going on and off in a sporadic fashion. We stopped somewhere for a bite to eat and figured when we turned the car off and removed the key it would stop. No way! The car locks just kept clicking away like there was some phantom sitting at the controls that we could not see. When we got home the only way to stop it was to remove the correct fuse, otherwise the beast would have continued on through the night and as it was parked outside (no garage) it would have been vulnerable to the local thieving hoards. They would have seen this barge as a great party car for a night. Well another trip to the mechanics and an expensive new computer just to control the door locks and I decided that this car's days were numbered! So what do I buy. A little 1998 Ford Contour (which I love) that has no, nada, bells and whistles (except the one to remind me that I've left the keys in the ignition, which I am very grateful for but apparently don't always listen to it). The consumer reports magazine reports that this car has problems with it's electrical systems! So far I have been doing okay with it. After I traded in the Lincoln I got a recall notice from Ford, Lincoln, Mercury on it about how the thick film ignition switch was faulty and needed replacing. No kidding! About ten years too late I think. Then I got a class action lawsuit notice from some sharks about it. But after I traded the beast in I chucked all the maintenance records so I get no recompense from there either.

2005-09-02T15:04:00.000-04:00

RINGS

Okay shoot me! I'm back on worms again. This time it's those kid friendly things called Ringworms! It is for real that I got this bunch from a dog, or that's what I was told when it happened. We got a dog when I was 3 years old. I remember being terribly jealous of him when he first arrived. He was getting more attention than I was. He was a black labrador retriever and he became my pal. He was closer in age to me than any of my siblings so we got along famously. This was also in the days before leash laws so Blackie was free to come and go as he pleased which he did frequently. So who knows what he picked up and gave to me. Of course, I blamed it on my sister's new puppy (she was already married with child, I was an aunt at 7). It was a really cute belgian hound that was still able to fit in the palm of a hand.

The fungi affixed itself to the center of my chest right below my neck. Luckily it took a position that was very exposed in the opening above the top button of my blouse. As a kid I would not have noticed it but my Mom did. A special cream was put on it and a bandage had to cover it so as not to expose it to myself or anyone else. My school would not let me attend until the offending beasties were banished from my body. I thought that was great! Except, of course, when I realized that all my friends were in school so there was no one to play with. I was free to move about the outside world so I would head to school and peer over the fence at the schoolyard, planning my arrival to coincide with recess time so I could at least talk to my pals.

MORE CIRCLES

There is a website that I like to visit because it gives me a view of the earth. There are a few buttons on the bottom of the page so that you can change the view. If you click on the button that says clouds, after a few seconds, you will see all the clouds that are covering this world. If you look out at the Atlantic you will see more potential hurricanes moving westward. Please send them vibes to make them disintegrate. Enough already, there is a big typhoon looking thing out in the Pacific too. Let's evaporate them. Sorry the best that I can do is a footlonger.
http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/uncgi/Earth and I hope it works for us.

2005-08-28T18:02:00.000-04:00

THREADS

My father, upon his retirement, decided to trace the family tree. He told me that if you go back just 20 generations you have a million ancestors. I did the math and to my utter astonishment he was correct. It seemed impossible because there were easily 4 generations at the same dinner table at one time in my life, but you can't just multiply that by 5. Roots don't work that way!

For my Dad it was a labour of love with emphasis on the labour. Book after book after book, most of which are kept by the various churches of this world. They recorded the marriages, the births and the deaths of the past. It was not possible to get everything he wanted because documents were destroyed. The earth, wind and fire take a toll. Rats and mice :( take a toll. But he managed to get quite far back anyway. All the way to 1785, 1787, and 1800 to my great, great, great grand parents. Some from my mother's side of the family and some from his. He was doing it for us so he included my Mom's tree also. That gets me the names of almost all 16 great*** grands. For me that's only 6 generations, for my grandson that is 8! I am very happy that my father started down that path. I hope to keep the data string going because the record keeping has changed hands and the retrieval of this kind of information may become more difficult to obtain.

