Things I Want Thursday...

It's been a while since I've participated in Sass's...


It's a short list but I want some important things this week...

1) To be completely recovered by (or, even better, BEFORE) Christmas.

2) My mom to stay out of my business.

I haven't seen my man since October 17th - 2 days before I went into the hospital (I don't want him to see me looking like crap).

But I talk to him every day. And mom's been hearing my side of our conversations because she's been sticking close, in case I need her.

So, it came as no surprise when she gave me a bit of (sage?) advice the other night, after dinner...

"Don't keep harping on your health problems. You're going to turn (my man) off."

My 1st reaction was to laugh. My 2nd reaction was to think "I can't wait to tell him what she said!"

He called at 11 (as always) and I repeated her words. His immediate response was, "Why not? And why would it turn me off?" I replied, "Exactly!"

I knew that would be his reaction because December 9th will be our 6th anniversary...and he hasn't taken off yet. ; )

Btw, mom gave me the same advice when I was with my ex-boyfriend, who stuck with me through 3 surgeries.

I don't know whether she doesn't have faith in the men I chose...or in me. lol!

3) For all my U.S. readers to have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day! It'll just be my mom, 2 brothers and myself this year, thankfully at home. Last year, we went to my sister's house where 18 people fought over shared the turkey and green bean casserole. This year, I have a better chance at getting more than a bite.

I'm off to enjoy the 80 degree weather...did I mention that I love living in L.A.?

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You may be able to fool yourself but you can't fool me...

I'm a HUGE Styx fan. So when I came across a concert on tv last night, I was all over it...at first.

The show started out with interviews from the band, and that's when I lost it. You see, there are only 2 original members left and the newbies were talking as if they'd been together since the beginning...and that pissed me off!

James "J.Y." Young – vocals, guitar, keyboards (1972–present)
Tommy Shaw – guitars, vocals, mandolin (1976–1983, 1995–present)
Todd Sucherman – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1995–present)
Lawrence Gowan – keyboards, backing vocals, guitar (1999–present)
Ricky Phillips – bass, backing vocals (2003–present)

One original member (John Panozzo) died of liver disease, his brother (Chuck) voluntarily bowed out due to having HIV, then Tommy and JY forced the lead singer (Dennis DeYoung) out because he didn't mesh with what they wanted the band to become. Dennis sued them for using the 'Styx' name, and Tommy and JY sued Dennis for calling himself 'the voice of Styx'.

Well, as far as I'M concerned, Dennis IS the voice of Styx...



This clip was from the last concert tour before Chuck left and Dennis was ousted.

So, as I was watching the concert last night, I enjoyed the songs that were sung by Tommy Shaw, like 'Fooling Yourself', but muted the tv whenever that @$$hat, who replaced Dennis DeYoung, tried to sing his songs.

I'm nothing if not loyal to my peeps. : )

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Where's the beef? In my stomach, that's where...

I've always liked my beef. Ok, I've always LOVED my beef!


The first solid meal I had in the hospital was meatloaf...and it was GOOD! I hadn't eaten in 7 days and, after a 2 day 'liquid' diet of broth, Jell-o (which I hate), juice and a popsicle, I wanted something more substantial.

2 days after I got out, mom made roast beef, mashed potatoes and green beans. The meal I've always said I'd have if I was ever on Death Row (don't worry, I'm not planning on it).

I was on antibiotics so my appetite wasn't up to snuff, but I ended up eating more than I should have...and it was GOOD!

Mom has made hamburgers on her George Foreman Grill twice...and it was AWESOME! I'll pass on the 900+ calorie gut-busters at the drive-thru from now on.

Since I've been craving beef, I guess my body knew that I needed the protein.

But, apparently, I also needed romaine lettuce, parmesan cheese, and croutons.

Mom and my AZ brother went to a newly-opened restaurant Thursday night and I was eyeing the Caesar Salad on their menu. I planned on having a bowl of cereal for dinner, but the 'petite' Caesar Salad was calling my name.

And it was GOOOOOD! So good that I had 2 servings!

I had to wait for lunch on Friday to eat the rest (did I mention that this place serves HUGE portions?) because salad for breakfast just seemed wrong. ; )

P.S. I had 1/2 a pomegranite this afternoon and it killed my insides. Then I had a slice of sausage pizza for dinner...and not even a twinge. Who says pizza is bad for you? Not me!

