Thursday Thirteen

I love where I live.

1. I love the small county seat.



2. I love the people in the small county seat, too. I have relatives who live there and I have many friends and acquaintances. Most of the county employees know me by name and will stop me for a chat in the street or in the hallways of the courthouse.


3. I love the landscape.



4. The thing about the Blue Ridge Mountains is that they are majestic. They aren't craggy (or crabby), either. They don't blow up with volcanic activity, they don't often have rock slides and the the theory is they help keep down tornadic activity. They are even high enough for skiing.

5. The change of the seasons is on display out the window. Spring flowers, summer green, autumn fire, winter snow blanket. What more could you want from your mountains?


6. I love that we live on a farm.



7. Living on a farm gives you a great appreciation for nature. You live the seasons - haying in late spring, summer, early autumn. Planting at the right time. Watching the animal and plant signs for the weather because that's about as accurate as the weatherman. Learning the value of a dollar because they're hard to come by.

8. I love the deer. They remind me to be curious and cautious.



9. The deer also remind me of the value of life, particularly during hunting season. While I really hate that the animals are killed I know there is justification for it. We eat the meat if my husband takes a deer. Everyone we know does. I know there are a few bad hunters but I don't believe they are the majority.

10. I love the turkeys. They remind me to always keep moving. Or else I might end up as Thanksgiving dinner!



11. I love that I have strong roots here that go back to before 1804 and that I can trace one line of my family tree back to the American Revolution.

12. I love that I have found work here that I enjoy and do well. How many people can really say that, I wonder?

13. I love that while this is a relatively rural area, it's suburban enough to give me access to great things like the Internet. Isn't technology great?



Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; you can learn more about it here. My other Thursday Thirteens are here.

The Afternoons

I really hadn't intended to bore anyone with the minute details of my day, but I suppose I may as well finish what I started.

My afternoons vary. I try to schedule interviews in the afternoon. Sometimes I do research in the library or courthouse. Occasionally I research at my desk on the Internet.

Otherwise, I do laundry, return phone calls, catch up on email. Sometimes I work on articles, particularly on Mondays when I have deadlines.

Other times I work on a book project I have been making some progress with.

Many evenings I have a night meeting. I attend a lot of council meetings and such, so I try to keep my afternoons open on those days.

Today, for instance, was a little topsy turvey because I will be in a council meeting tonight. I don't particularly want to work 15 hour days, after all.

So this morning I saw a client and then visited my acupuncturist. After that I stopped by the grocery store. After I unloaded my haul and ate a salad, I ventured into the county seat for a look at courthouse records, a conversation or two with officials, and a stop by the newspaper office to see if my editor had any comments to share.

By that time it was 4 p.m. and I have been home an hour. Soon I will fix dinner and then I'll head to a nearby small town for the council meeting tonight.

If I didn't have a council meeting, I would be fixing dinner and then doing housework, maybe playing a little video game to relax, and then reading a book or magazine until bedtime while my husband flips through the TV channels.

I try to be in bed by 10 p.m. but it doesn't always work out that way. Some nights I don't get there until 11 p.m.

At 6 a.m. tomorrow morning, I'll start it all over again. Except I won't have acupuncture, of course.

Another Morning

My days all generally begin the same way.

I get up at 6 a.m., give or take 15 minutes, almost every morning, even on weekends.

I put on my robe and trundle into the kitchen to fix myself a cup of tea, and while the water boils in the microwave I do stretches for my plantar fasciitis.

My husband, who rises at 5 a.m. regardless of day, has already fixed his own breakfast and brought up the newspaper. He'll kiss me and be gone long before I am fully awake.(I tried the good wife thing when we first married but I broke so many dozens of eggs that he told me to just stay in bed.)

Tea in hand, I come into my office where I check my email, read a few news articles, answer a couple of friends who have written overnight. Sometimes I write a blog entry if I've something on my mind or I'm not too busy.

At 7 a.m. I try to exercise. I was doing very well at this but it has waned over the summer. This is mostly because of the problems with my left foot and the heel spur, which makes walking on the treadmill practically unbearable. I've been trying to lift weights and ride a recumbent bike instead but I am not as good about that as I was walking.

So some mornings I spend longer at the computer. By 8 a.m. I am in the shower. Then I fix my breakfast (some morning eggs, some morning rice cereal, occasionally a gluten free waffle) and read the newspaper. I can't start my day without reading the comics and seeing if there are stories that happened overnight that I might need to follow up on myself.

After I eat, I quickly empty the dishwasher and load my husband's dishes as well as my own. Then I toss a load of clothes in the washer.

Then back to the computer. I check my tasks and then it's off to write. Mostly I write articles for the paper these days; I am quite busy.

At some point I take a break to put the clothes in the dryer or hang them on the clothes rack to dry.

I try to work until at least noon. That's three hours of writing every day.

And that's pretty much how it is in my life until lunch time.

Stephanie Plum Meets the X-Men

Plum Lovin'
By Janet Evanovich
Copyright 2007
164 pages

Stephanie Plum's friend Diesel, who is some kind of freaky not-exactly-superhero, asks for her assistance. She has to become a relationship expert and help five people find true love by Valentine's Day.

The men in her life, Morelli and Ranger, do not make much of an appearance. Lulu does, though, along with Stephanie's family.

I won't go into plot but this was a quick read - I think I finished it in an hour and a half. It is like all of Evanovich's books: swift, to the point, and able to raise a smile.

This is a "between the numbers books" which means I suppose that Evanovich didn't find it full enough for her regular series but didn't want to dump the writing, either.

The Wii

About three weeks ago, my husband and I stood for an hour outside of Best Buy in order to buy ourselves a Wii.

We have an XBox (the first version, not the 360) but it's hard to find games for that anymore. We hadn't used it in ages.

I wanted the Wii Fit game but so far have yet to make that purchase too. It apparently is as hard to come by as the Wii console itself.

I have noticed all the peripherals for Wii are very expensive, including the things you need for the Wii Fit. I did not do my homework very well before we bought the Wii, having succumbed to my need and desire to exercise and being bored by present routine and seeing the commercial of people happily doing yoga with their Wii.

So this was for all intents and purposes an emotional purchase and not a rational one.

By the time we bought the Wii ($250) and a crossbow thing ($25) and a Wii Play game which had an extra controller ($50) and a Cabella's Trophy Bucks video game ($50), we spent $400 on this wee bit of entertainment.

I have since bought a sports game that has ten different sports on it and Laura Croft's Tomb Raider's Anniversary for another $50 "investment".

The Wii Fit, whenever I finally get it, will add at least another $100 to the price of this thing.