It is believed that those of us who have MS come from mostly a northern European ancestry. Also that each of us has spent the first 7 years of our lives in a temperate climate. Could it also be that we all have a common ancestor. It may only take one.

2005-08-20T18:47:00.000-04:00

RUNNING ON EMPTY

I can't believe how a trip to Big K, and 2 of my favourite grocery stores can virtually wipe me out. I also can't fathom how driving can be so much easier than walking, even at $2.70 per gallon. There seems to be an increase in the dizzy feeling these days and of course I forgot to mention it to my PCP this week when I paid a visit. Usually I write down a list of questions to remember to ask, but then I forget to take it with me. Much like my endeavors at grocery shopping. I explained to my Doctor how at my age you expect things to break down and not work properly anymore, but that I felt sorry for the young people who suffered this disorder. Anyway I left their office with the Doctor's words echoing in my ears (everything echoes in my ears, I have super hearing, or, as John Cleese would say "A cute earring"). I was being told how lucky I was. It is true that I have always felt blessed.

IT MUST BE GUILT

I think driving is part of my problem. Back in the 70's when I was a young "know it all" granola bandit on a bicycle, I used to joke about how one day humanity was going to lose the ability to walk because of the automobile. Three months after I'm into my fourth (first new one) car, I get my first bout of optic neuritus. And seven years later I'm on the road to another new set of wheels, as in wheelchair. However I am going to use every trick in the book, even if I have to write a new book, to take a fork in that road.

2005-08-15T21:17:00.000-04:00

Falling Stars

Me and my guy went north to Lone Pine http://www.395.com/index.shtml?/lonepine/ this weekend. We wanted to get away from the city lights so we could get up in the wee hours of the morning and see the astonishing event called the Perseid Meteor Showers http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/22jul_perseids2005.htm. It was really great! We usually go into the mojave desert for this event, but that is just becoming such a populated area that there is too much light polution to get a good handle on the magnitude of our universe. So we thought we would cross the desert this year and go to the highest place in the continental United States, Mount Whitney. We didn't go to the top of the mountain because that would take 3 days, minimum (well that's what it took my husband to climb it 35 years ago) and you can't drive to the top. But we did manage to drive quite a ways up the eastern face, parked and got out the lounging lawn chairs and prepared to be amazed. If you can get a good view it is kind of like watching fireworks in slow motion. They were exploding out of an area near Mars and they would come into the upper atmosphere and fan out in every direction. Truly spectacular. I am glad the weather cooperated because there were thunderstorms all around where we live. So we escaped the bad weather and had a spectacular show compliments of mother nature.

2005-08-11T22:15:00.000-04:00

FOUR LEAF CLOVER

It was one summer while out visiting at my Auntie's. She lived in the Eastern Townships about 150 miles east of Montreal. The countryside that she and my Mom had grown up in, where my Grandpa had a dairy farm and the neighbour was a million miles away. I loved going out to visit there! At seven years old it was no problem to walk a million miles and back.

My cousins, my brother and I were out on a hunt for four leaf clovers. We were bound to find one because the world was huge and the yard was massive and full of clover. We would think we found one but on further inspection it was the usual three. It's funny how they can all look like a four leaf for a split second. We were getting a little depressed about our poor luck. I decided that we should eat the three leafers as punishment. Maybe that would result in scaring the remaining clovers into producing that elusive fourth leaf in order to thrwart off impending doom from we ogre children. I convinced everyone that they were alright to eat because horses ate them all the time and they were okay! So we ate, and we ate, and we ate until we could eat no more. Alas not one four leaf clover ever materialized.

A week or two later it is discovered that I have worms! Me, my cousins, my brother, we all had worms! Now we could have got these parasites from any of a number of dogs that shared our households, or, we could have got them from my desire to punish the clovers by eating them. Either way it was gross! We had to drink this stuff that looked like red cool-aid but tasted like medicine for days and days. And we had to get regular inspections of our waste products until we got the all clear!

I think there were little leprechauns hiding out there by my Aunties house! I think they're still rolling over with laughter.

2005-08-06T13:46:00.000-04:00

SNOW IS SO COOL!