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I'm feeling freakishly normal today...

Which must mean I'm getting better.

I lost a lot of strength from laying around in the hospital for 11 days, so I've been splitting my time (12/12) between bed and my w/c since I got home. But I'm finally beginning to feel like myself again...at least today. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? It's a 2 steps forward, 1 step back kind of thing.

But the good news is, I'm able to get out of bed on my own now (still have to be helped into bed, though).

This has been my life for the last month...

Hospital: woken up at 4:30 am for blood pressure/temp taking. Woken up at 5:30 for blood test. Woken up at 6:30 by the guy replacing the gloves/taking the trash. The General Surgeon (who checked on me every day) was a sweetheart - and cute. The admitting Dr. was an @$$hat (his 'bedside' manner sucked). The nurses were nice, but grossly incompetent at times. Thank God my sister (a Nurse Practioner) had my back! I got myself out of there as SOON as I could...and I'm NEVER going back.

Home: forced myself to eat because the antibiotics made me feel like death. My appetite kicked in 2 days after stopping the antibiotics. But I'm trying to lose some weight. It helps that food isn't very appealing to me (yet). Spent a LOT of time obsessing over the fact that this could happen again. It didn't help that, when I asked the Dr. whether it could, he said, "Absolutely". A nurse friend said, "Don't think about it. You'll just make yourself miserable."

So nearly 1 month after 'the episode', I'm trying to forget the crappy hospital experience, eat healthier, and not obsess about ifs or whens.

Wish me luck!

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Halloweenie - a repost...

This was originally posted on 10/31/08, when I didn't have a lot of followers. It means a lot to me and you'll see why I'm reposting it...

I loved Halloween as a kid (who doesn't?) and I have some really good memories. My favorite costume was after I had surgery when I was 7-8 years old. I was sporting a full-length cast on my left leg and was tooling around in a wheelchair. My brothers came up with the idea of going trick-or-treating as an accident victim. I wore the hospital gown that I came home in, wrapped an Ace bandage around my head and 'bloodied' my face and head. I looked GREAT!

I used to go around the neighborhood with a couple of my friends, my 3 youngest brothers, and a few of their friends. One of them always teased me. Always! Of course, we teased him back, calling him 'Dribbles' behind his back because he never stopped talking long enough to swallow his own saliva. Dribbles always made fun of the way I looked, the way I walked...you name it, he made fun of it.

I stopped trick-or-treating when I was 12 years old. I had hip surgery that had complications and I ended up on crutches. I didn't feel like walking for hours anymore, with my only reward being candy. I could stay home to pass out the candy and eat as much as I wanted. It was a win-win situation. I also enjoyed seeing the little kids and how excited they were to be getting 'free' candy.

In October of 1981, I came home from school one day to learn that my Uncle Bill had been in a construction accident. He'd walked into the emergency room on his own two feet, so we assumed he'd be okay. We were wrong.

~~~~~~~~

Bill was my dad's brother, 1 of 13 siblings. Dad is the 3rd oldest and Bill, the 4th youngest. He was a George Carlin-type of person.

Loud, obnoxious, sarcastic, foul-mouthed. He was my favorite uncle and I loved him to pieces. I like to think I get my sarcastic sense of humor from being around him. He'd come to our house every Sunday and harass the kids (in fun). He'd call my sister 'Olive Oil', for instance, which always cracked us up...and made her mad.

My favorite memory is when I was 10 years old and we were on vacation in Connecticut. My dad's brothers all got together to tear up my grandma's concrete driveway. It was being uprooted by a tree and dangerous to walk on. She was in her 70's, on the heavy side and the sweetest grandma there ever was. Of course, I'm biased...but no one wanted to see anything bad happen to her.

I had nothing better to do so I sat on the porch to watch them work. Pretty soon, Bill stopped to go into the house. A minute later, he came out with a kitchen chair and put it on the lawn, facing the driveway. He picked me up, put me in the chair and said, "You're the supervisor on this job. Keep an eye on these guys and tell me if they slack off."

I didn't know what a supervisor did or what slack off meant...but I had fun. My uncles would say, "Hey Jeff (my dad), keep working. You don't want Jodi tattling on you, do you?" Looking back, I realize that Bill was just humoring a bored little girl...but I felt important that day.


Here's Uncle Bill in his early 30's.
~~~~~~~~

The day after Bill walked into the hospital, he became unconscious. The doctors finally did a brain scan and found a "closed-head" wound. His brain was injured but the skin wasn't broken so they hadn't done extensive tests. They put him on a ventilator and waited. After 2 weeks, the decision was made by my dad and another uncle to take him off life support. It was 3 weeks before his 49th birthday.