And it's amazing what I don't know about it. I don't know how big a hard drive it has on it. I don't know, therefore, how many game saves the thing will take before it starts telling me it's out of memory.

Because I didn't really research it well, I don't know exactly what games are available for it, although a look at list on Wikipedia indicates that while there are a good number many are not the kinds of games I really like to play.

I like RPGs like Morrowind or Fable. I don't care much for shoot-'ems like Halo or weird games like Sonic Hedgehog or even the Mario and Donkey Kong games, which seem to be staples for anything put out by Nintendo. They haven't gotten past that for 20+ years.

I also like puzzle games and brain games that make you think. My husband likes racing games and deer hunting games.

I haven't put the first game save on the Wii for the Laura Croft game, which means I haven't played it much. My husband and I both have played the Trophy Deer game all the way through its 96 different hunts and then some, however. He is greatly enjoying that game, which certainly counts high in my estimate of the purchase.

We put this system in the living room which makes it much more accessible. However, it is not on our 42 inch TV but rather on a 26" TV because we couldn't hook the thing up to the 42" TV screen without making radical changes to our DVD/DirecTV setup and then having to hook and unhook wires every time we wanted to play or watch TV. Anything that was that much trouble would have been swiftly set aside.

The XBox, by the way, was on this small TV but it was located in the bedroom I use for my office. This change has made the gaming system more accessible, anyway.

So we now have two TVs in the living room, one on each side of the fireplace.

I do not think buying a Wii was a bad purchase, and I think we'll get enjoyment and kill a few hours with it, particularly since we've taken to trying to stay home more because of the price of gasoline. But I can't say that it is the best, most rational and appropriate purchase I have made in a while.

Oh, and this is also, I guess, our 25th wedding anniversary present to one another, even though our anniversary isn't until November.

Bull Stuff

Yesterday morning as I began work a noise caught my attention.

It was a low rumble, so low in the bass that I felt it in my belly as much as heard it.

Ummmm. Ummm.

Whatever was that? I wondered. I listened a moment.

It was the bull.

I hurried outside to stand on the front porch because for the first time our bull and the neighbor's bull were in sight of each other. Our neighbor fenced off what used to be a hay field and moved her cattle over there.

In the fog and close early morning hours, the sound of the bulls bellowing at one another was echoing off the house.

Umm. Umm. They both made a very low guttural noise.

Our cows had all stopped eating and were looking at the two bulls. I was reminded of a schoolyard with two bullies going at each other while everyone else stood around and watched them fight.

Suddenly, one of the bulls could stand it no longer!

Miii...nee! Mii... neee! Miii...neee! If you've never heard an angry bull bellow, well. I can hardly describe it. Very loud, very angry and very constant for at least a full minute.

I don't know of course what the bull is "saying" if anything, but it certainly sounds like a very low "Mii...neee!" to me. As in, Mine, Mine Mine! My herd, my women, you get the #@$ away from here!

I was very worried that the electric fence, hot on both sides of the wires, would not be working properly and the animals would get at one another. But thankfully after a while the two males tired of their game and went on about their business.

I didn't get any pictures because it was damp and drizzling and they were not close enough to the house for me to take a shot without getting my digital camera wet, which I did not wish to do.

Remember 9/11

September 11 Thursday Thirteen

1. On this day in 2001, I, along with most Americans, watched a plane crash into the second tower. Shortly thereafter, I watched the towers collapse in a swirl of dust, debris and screams.

2. My main thought was of the firemen who I knew were climbing the steps and making valiant efforts to rescue the folks trapped inside. The towers' collapse killed 343 firefighters.

3. In all, 2,974 people died in the attacks that occurred in New York City and at the Pentagon in Washington D.C. That number also includes the passengers of United 93, which did not hit its target but instead crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.

4. Our office closed at lunch time, as did many others. No one could work anyway.

5. I came home and watched footage of the event over and over again. My husband was not at the firehouse but he was working at his second job installing septic tanks and I couldn't reach him to tell him what had happened.

6. After a while I came into my office and I played a puzzle game while the images settled in my mind and I tried to come to grips with what had happened.

7. A feeling of helplessness settled over me and I think it settled over much of the nation. For many it hasn't yet gone away. It left many feeling emasculated and I don't believe that has yet been assuaged.

8. Most of the world stood by the USA while she grieved the loss of her citizens.

9. Air travel was suspended and the following afternoon I stood with a friend and looked up. Neither of us had ever seen the sky so pure and unmarred by jet trails.

10. The government used the attacks as a reason to implement the USA PATRIOT ACT, which abolished many civil liberties, including the right to check out what you wanted from a library without being turned into the police if somebody thought it was suspect.

11. The government also began spying on emails and telephone conversations and doing other Big Brother things.

12. The US led a coalition into Afghanistan. That war continues though not well reported.

13. The attacks are a sober reminder for me of how badly the US government sometimes behaves in world relations, how poorly some citizens of this world think of this country, and how hard our people work and pray and play.

September 11 also reminds me that all in the world are a part of the circle of life. Everyone, regardless of race, color or creed, deserves a chance to live. That includes bankers in the World Trade Center and Iraqis huddled in their homes during bombings in Baghdad. I pray for peace every day and for wisdom in the leaders who hold the decisions for such things in the palms of their hands.

My hope is that one day issues will be resolved without bloodshed and tears, and that the world will lose its hatred for one another and embrace love.

I wish that love, not vengence and revenge, had been the lesson learned from September 11, 2001.


Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; you can learn more about it here. My other Thursday Thirteens are here.

A Dangerous Game

One of my nephews, Emory, is the quarterback for LBHS this year. It is his senior year; I suppose this makes him big man on campus.

His brother, Chris, is a freshman at LB and he is playing JV football. He is number 45 (above) and is some kind of linebacker or blocker.

During the Hidden Valley game last Friday, the oldest nephew took a hit to the head and received a concussion. He was hauled from the game via ambulance. His doctor has told him he can't play for two weeks. This boy also took a blow last year in the shoulder that ultimately ended up causing him to have surgery to have part of rib removed in January because of a blood clot.

Earlier this week, the younger nephew received a brain-rattling blow and now he also has a concussion.

Neither boy will be playing ball this week, I have been told.

Football seems like a very dangerous sport. I don't know if these boys aren't being taught how to perform properly which is why they're having these injuries or if something else is going on. Maybe they need different helmets?

In any event, I do wish they'd have taken up golf or swimming or track instead.

Jewelry Box Treasures

On my dresser next to the bed sits a very small jewelry box.


My grandmother, who passed away in June of last year, gave it to me when I was 12 years old. If you wind it and open the lid, it plays Somewhere, My Love.