(long as you don't have to shovel it)

It's so hot outside right now that I am leaping right into my first winter in the big city in the hopes that it will cool me off! We have moved into a 4 plex; 3 bedrooms, 1 bath. There is a front lawn but the building is surrounded by driveways to get to the garages in the back that sit under the 4 plex. It snows as much in Montreal as it does in Minnesota during winter. That means a lot of shoveling in order to get your cars into the garages. If you didn't do that it would be most difficult to get the vehicle started in the morning. At the time, of course, I wasn't aware of these laws of mechanical functions, I was merely fascinated with the world of snow!

The delights of getting all dressed up in the most cumbersome get ups eluded me at the time. The freedom of exploring my world was all that mattered. Out the door with a swish, swish, swish as the wonders of nylon leggings rub together while walking. I'm in my best 'michelin man' looking duds. The sound they make while moving is something I will always remember. Well, I'm out there exploring my universe when I walk up behind a neighbour who is moving mountains of snow around in his driveway. Bang goes the shovel right into my pumpkin and down I go. He didn't know I was there until it happened and he thought he knocked me out. He is most distressed; and I, being of the hard headed breed, remember seeing stars for a moment but get right back up on my feet. Nevertheless, the neighbour insisted on taking me home to Mommy for an inspection. A lesson was learned that day. Do not sneak up behind anyone wielding a shovel.

2005-08-04T10:17:00.000-04:00

TECHNICALLY CHALLENGED

I am definitely technically challenged to go with my physically challenged. One of these days I will figure out all the little aspects of this blogspot thing. Until then, I'll have to just grin and bear it.

2005-08-04T09:53:00.000-04:00

DOIN' ALLRIGHT

THIS ONE'S FOR THE BIG GUY

There are probably about 50 times in a day when someone asks me "How ya doin'?" About 48 of them don't really want to know. They are just really saying "Hi". The only people that ask me that and really want an answer are my family and closest friends.

So Big Guy, you absolutely delighted me because I felt that you really did mean it! And I'm sorry that I prattled on so telling you way more than you really asked for. Sometimes my brain just runs on and on, or as they say, yada yada yada.

Anyway, I am counting you as one of my friends now, and I'm sending tons of happiness your way!

2005-08-01T21:00:00.000-04:00

POLIO VACCINE

I turned 5 years old, the house was sold and we moved back into the city. Time to start going to school. I was part intimitaded and at the same time excited. An 8 block walk! Mom took me the first time but told me - after that I was on my own. Very scary! Well it was pretty cool actually. Kids like me. Kids not like me. All wide eyed and in awe of the teacher. So we get out the crayons and colour. We sit while the teacher reads us a book. We learn how to connect the dots. Very interesting stuff. Kindergarten is a shoe in. Then comes Grade 1. Arithmetic, Reading and Writing. Fingernail inspections! Clean hands, clean mind. Then came the polio vaccinations. Terror! We all line up and wait our turn for the needle. There is a lot of crying going on but somehow I get through it. Only to find out a short time later, days, weeks, months, I don't remember, it was time to get another, then the BOOSTER! OUCH! School sucks big time!

The polio thing really interests me now though. In the dictionary it is called Poliomyelitis. It is described as (1) an acute infectious disease caused by a virus, characterized by symptoms ranging from fever, headaches, vomiting, etc. to extensive permanent paralysis of muscles.
(2) Any inflammation of the grey matter of the spinal cord. My little grey cells, what's left of them anyway, are extremely curious. Sounds like it shares some similarities to MS. Something for me to ponder.

2005-07-26T20:51:00.000-04:00

EMILY HAS LONG ARMS

We can feel the tentatacles of Hurricane Emily all the way out here in Southern California. Sure wouldn't think that could be true but that's what the weatherpeople say. We are definitely used to the heat around here, but not the humidity. I was coming out of Trader Joe's (grocery store) the other day and heard some fellow say it was just like Florida. Well I'll take the dry heat any day. It's not as draining on my body. Hopefully we won't get too many hurricanes this fall. (I'm dreaming again!)