His funeral was on the morning of All Hallow's Eve aka Halloween. I still remember that day vividly. The Pastor gave a sermon titled, "A Well-Built House" about how Bill loved his family and did his best to keep everyone together. I thought it was appropriate because, even though he was loud, obnoxious...and all those other things, he loved his family more than anything. AND he was a construction worker.

After the service, a neighbor girl (one I'd never gotten along with) said to me, "It's for the best." I sarcastically replied, "Falling from a 2-story platform and hitting his head on the sidewalk was for the best???" I was angry and an uncle took me in his arms while I cried.

Bill had been cremated and his ashes were being taken back to Connecticut to be buried next to my grandma, who had passed away in June. Everyone eventually left the church and went back to my house to gather. After hours of talking to people who kept giving me meaningless platitudes, I decided to go outside to pass out candy.

I was sitting on the porch, with 3 of my brothers, when Dribbles drove up. He knew my uncle's funeral was that morning but he's never been accused to having any sympathy. He immediately started in on me...

"That's a great mask! Very realistic."
"You're going to scare all the little tykes away."
"Damn, you're ugly! Oh wait, that's not a mask!"

That was IT! I'm normally a very easy-going person but my favorite uncle had just died and I was NOT in the mood to humor this jerk.

Dribbles was standing directly in front of me and, with all the strength I'd gained from walking on my crutches, I grabbed one and aimed at Mr. Happy and the twins. I swung as hard as I could, with all the anger I'd built up throughout the day.

He fell to the ground, moaning in pain. After a few moments, he looked at my brothers and gasped, "What the hell did she do that for?" My brothers, who I (more often than not) bickered with most of the time, replied, "You deserved it, dude."

It's been 27 years but I still think of Uncle Bill every single day. I always complain that Sundays are boring. I was so used to seeing him every weekend for the 17 years that I knew him, that Sundays have never been the same.

Neither has Halloween.

I'm not out of the woods but I'm out of the hospital...

On the morning of October 19th, I took an ambulance ride to the hospital. I had a bowel blockage (kinked plumbing) and spent 11 days in the hospital, getting out yesterday. I'm very sore and weak from being in bed all that time.

I'm not going to be here til I get my health back and I honestly don't know how long that will be...but I will be back.

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I was afraid this would happen...

I loved XP...no, that's too weak a word. I adored XP! So much so, that I tried to find a new computer that still had XP Home installed, but no such luck.

So I did the next best thing...I bought a computer that came with a (free) upgrade to Windows 7, when it comes out, and I'm hoping for the best. Because I hate Vista!

While I know what they were trying to do (make things easier for the average user), they've actually made things worse for people who actually know what they're doing.


I spent Saturday afternoon staying out of my man's way while he set the computer up, and Saturday night downloading programs from a reputable site. But warnings kept popping up, asking if I really wanted to perform that action.

"Uhh, no sh!t Sherlock...that's why I did it!" Grr!

Thankfully, my computer geek cousin from S.F. was down for the weekend and stopped by Sunday morning. I asked him, with hope in my heart, if he knew anything about Vista.

He did and, while I still hate the thing, I can actually DO some things now. Like find Vista's version of 'My Computer', add and remove all the crap they installed programs, and add icons to my desktop. All simple things to do in XP.

Now, if someone could just tell me how to get rid of the uber-annoying 'Do you want to view only the webpage content that was delivered securely?' warning that pops up EVERY time I want to comment on a post. lol!

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Photo Friday...

This week's installment is one of my favorite photos, from one of my favorite places. It's an area in the local mountains called Switzer...


This path is part of a 4-mile walking trail, and the first 1/2-mile is wheelchair accessible!

Just before the trail climbs, there's a small pond...which will be next week's installment.

P.S. I'm getting my new computer system set up tomorrow. Hopefully I'll be back on Monday. ; )

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