I do not have jewelry in this box. Instead I have more precious treasures.


One of these treasures is a Silver Certificate dollar bill dated 1935. The story goes that when my mother was born in 1944, her first visitor gave my grandmother this dollar and told her to save it for my mother. She did, and after my mother passed away in 2000 my grandmother handed the dollar down to me.


These items are guitar picks and smashed pennies. The guitar picks were given to me by my paternal grandfather when he visited once from California.

The smashed pennies have a picture of San Francisco, which I visited in 1977,a picture of the Statue of Liberty, which I visited when I was 13, and the Lord's Prayer on the third.



These coins have various meanings. My maternal grandfather gave me the Kennedy half dollars. He handed them out on birthdays and other special occasions. Some of the coins are foreign, left over from my high school trip to Spain and France. Other coins simply have old dates.



This is a picture of a picture my paternal grandfather sent me that he painted in 1978. It is a Polaroid and it is beginning to fade.

These are my treasures, worth very little to anyone else but very meaningful to me.

Julie and Romeo Get Lucky

Julie and Romeo Get Lucky
By Jeanne Ray
Read by Jeanne Ray
7 hours
Copyright 2005 or thereabouts


This was a fun book to listen to. Julie and Romeo are an older couple whose family for the longest time had a feud. They owned competing flower shops.

But Julie and Romeo become a couple and Julie's daughter and Romeo's son are wed, so that feud is no more.

The book begins with Julie and Romeo feeling feisty. Romeo decides to carry his beloved up a flight of steps to the bedroom.

His back is not quite as willing as the rest of him. Down he goes and he's told to stay in bed and not move until he heals.

Meanwhile, granddaughter Sarah has developed a weird fixation on the lottery and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Hilarity ensues over the course of a string of events, all of which actually seem believable given the characters and situation.

I liked this enough that I might just have to seek out the first Julie and Romeo book.

3.5 stars

Weird Dreams

Lately I have been having eye-brow raising nights. A few nights ago I began thrashing in the bed and yelling. I woke up with my husband shaking me, going "Baby, wake up, wake up, you're dreaming." The whole following day was colored by that event even though I couldn't remember what I was dreaming.

Last night I dreamed I was in this huge house. Like the Biltmore but not.

A lot of it was in sad disrepair. An unknown man guided me through the house to show me the repairs. I think I was writing an article about it.

He was using snakes to repair the house. The snakes would slither across the walls and in so doing it would remove the mold and mildew or whatever and leave the tiles in pristine condition. It was innovative if not a little unnerving.

There were snakes everywhere, all supposedly trained not to bite and to move along in proper patterns for the required work.

Meanwhile, down in the basement there was a huge toy museum, with toys of all kinds. It was a noisy place but very eery because it wasn't open to the public yet and there was no one there. Just a lot of toys making toy noises. I remember a lot of monkeys playing the cymbals.

And then it grew dark, and I was trying to use the elevator but I couldn't because it was full of snakes.

I tried to find a light switch but something short-circuited and a fire started. The house was a huge dark maze full of snakes on the walls. I knew there were other people in the huge mansion but I didn't know where they were.

So I started yelling "Fire" as I raced through the halls trying to avoid the smoke and the snakes....

Whew.

One of my dream books says this about elements of my dream:

Snakes: This denotes sly enemies who will conspire against you and by whom you will suffer in your character and estate. (That isn't a good sign!)

House: To dream you are building a house foretells prosperity and success in trade. (I wasn't building it, though, so I guess someone else is going to proper).

Fire: A dream of fire denotes health, great happiness, kind relations and warm friends. But to dream you are burned with fire portends calamity. (Yikes! I wasn't burned but it was surely getting close!)

Darkness: Dreaming you are lost in darkness and stumble denotes a change for the worst - by imprudence you will dreadfully commit yourself. If you emerge and see the sun, you will ultimately be happy.

Sheesh. It looks like I am in for some bad days ahead, doesn't it, if dreams really do tell something... fortunately I have never found my dreams to be anything more than the sum of my worries. If I had to interpret this dream, I would say I am worried about having something I've written blow up in my face.

Thursday Thirteen: Great Things

1. Air. I am most reminded of it when I am having an asthma fit. The lack of it in my lungs makes me realize what a precious commodity it is.

2. Water. Some people claim not to like water. I love it. I like the taste of it and the feel of it on my tongue, particularly on a hot day. I greatly appreciate my showers, too, even if I am still timing them because I worry about the well.

3. Earth. Can anything replace the feel and smell of moist soil? Is there anything more solid and stable than the dirt beneath our feet? Who could ask for any firmer foundation?

4. Love. I can't see it but I feel it all the time, everyday, as constant as the beating of my heart. I know it's there but I don't know how I know. It is and it is wonderful.

5. Sustenance. I shouldn't list food but... one of the great joys of life is eating. A good dinner can be a great highlight of the day if not the week. Who can resist good yeast rolls or a fine drink or the best dark chocolate?

6. Laughter. Every time I hear someone laugh, I smile. Even if I am crying, if I can manage a smile I know it will be okay. Remember how during the funeral in Steel Magnolias, the women eventually burst out laughing in spite of their pain? It's the beginning of the healing when you laugh after a wound.

7. Touch. This is something none of us get enough of. A good massage - that'll cure your muscle aches and many other things. A great massage will leave tears in your eyes. A hug from a spouse or friend can take years of worry away from your mind.

8. Colors. The vividness of the sky in August. The palate of color in Autumn. Grass greening almost instantly after a good rain. A rainbow passing overhead. How dull would it be if we didn't have colors? How boring and unromantic and constant if the world was just all in one shade?

9. Books. Many people won't count this as one of life's great pleasures, but for me a day without reading ... seldom happens. I have to be very sick indeed not to at least read the news paper. Words are as important to me as water. They quench the thirst of my mind.

10. Friends. Friends kind of go up there with love but this special kind of love is different enough to deserve its own slot. What would we do without friends, without those joyous connections that say "see, there's another soul in the world and you two get along." What else comforts like a phone call from a friend on a bad day?

11. Music. The sound of a voice raised in song is blissful and heart-lifting. Even a sad song, bringing tears, offers a wondrous release. It's like a balm for the soul.

12. Crying. Maybe it's not the nicest thing in the world to experience, but who hasn't cried and then felt at least a tiny bit better for it? It's cleansing and releasing and everyone needs that sometimes.

13. Communication. The only way to connect with someone else, to step out of our aloneness, is through talking, writing, touching... any of the many ways we communicate and move one another. Connections are great gifts. I thank my blog readers for allowing me to connect to each of you.



Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; you can learn more about it here. My other Thursday Thirteens are here.

Let's Have a Dialogue

One of my readers left a long answer about issues with health care and then deleted the comment. I received it anyway as an email.

I will respect the author's anonymity because I enjoy his/her blog and I am not out to make enemies. That's easy enough to do when you're not trying.

But I would like to make note of two of the writer's points.

One - Medicare (along with the insurance industry) is the real root of the problem. Medicare only pays a fraction of the actual cost of service, so charges must be made elsewhere to compensate.

Two - many people have no insurance and cannot pay. They fall under charity care because they haven't the funds to properly pay their medical bills.

These are critical issues but I think they go much deeper than just health care. This is a very wealthy country but there an amazing amount of people can barely scrap by. An amazing number of folks sleep on sidewalks or roam the streets of the city because they have nowhere else to go.

There are oodles of people living in substandard housing, living with a leaking roof and shivering in the cold because they can't pay their bills. I know because I have been in some of those homes.

The real issue, to me, isn't health care but this dual standard of living. We have the very rich and the middle class. Then there's this ghost poor who no one talks about and addresses accept to acknowledge that they are a drain on the system.

I think it's time we try to do something to help these people. What would this entail? Would we ask the churches to stop building larger buildings and instead tend to the needy? Would that become a mandate?

Would we increase the funds from Social Security and other government entitlement monies to increase the standard of living from barely there to maybe having a little something? If we do that, how do we pay for it? Do we stop fighting wars and train those funds on the poor? Do we stop paying for public education? Do we raise taxes on those who can pay? And then how do we define who can pay? Just folks making over XXX dollars? Folks who manage to live within their means?

This country needs a major conversation on very important issues just like what I've described above. We don't need to talk about who's daughter is pregnant, which church someone does or does not attend and what Britney Spears has had to drink today. None of that matters to the nation. It shouldn't matter to anyone but the parties involved.

How we handle our less fortunate has a big impact on the country. FDR managed to bring an entire class out of a state of drowning by creating jobs - upgrades to infrastructure that are now today badly in need of repair. In Virginia alone we need millions and millions of dollars of road work that the state is unwilling to pay for.

There are sewer lines to be laid and water lines to be put down. Bridges need repairing. If we put people back to work - real work - imagine how different it might be. Folks could pay their E.R. bill, maybe.

Instead of tossing out $600 stimulus checks that do little, why not set up another Civilian Conservation Corps? Why not let people have a little pride and go about helping their country while they are also economically sustaining it?

It's time for talking about this sort of thing, folks. We need a plan. And then we need action. We need to find our footing again so we can all stand up proud, healthy and strong - each and every one.

I Love Nurses

I fear my last entry about Carilion and its bloody nose might have left the impression that I blame everyone associated therein and not the higher-ups.

I do not blame the non-administrative staff at all. I think nurses in particular have a very rough time of it. They perform a service I cannot. I envy nurses and the way they can compassionately soothe a fevered brow and make the world feel a bit better with a cool cloth.

It's not a touch I possess and I think it is a remarkable quality. I wish it was a quality in me but alas it is not.

The same goes for aids and radiology specialists and the vampires who draw blood and all of those other unsung health care workers who have to deal with body fluids and irate and irritable sick people. They are truly saints.

As for doctors, well, I don't always know about the doctors. Don't they have choices that others do not? Can't they, theoretically, put up a shingle and go into private practice anywhere? Instead it seems to me they have chosen to follow the money trail wherever it may lead them.

Even so, I understand there are pressures on doctors these days, what with malpractice insurance and the threat of lawsuits if you don't do this or that.

The problem maybe is in part the locale. Let's face it. How many Grade A Great Doctors are going to set up practice in little ol' rural southwestern Virginia? Not too many. I suspect we get the B listers and C listers around here. Not the sharpest tacks in the jar. Those folks are at the Mayo Clinic or someplace like that.

My aunt, by the way, is a nurse and I have the utmost respect for her. I think she has a very difficult job. And she is a very caring person.

I remember when I was in the hospital for surgery over 15 years ago how wonderful I thought my nurses were. They were attentive and thoughtful and they made me feel better.

That is what health care is supposed to do. The nurses do it. Some doctors do it. They make you feel better. But the system overall is broken and it doesn't do that. It does something else. It breaks my heart.

I See You

A Bloody Nose

Carilion, our health care behemoth, received a bloody nose from a Wall Street Journal article last week.

I have watched over the years as what used to be health care in the Roanoke Valley has degenerated to the point where it's more like a massive "make you sick" effort. While I know that the minions of nurses and even the lower-level doctors are doing their best to make the citizens of the valley healthy and happy, it is obvious to anyone with half a brain that their efforts are completely and totally undermined from the top down.

From the minute you pick up the phone to make an appointment until the time you finally write the last check for the bill, dealing with Carilion is, frankly, hell.

Trying to get an appointment at the local clinic is like navigating 36 feet ocean swells in the middle of Hurricane Gustav. You just can't do it well unless you're quite the expert captain, and not many of us reach that level when it comes to health system navigation.

Once you have an appointment, then you have to deal first with the support staff, some of whom I have had - honestly and truly - simply fall apart at the face of yet one more patient whom they couldn't deal with that day. Then you have a harried nurse who can't take your blood pressure without subjecting you to this horrid machine that pinches the crap out of your arm and leaves bruises.

Then in comes a doctor who's lack of attention is second only to the aloofness of the neighbor's cat. And for your three hours of time and your $40 copay you might get a prescription unless you need an antibiotic, in which case they will make you wait another five days and come back in because they fear they are over prescribing Z-packs these days. So that will cost you another $40 copay plus the copay on tests if you can convince them to actually check your white cell count. Not to mention another visit to hell.

I thought the scariest part of that article was the zeal with which Carilion goes after people who owe them money. They place judgements against 4,000 people ANNUALLY. And that's just in Roanoke City. That doesn't count Roanoke County, Salem, Botetourt, Bedford, Franklin - all of the surrounding communities. I daresay Carilion has a judgment against 10 percent of the area population at any given time.

I know from experience that they'll turn you over to a collection agency without blinking twice. My husband went to the ER two years ago with severe hives. He got them while he was at work and his superior insisted he go.

Seven months later, I received a nasty call from a bill collector saying we owed Carilion money. I had paid bill after bill for that particular visit - first the doctor, then some blood work, some other tests, the hospital itself, etc. etc., I think I made out a check to everyone except the laundry for the cleaning of the sheet on the bed my husband probably sat upon.