BEESTING

Just before we move out of the house in suburbia we visited the new home of some friends of the family. They had moved out of suburbia to an even newer suburbia! But this one was in a really nice area and they had the biggest lawn on a hill with lots of grass. We (me and their kids) were having a great time rolling down this hillside when I felt this awful pain on the top of my head. I thought of Jack and Jill falling down the hill and Jack breaking his crown. I was sure I had done this. Turned out to be a beesting. Wow does that ever hurt! For a long time after that I would hear a little ping ping in my brain when walking. I believed that the stinger never came out and that was what was making that clicking in my head. This pinging was a part of my life well into my teenage years when it finally fell silent. Then it got forgotten until the MS thing hit. After my first MRI I thought they were going to come and tell me that I had this funny pin stuck in my brain. Didn't happen. But they did find something else there eh? Maybe I should try the bee venom thing!

2005-07-23T18:53:00.000-04:00

TOO HOT!

Is it the Greenhouse effect? Is it the Depletion of the Ozone Layer? Is it because the earth's axis changed slightly with the earthquake in Sumatra last year? So many questions and not enough answers! The only thing I know for sure is it is TOO HOT!

THE GALLOPING IDIOT

I'm back to that old (new?) house in suburbia. It is soon to be my 5th birthday and my Dad does not like the daily commute to his job in the city so we are going to move. They are showing the house to some prospective buyers who have a child younger than me. This is a good opportunity for me to show off because I am the baby in my family and now I have a youngster to impress. Time to go whole hog, no make that whole horse! I am the bigger kid so I get to be the horsey and my new little friend is the rider. I am galloping around the living room with this kid on my back and I'm really trying to impress this kid's really good looking father. Scary but true! Well the next thing you know I have galloped right into the corner of the coffee table. Oops. I ruined the party! As hard headed as I am I don't think it's a big deal but everyone, Mom, Dad and Company, whisk me off to the hospital. I didn't think it was a big deal until I realized that my mom is freaking out and holding a big white towel to my head that is rapidly getting redder and redder. We get there and I am lying on a gurney with this huge bright light hanging over me so I can't see anything but this strange head looming above. All it took was one stitch, which was removed a week later, but leaves a scar to this day just to remind me that I am not a horse! The prospective buyers took the house but it wasn't due to my making an impression on them, it was because my Mom had a good deal of well established tasty asparagus growing on the property!

I only relay this assinine story because it was my left temple that took the impact and all my MS troubles started on the left side of my face and have subsequently progressed down the left side of my body. Also I want to let all you Mommies and Daddies out there know that the more panic you show to your child after they are injured the more panic that child will feel. Pretend it's just a scratch eh?

2005-07-16T15:35:00.000-04:00

A quiet moment!

2005-07-11T20:38:00.000-04:00

AFTER THE NITTY GRITTY

Well, here's another episode that I don't remember. That new house we moved to in the suburbs was 2 stories, and of course, I tumbled head over heals down the stairs! Perhaps I had MS at that early age and that's why I don't recollect this event, but it is more likely that the trauma blotted it out. BUT, could this have caused the initial breach of the blood brain barrier?

The neighbour boy and I (now clothed) used to get into all kinds of mischief. Children have a universal goal in life to do exactly that which a parent has told them not to do. In our case, we lived near a spot in the St. Lawrence river that was wide enough to be called a lake. There was a road, River Road, that separated our neighbourhood from that lake. We were forbidden to cross that road without an adult present. Of course it was our duty as inquisitive children to see what happenned if we crossed the road. Once across the road we knew we were not to go near the water. The water had Polio in it! We knew this and even though we did not know what Polio was, we were afraid. I have no memory of entering the water, although I do know we got as close as we could without going in. However, now knowing what I know about my ability to remember things at that age. Did I touch the water? Did neighbour boy touch the water? To the best of my knowledge, our parents did not find out about these escapades to the lake because we were sworn not to tell!

Something I do remember doing after being told not to - was to stick the prong of a fork into the hole in the switchplate on the wall. Of course, I waited until no one was around to perform this little experiment, and I remember the sensation (like a powerful L'Hermittes sign) only it knocked me back a few feet and I landed on my fanny. I have had a great respect for electricity ever since, and some fear!