To make a long story short, somehow Carilion in its magnificence had managed to get our address right on everything but this one $40 charge, which somehow still had a rural route as the address. Of course we haven't had a rural route for about 20 years, so go figure where this came from.

For this, their error, they deemed it necessary to damage my credit and have me accosted by a bill collector when a phone call (or maybe a records check by someone with a brain in the office) could have cleared this up without the surliness.

I know Carilion saves lives. Many people would not be walking the streets, saddled with debt to the facility, were it not for their heroics. But to that I say, that is what they are supposed to be doing. That is their job.

And with the CEO making $2.7 million annually, I'd say they get paid for it fairly well, at least at the top.

So I say good for WSJ for giving Carilion a bloody nose. And to Dr. Murphy, who whines that Carilion can't take the blame for the country's broken health care system, I say to you, Sir, You are indeed the very reason it is broken.

Books: No Place Like Home

No Place Like Home
By Barbara Samuel
Read by Kristine Thatcher
Copyright 2001 or thereabouts

This is a nice little romance novel with well-developed characters. Jewel ran away from home to be with a guitar player and now 20 years later she returns with her son and a gay friend who is dying from AIDS in tow.

The book has some nice things to say about family ties and friendship as well as romantic love.

For a better synopsis, check out Amazon.

The 50th

August 22 was the 50th anniversary of my in-laws wedding.


We took them to dinner on Saturday, August 24.

That's my brother-in-law Gary standing with my mother-in-law Eunice. The young man sitting is my nephew Chris.




I knew I wanted to take a picture to put in the newspaper so I asked the guests of honor for a pose. That's Jimmy and Eunice.

That's my husband standing, my sister-in-law Jennifer in the back, and my nephew Emory sitting. We were waiting on our table in the main dining room.



I imagine by the menu you can tell where we went. I had shrimp if you need a hint.

We had originally planned a big party. The invitations were set to go out on July 15. They were in the envelopes and the stamps were next. And then on July 13 my mother-in-law broke her hip.

My husband and his sister canceled the party because they didn't know how well Eunice was going to get along. It probably would have been a stressful weekend for her.

Anyway, Happy Anniversary to Jimmy and Eunice.

Thursday Thirteen

In case you've wondered why my posting suddenly declined...

1. When you start shivering in the middle of the day and its 85 degrees outside and 72 inside, you start thinking something isn't right.

2. When the shivers get so bad you can't do anything but go to bed, you KNOW something isn't right.

3. When you spend the rest of thee day bowing to the porcelain throne, something definitely isn't right.

4. An inordinate amount of time sitting on the porcelain throne also indicates something isn't right.

5. When the cool tile in the bathroom floor feels so good you don't want to get up, but instead you just lay there, you know something isn't right.

6. Know that we know something wasn't right, what else did I learn?

7. Dreams made by fevered minds seem wildly colorful and profound. Unfortunately you can't remember them when coherence finally returns.

8. There is absolutely nothing better than the first gulp of ginger ale when you've been sick for hours.

9. The attention of a worried and fearful husband can make you rally if only because you don't want him to feel so bad that he can't make you better.

10. A shower can make you feel a whole lot better but a hot shower can zap your energy pretty quickly.

11. Trying to get back to work immediately after a day of sickness pretty much guarantees a second day of sickness.

12. A fever of 103 is nothing to laugh at.

13. My Chinese medicine doctor called every day to see how I was. We're still waiting on a return call from our clinic (which pays its CEO $2.7 million). Fortunately I don't need to talk to them anymore.



Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; you can learn more about it here. My other Thursday Thirteens are here.

Corn and Butterfly

Just Some Deer

Nature's majesty.

A late fawn streaks across the front yard (taken this week!)

Growing up (taken last week)

Study: Geese

Canadian geese have been landing in the alfalfa field in recent weeks.

Geese can do a number on a field of grass. The birds are worse than deer. Deer just eat it; geese pull it up by the roots and destroy it.

The first of the following three pictures is the original; the other two have been enhanced with Microsoft Picture It! software.





This picture also has been enhanced with the same software. The remainders are original photos, though cropped.

Thursday Thirteen

Here is a list of blogs I read (in no particular order). Some are on my links to the side and some need to get there but I haven't had time to do an update:

1. May Muses. This is written by a former writing buddy who used to live around here but has now taken herself off to Asheville so she can learn to be an acupuncturist. She has a different slant on life.

2. Stillwater suite. I just found this blog. I like the writer's voice and the subject matter.

3. Tom Atkins. Tom writes interesting poetry and has an interesting take on creativity and life in general. I really enjoy reading his work. His blog address changes a lot, though.

4. landuvmilknhoney. This is a local blogger who is doing homesteading and self-sustaining efforts in the biggest way. She makes her own butter, for heaven's sake!

5. AROOO. A different take on politics and life in general. Good reading if you're into women's issues and what is right (but not right-wing).

6. Blue Ridge Blue Collar Girl. Beth doesn't write enough but when she does you can bet your sweet bippy that it is worth the read.

7. Sweetfluttersbys3. This blogger writes about food and offers up recipes, along with a picture of some luscious and fattening cake. Makes me hungry every time I visit!

8. Spatter. June's photos are among my favorites. I wish I had her great photographic eye.

9. Roanoke Firefighters. An interesting take on the place of my husband's employment and probably enlightening reading for the citizens who live there as to how the government is actually working. Did you know this blog was recently banned from the city computers?

10. Jen's Bike Blog. I do not ride a bicycle but often wished I did. Jen writes about her work in the health care system and her bike rides, which includes fun outings and races. I live vicariously through her words, I think.

11. Ron Bailey. Ron is another who keeps changing his site around but at least the address stays the same. I am never quite sure what he is doing but if you're interested in scratching your head check him out.

12. The Virginia Scribe. Amy is in the Hollins Horizon program, following in my footsteps even though she doesn't know me. She has won some writing contests and I expect great things from her. She is doing it all while raising kids, too. Plus I think she married someone who is from around where I live.

13. Bad Jokes and Oven Chips. Another Thursday Thirteen-er, who lives across the sea. I enjoy learning about her world and her trumpet-playing adventures. She also does something with Girl Scouts or something like that group.

There are many more. Hope you found some new reading!


Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; you can learn more about it here. My other Thursday Thirteens are here.

Country in my soul

I love everything about the country. For instance, there is nature in all her glory, the cows lowing, the deer eating my rose bushes, the rabbits chewing holes in my plastic fence to get at my beans.

It is all wonderful and beautiful and pleasing to my ears, eyes and nose. Even the rabbits.

But I do not listen to country music. I do not care for the wail of those who need to leave their husbands to catch a train because their mother-in-law is coming home from Folsom prison.