2005-07-09T11:35:00.000-04:00

BEFORE THE NITTY GRITTY

My brother and sister were 11 and 12 when I was born. They were sent off to an aunts when the time came for my birth. My sister told me that when they got back home and saw me, I had spots all over my body that my Mom would put some kind of salve on. She said she dosen't remember what caused them. As my Mom's been gone for 20 years now (Dad's gone too) I guess I'll never know. That's the trouble with being over 50 at the time of diagnosis. My resources as far as history goes are either gone or losing their memories;-) But I don't think it was chicken pox because I got that later on and I don't believe you can get it twice, shingles, yes, but not the pox. Can you?

I do remember my Mom telling me that I was supposed to arrive in the middle of June. She said that when July rolled around the Doctor would call her every day to make sure that I was still kicking! She assured him that I was, and finally, toward the end of July, I arrived. Then, on the delivery table, apparently I was coming out backwards. Caesarian Sections were not a common occurrence back then. They let me alone for 2 hours and I righted myself and started the journey that led me here. So I got off to a slow start. Maybe they were age spots!

Another possible noteworthy item. My Mom was 37 when I was born. Back then that was considered pretty late to be having children. We were best friends and I still miss her and wish she were here.

2005-07-07T22:24:00.000-04:00

THEY ONLY MAKE US STRONGER!

A friend of mine was going on vacation today. Flying to London. They are aware of the bombings that took place in the underground, but it's not going to stop them from having a great tour of Jolly Olde's London town! I lived there for a while. It is so full of antiquities in a way that a North American cannot fathom. Even someone from, say, New York. Yet at the same time London is very modern. Kind of an oxymoron. It's just a shame that some people think it is noble to inflict devastation on others in the name of one's God. They say the devil works in strange ways.

MY BEGINNING

I was born in the city. My family lived on a street called Begin. How appropriate a start in this world. It was situated between the University of Montreal and St. Joseph's Oratory. I know one other person who lived in that neighbourhood who developed Multiple Sclerosis but they were only related to me by way of marriage. I only lived there about a year, or so, before moving to the new suburbs. A place where you put in the landscaping after you moved in. Although my memory (one episode) goes back to a time when I still slept in a crib, there is an event that took place that I think might have some bearing on the MS thing. My mother told me that there was a big pile of manure in the back yard while they were preparing to get the landscape together. A slow process with a new house and little money. One day she found me out there in this mountain of dung. I had taken all my clothes off, and was sitting in it with a naked neighbour (a boy who's name I still remember) and we were eating it. It is embarassing to recount it. I have no recollection of this episode, but I can see no reason why my mom would invent such a story. I must also add that the boy and I were about 2 or 3 at the time. Anyway, with the knowledge that some medical people think that MS might be caused by a virus, I think this is a noteworthy event in my life (as gross as it sounds).

2005-07-04T18:36:00.000-04:00

Well, I've taken the plunge. I have been reading other people's blogs for a long time and decided that I have a lot to say as well. I am not a techie, but I have multiple sclerosis (newbie there too) and want to put my thoughts online. Any feedback will be welcome. It is my hope (albeit it's way out there) that if enough people in this world who have MS and put their heads together, that "we the people" can find the source of this nuisance. There are certainly a lot of Doctors out there who are working on the problem, but they don't seem to be into sharing much. They do have their pocketbooks to think about.

So I will start by sharing the pitiful amount of knowledge that I have. First concensus is that it mostly affects people who spent their first seven years of life in a northern part of the globe but are not Inuit. I fit this criteria. Second concensus is that their ancestry is Northern European. I fit this one too. Third is that they are probably female. I fit this criteria (but I know that there are many men with this condition). Fourth is that they are usually between the ages of 24 and 50. Now this is where I get off the bus. I did not get diagnosed until the tender age of 53!

I intend to talk about all the crazy and not so crazy things that I did (that I can remember) from the earliest stage in my life and gradually maybe my way up to the present. Again, any feedback will be welcome.