No, these days I listen to adult contemporary, or pop music, with new artists whose names I do not know. I do not listen to country music.

I was, however, raised on country music.

My father plays the guitar and back then he sang the country songs of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Conway Twitty, Tom T. Hall, Charley Pride, Charlie Rich and Kris Kristofferson, not to mention Johnnie and June Carter Cash – that was the music of my early childhood.

I remember my father playing in the evening, strumming and trying to work out chords. He mostly played by ear as he sang the words to whatever country tune he decided to croon out any given evening.

My mother often joined in and they sang duets. I can still hear them singing “We got married in a fever, hotter than a pepper sprout. You’ve been talkin’ ‘bout Jackson ever since the fire burned out.” It made for a fun evening.

When I was 11, I decided to learn to play the guitar, too. I picked it up hesitantly. I quickly discovered that of the several instruments I played (piano, flute, saxophone), this was the one I truly loved.

I practiced in secret, moving quickly from Skip to My Lou to more popular pieces.

The first song I played for my parents was called California Girl (And The Tennessee Square) by Tompall And The Glaser Brothers.

It was a country song, played in the key of “A”.
I do not think I have ever heard that song played on the radio, but I heard my daddy sing it so that didn’t matter. It was his version I learned and his version that I played, only I played it faster and made the chord changes very quickly.

I went on to play guitar in a band, a short-lived teenage endeavor called Almost Famous that broke apart as we graduated high school and moved on to other things.

These days I very seldom pick up an instrument. My fingers are soft and tender now and the strings hurt when I try to play my guitar. Those hard-won calluses have vanished along with my youth.

But on quiet days sometimes, when I’ve something on my mind and the silence of the house can be a bit much when my husband is not at home, I sing.

And it’s often those old country tunes, with the sadness found in For the Good Times or the swaying blues of Bobby McGhee that I sing aloud to the kitchen walls.

Not some modern Bubbly or some belly grinder belted out by the likes of Britney Spears.

No indeed. I sing those country songs that I no longer listen to.

I sing them over and over again, as if it was yesterday and I am again 10 years old.

***
This originally appeared in The Fincastle Herald on August 20, 2008, under my Country Crossroads column.

Say What?!?

There is a reason why driving around Valley View Mall in Roanoke can be treacherous!

This sign is at the intersection of the off-ramp from Hershberger Road onto Valley View Blvd. I am directionally challenged so I don't know if it's east or west or north or south but it's the ramp one would take after passing Crossroads Mall going toward toward Interstate 581. Take the ramp and go to make a left turn toward Valley View.

I do know, however, that a STOP sign with a sign beneath that says "No Stopping" makes absolutely no sense.

Nature's Bounty (or Why I Shouldn't Cook)

Our six tomato plants have been especially fruitful this year. I have had tomatoes and more tomatoes.

We've given tomatoes to my in-laws, my husband's aunt, our next door neighbors times three, and my best friend. I have not yet grown desperate enough to leave them on people's doorsteps but with as many as 50 more ready to pick in two days' time I may get that way.

I do not can, though I should. I have made pickles in the past and they were good, but my cucumbers this year are not in the numbers for pickles. I have enough tomatoes to can, but we don't eat that much tomatoey foods anyway because I have a tender belly that can't tolerate all that acid.

Last night I decided I would freeze some of the tomatoes. I have done that before with good results, and it's easy.

All you have to do is boil the tomatoes for about a minute, then plunge them in ice water. This allows you to easily remove the skin.

Then you cut out the bad spots and the core. Rinse out the seeds. Put the meaty pulp in a drainer and then place them in labeled quart freezer bags. Remove as much as you can and then stick them in the freezer.

I made a pot of tea for my husband and then gathered my ingredients for the tomato freezing. A big pot for boiling, a plastic dish for the ice water, a spoon for dipping the tomatoes from the hot water, my colanders for draining, a knife.

As the water heated, I cleaned the tomatoes I planned to use.

Then I filled my plastic bowl with ice water and set it on the stove next to the boiling water for easy transfer.

I plopped in the tomatoes and set a timer. The skin on some of the riper tomatoes began to strip right off. When the timer went off, I grabbed the spoon and plunged the tomatoes one by one into the icy water.

Then I decided to pick up the bowl to carry it to the sink so I could put the tomatoes in the colander.

But what was this? The bowl ... would not budge. Had I become a weakling suddenly?

No.

The bowl had melted to the eye on my Jenn-Air stove. Remember that pot of tea I made before beginning the tomato process?

This eye was still a little hot when I placed the bowl of ice water on it.

First I laughed at my stupidity and then I cried. A new set of stove eye inserts for a Jenn-Air is expensive.

I dipped the tomatoes out and carried them individually to the sink as I tried to figure out what to do now.

I thought about turning the stove eye on so I could remove the bowl but I wasn't sure that was a good idea.

My husband was out but expected back in an hour so I decided to leave the bowl where it was - it wasn't like I could do anything with it anyway - and continue with my tomato freezing.

It took about 35 tomatoes to make up five quarts.

My husband came home as I finished up the tomatoes, and I explained my predicament to him. He vetoed the "turn on the eye and let the bowl melt free" suggestion, saying it would smoke up the house. He's a fireman so I had to respect his knowledge on this subject.

He tested the bowl and could not remove it, but after he emptied the bowl of ice water, he tried again. Perhaps because the water was gone, he was able to wrench it free.

That left just a little tiny ring of plastic on the eye, which he was able to scrap off with his pocket knife. The eye burned fine after he cleaned it.

The bowl is still usable, too. Catastrophe averted!

Regular readers will remember I melted a plastic spoon into peanut brittle back in the winter.

Some folks are meant to cook, and are artistically creative with food.

Some folks, like me, are just meant to eat it, I guess.

Study: Silo

Thursday Thirteen

1. Why does a 55 degree morning in August require a sweater, but a 55 degree morning in March means short sleeves and shorts?

2. The best sound of summer is the swish of the tree leaves as the oaks and maples talk quietly to one another.

3. Tomatoes, whether fruit or vegetable I do not know or care, is among the finer things to eat in summer. How can you beat a tomato and mayonnaise sandwich?

4. Peaches make for a fine dessert. Or main meal, if you like. And they're best this time of year!

5. Apples are a mainstay in a healthy diet (that doctor saying, you know). In the next several weeks fresh apples will be inundating the local markets. Yum.

6. The number of fogs in August supposedly means you will have that many snows. (Or so my mother always said.) We have fog this morning...

7. The dog days of summer should be behind us. During that time cuts don't heal and animals are overheated. (Or so my mother always said.)

8. The mountains are generally cooler than the lowlands but often its just a matter of degree and imagination.

9. In August the sky seems to move in closer and the blues are more intense.

10. After a rain, everything seems so much cleaner in the summer. Sometimes the green glistens and the raindrops are like diamonds when the sunshine hits them.

11. The days have grown a little shorter and that means less time to harvest, garden, mow and gather stores for the winter.

12. When I was a child we spent our summers with my grandmother in Salem. She lived along the Roanoke River and up the block there was an abandoned house. Can you guess where we weren't supposed to be and usually were?

13. I love to watch the sky in summer. The other day I saw a dinosaur and then a castle... and the other night I saw a glowing Jupiter as it squatted near the moon.



Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; you can learn more about it here. My other Thursday Thirteens are here.

Study: Apples

Great Customer Service

After I made my purchase of RAM Sunday at CC, I came home and unhooked the desktop. I carried it into the kitchen so I'd have room to work.

The case had not been opened since I purchased the computer. There were dustbunnies in the bottom.

I blew those out and rid the thing of the dirt. That alone as probably worth the hassle of unhooking the computer.

Locating the memory was not a problem. Getting to it was a bit difficult; it was behind a tangle of wires. After much huffing and puffing and wondering why it took so much force to get the RAM in, I finally wiped my brow and stood back and admired my work.

I reconnected everything and hit the start button.

The silence was deafening and the blackness on the monitor was blinding.

She was dead, my poor dear little desktop.

I reread the instructions with the RAM. I hunted up the owner's manual for the desktop. I'd done everything right.

The RAM offered free tech support.

This time I kept the desktop connected except for the power, and brought a chair in to lay the computer on so I wouldn't have to sit in the floor.

Then I called tech support for Kingston, the makers of the memory chips. After not even a minute's wait, a very nice man named Eric came on the line.

I explained my problem. He said, "We'll fix that."

I removed the memory and put it back in in various ways. It turns out my computer wasn't even supposed to have four memory slots but it did. Then he determined that the memory should be installed 1 GB chip 512 mg chip 1GB chip 512 mg chip instead of the other way around, which is how I had it.

After some more grunting on my part because the memory chips are hard to clip in (he said it takes 40 pounds of force to get them in! Imagine.), I booted and ... hurrah!

3 GBs of RAM on the desktop. It is a little faster and I think this will satisfy me for some time to come.

I really just wanted to acknowledge the tech at Kingston. He was very patient and I am very happy.

Why can't people always be nice?

I take it back

Remember my whines about my laptop purchase? I bought a little Gateway from CC about 10 days ago.

I felt like I paid for things I didn't get with the "quickstart" service. And then the computer went on sale for $50 less with a rebate and they don't match rebate prices.

The little laptop uses MS Vista. It has 3 or 4 GB RAM and it's very zippy. It whistles and sings and snaps along like a bee buzzing on a fine flower in the best part of June.

My desktop, on the other hand, is a Gateway purchased in 2005. It still uses Windows XP and (up until yesterday) had only 1 GB RAM. Still plenty of hard drive space left on it, though, even with all the photos I take.

My desktop, while reliable, plodded along like a groundhog seeking supper on a hot August day.

I spent some time Saturday trying to tweak the desktop. I consulted a knowledgeable friend about the items I could take out of "start up" in hopes of making it load faster. The computer takes about two minutes to boot (which really isn't all that bad, I mean, at least it boots).

Sunday I decided I should add RAM to the desktop. I did that several months ago for my old Toshiba laptop, which my husband now uses, and that helped it immensely. It went from 256 RAM to 1 RAM and it loads decently now.

I checked online to see what kind of RAM my Gateway might need and discovered it takes PC3200. Then I checked the websites of various stores.

I found it at CC for $45 for 1 GB. So for less than $100 I could soup up the desktop and hopefully use it for another couple of years.

At CC, I found the memory chips but none were marked $45. I found a helpful salesman (I think he was the same one who sold me the Gateway laptop, actually), and he went to look it up for me because I didn't print out the page or preorder it on the web.

As I trailed after him, I walked down the aisle where the laptops were. Lo, there was my Gateway laptop, marked down $50.

I stared at it, looking to see if this was still the sale price with the rebate. A young woman asked if she could help, and I explained I'd just bought that computer but paid $50 more.

This was on sale now WITHOUT the rebate! She said I didn't need my receipt, either, I could just go to customer service and tell them my name and just like that I'd get $50 credited to my card.

Meanwhile, the young man discovered that the memory RAM I needed indeed was on sale for $45 and was not $99 as marked.

Well! My estimation of CC increased exponentially with this nice service and $50 back on my laptop. Not to mention 2 GBs of RAM for $90.

So I take back whatever I said. This is still a better electronics company to deal with than that other one. While I feel like I received a $40 bum deal with the "quickstart" that was a bad decision on my part, really, and I take full responsibility.

Thanks CC for the good work!

Post 700

This is my 700th post, at least, according to the Blogger count, anyway.

I started blogging on August 5, 2006 - just a few days over two years ago, with a post entitled A New Beginning.

I had been blogging for about 18 months on AOL Journals. Then AOL decided to put ads all over everything. They were garish and annoying.

About that time I was interested in learning about Google Ads. Switching over to Blogger to see how that worked seemed like a good way to figure it out.

You do not get rich with ads on a blog, unless perhaps you're the Drudge Report or Huffington Post or something like that. People like me, and probably you, who are just posting and have about as much traffic in a week as a 7-11 convenience store sees in an hour likely aren't going to find ads on a blog very profitable.

I suppose if I wanted to spend time trying to leverage my product (i.e., this blog) so that more folks see it, it could be done, but my work and my interest in keeping my husband happy and my house clean and occasionally playing a video game - living life, you know - tends to preclude spending the hours it would take to "optimize" this thing and morph it into something, I don't know, spectacular, whatever that might be.

I actually began blogging on Blogger in 2003 under another name. My blog posts were unread rants about the war, which I opposed from the start. I am a pacifist at heart. War to me is simply a rich man's chess, a way to keep the proletariat at bay and the money in the proper pockets. Life is sacred and should be revered and honored and no one should die from a bullet in a gun fight even though I know people do all the time.

That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

So here's to two years of blogging. Thanks so much to my readers, those I know and those I don't, for sticking with me. I hope you've found something to smile at sometimes and something to think about at other times. If you're new here, I welcome you and am glad you dropped by. This is, for all intents and purposes, my front porch, where I put up my feet and offer you lemonade and conversation.

I do hope it has been and continues to be to your liking.

This is not a giraffe

I do not often see a doe on her hind legs, but the other morning as I sipped my tea and peered out the back door ...



she jumped up, apparently hungry for the leaves of a paradise. Or maybe she was after a switch for her young one:





The tree branches are about six feet from the ground. I can barely touch them with my arms outstretched and I am 5'2".




She hopped up on her hind legs several times, tugging at the branch each time she did so. She finally gave up and moseyed on after Junior there, who had long since headed for something less difficult to obtain - my rose bushes!

Swing Vote

Last weekend we saw the movie Swing Vote with Kevin Costner.

The movie basically is about a down-and-out divorced father who works in a egg factory (and gets fired during the movie). Through some twisted logic, he becomes the key vote during the presidential elections.

The presidential candidates then via for his vote.

That's the plot, but the movie is quite a commentary on our society. It is billed as a comedy but I cried throughout much of the show.

The movie highlighted the people that don't seem to matter in this country, at least not to the media and not to the government. Costner's character was one of those folks who have given up and lost hope of ever doing anything with his life. Why should he bother voting, much less trying to understand the issues, when so little of it pertains to his life?

He doesn't care about abortion or stem cell research or the War in Iraq, except that its taken some his drinking buddies away from town. He does care about high prices, gassing up his truck, feeding his daughter and making sure she gets to school.

The presidential candidates swoop into town to convince this uneducated bumpkin to vote for their side. It doesn't really matter what they stand for or if they are right or left in their politics; if Costner's character said he liked purple and the polka that is all that mattered.

Finally Costner's daughter forced him to understand the importance of his decision. He read letters that folks just like himself sent to him, hoping he would make a difference. He asked for a debate between the two candidates. One of the letters asked why, in a nation so rich, is there so little for those who have the least?

It is a good question and the movie did not answer it. That's because the answers are multiple and singular. I can name it in one word: greed.

The concept of the Greater Good has vanished. People do not care about one another. If I know you I might care about you but otherwise, I have no need or desire to see that you are safe and fed. That is how people think, with their eyes and hearts completely closed.

Politicians listen only to whiny self-inflated egoists who sit in their McMansions boo-hooing because they might have to pay another $100 a year in taxes. Those crybabies never think that their money might feed another person, or fix a road so that their best friend's cousin doesn't get killed in the bad curve, or pay for health care for an elderly mother who just had a stroke. All they think about is their tightly closed pocketbook.

The politicians (or the McMansion crowd) don't hear the cries of the waitress trying to raise her daughter on $18,000 a year. Or the sounds of a family of four trying to get back on $24,000 a year. They don't realize that there is no blame - not everyone can come out on top. Despite the rhetoric, we can't all be president or run corporations or make a million dollars. There just isn't enough time or space.

The politicians just hear Halliburton's cries for more cash and Exxon's demands for lower pollution controls. Big business rules. Hail the corporations!

This movie pointed out what is wrong and sad about this country and about the pitiful and sick election process that we undergo every four years.

It made some members of the audience uncomfortable and it made me cry. I wish everyone would watch this flick and understand, if only for a moment, the absolute unfairness of our capitalistic system and just how undemocratic our so-called democracy really is.

Thursday Thirteen

1. Last evening we went for a walk.

2. On a rock, I found a very large eggshell.

3. My husband surmised it was a turkey or duck egg. Definitely not a chicken or a little bird.

4. I thought maybe it was a buzzard or vulture egg.

5. A little later we found many feathers in lots of colors, mostly black and blue.

6. What happened here?

7. My husband surmised (he was surmising a lot) that it was a coyote, perhaps.

8. We did not find any dead birds.

9. We did not find any live ones, either.

10. We did see a few deer. One was across the road but her snort carried a long ways in the quiet evening hour. It startled us.

11. Deer don't seem to have voices but they do have large snorts and other sounds that I am sure have meaning to other deer.

12. I've run out of things to say.

13. Somehow this posted earlier before I even started it, so if you have a blank entry that was a mistake.


Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; you can learn more about it here. My other Thursday Thirteens are here.

A Little Nectar

Situation Updates

First, but not most important, the laptop computer issue -

I wrote to CC on Sunday and told them I wasn't happy with the $39.99 optimization process.

Early this morning I opened up an advertisement from CC and discovered the same laptop on sale for $50 less than I paid for it, through a mail-in rebate. According to their "unbeatable price guarantee," rebates aren't considered when they are matching said "unbeatable price."

Later this morning I received a letter from their customer service. Essentially it said they would re-do the optimization process. Of course I have already taken care of the issues - Microsoft and Norton are all updated, I've added the icons I wanted on my screen desktop - so there is nothing for them to do.

It is still a good buy even if I do feel like I was taken for $90 now, what with the rebate coming up and all. It won't matter in a 100 years, or even next year, and that is the benchmark to go buy.

Second, Old Folks update -

I am happy to report my mother-in-law came home Friday. She is doing great in her recovery from her broken hip and partial hip replacement. She is definitely an inspiration, if not a lesson, to the whiners of the world (I include myself in that). She just does what she is told and moves on. I really admire her for that.

I am not so happy to report that my aunt who is charge of my great-aunt's care has decided to call in hospice for my great aunt, Susie. Hospice, for my friends not in the U.S., is palliative end-of-life care. Some folks like it, some don't. My two previous experiences with it have not been good but I do think the concept of it has merit.

Having hospice come to the assisted living facility is supposed to allow Susie to stay where she is, as opposed to being moved around and into the nursing home portion of the place where we stick old people (otherwise known as a retirement community).

Third, the helicopter rescue -

Sadly, my neighbor did not survive the physical ailment that had the rescue helicopter buzzing the area 10 days ago.

I had hoped that the speediness with which she received care would help her, but it was not to be.

The funeral was today. My husband and I attended, and I went to visitation last night. He knows the family much better than I, having played with the young sons all during his childhood, but then I too have known a few of the sons since elementary school.

It is always hard to lose your mama, I don't care who you are.

Fried Green Tomatoes

Saturday I decided it was time for fried green tomatoes.

My husband doesn't care for them, but he was working and so I had only my self to please.

I thought I'd fry up a zucchini, too, while I was at it.



Normally I do not eat fried food. I cook in a little olive oil from time to time but otherwise had nothing in the house for a big batch of fried 'maters. I bought some Smart Balance oil that was supposed to be heart healthy, although I have my doubts as to the healthiness of cooking oil in all shapes and forms.



Those tomatoes and the one zucchini made up a great big plate full of veggies.




I had purchased batter for onion rings, but didn't care much for it on the first batch. So I added flour and milk and an egg to what I had and went from there.

I liked that better.

It took me almost an hour to get the tomatoes and the zucchini fried.




Yum.