Life lessons coping with Alzheimer

Elderly parents and kids...

2012-02-10T10:29:00.000-08:00

I write to several of my peers and the daily emails I get are mostly about problems we are having with children.
Now our children are mostly in their 40's or 50's or later but are having problems either with spouses, money (that especially) emotions, changes in the hormones,friendships, health for sure, and the list goes on.
We are near the end of this journey and are not able to help.
Most of us are on limited income, have doctors who are retiring on us and can't advice on the new load of MD's and gadgets to get us alive and stay alive, our journey's into matrimony were quite different and when we bought a house we thought it was the best investment we ever made.

Decades ago my mother in law who was then 83 years told me that she was
happy to be near the end of life as she could not keep up with the changes.

I try to keep up but I am exhausted when I hear their problems.
Life goes on with different challenges.
It is how we can deal with them without 24 different Life Masters and Guru's.

If these Master planners are doing so very well, check out their household when the doors are closed, is everything perfect there? I doubt it.

If a financial advisor is so good, ask him how his portfolio is doing? Does he need an advisor too?

100 years ago both my grandmothers were beaten on a daily basis.
The husband was King, the supporter of the family, the man who could have mistresses and the wife look the other way.
How much has changed???
In every town in this country there is a shelter for battered wives....
say no more.

party time

2012-01-22T11:34:00.000-08:00

Rhonda had a party for her birthday / Chinese New Year.
We had a very good time, ladies only and all the Chinese food enough to open a restaurant.
It was quite pleasant, I was the only old bird among ladies on menapause.
Guess that is why we all had fans on our plates.\Chinese fortunes were read and it seems that I will make money this year...how about them apples...said so also last year and I did have a great start with my shop.
On to pricing and beading enough with the chit chat.....there is work awaiting this old gal...

PS MY quince bush is starting to bloom..usually in March...

Absence

2012-01-21T11:44:00.000-08:00

I have been AWOL ....because...I am so damn busy with the new shop opening Feb 1 and grand opening the 12th.
Purchased a large lot with heart jewelry , over 258 pieces, they are still to come.
Meanwhile I fret over lights and display cases....yesterday between dr appointments rushed to thrift stores...found 2 nice lamps at Hospice (thank you Celia who works there as volunteer) found some old beads there too. Locals should try the stores in Asheville, they are nice too.
Dr said his tests are fine and now on to the scan again.
Then we will also have a complete check up and that I do not like they always find something. After that I should be MD free.

Have neglected my friends very sorely and hope they know I am rushing in head and on foot to find what I need.

Meanwhile also making more necklaces and stuff....Bobby has been neglected my cooking is anything I can put together in 10 minutes.
Fast food on Valley St.

I will come bck to normal (did I say normal?) in a few weeks.

Today we celebrate Daughter Rhonda birthday she has a Chinese New Years party and
it is all ladies, should be fun.

Dr. Cargill, the urologist, and the best, gave me a "You go girl" when he found out how busy I am.

Nick, grandson, and I decided this week that I should try for 90.
A year ago I would have said:"NO WAY" I did not want to live beyond 83.
Today in my frame of mind 90 sounds pretty good but with conditions:
I have to keep all my marbles, and be able to walk, I will even take a
cane, have done that and wearing the T shirt.
Nick said I will make it, he should know he will be a dr in 1 1/2 years.

Enough said I need to get dressed for a party!

busy busy

2012-01-15T14:11:00.001-08:00

opening new section of store Feb 11
just bought 254 vintage heart pieces, necklaces, earrings, pins, watches, yikes...keep pricing Jeannot do not sit here.....

Vertigo day....

2012-01-06T08:17:00.000-08:00

I am thinking that the way I walked Bijou this morning my neighbors peaking behind the curtains must have been thinking that I was hitting the bottle a bit early.
Damn vertigo! As I tried to just concentrate in front of me, not turning the head,
(I can't hear cars behind me, good luck with that J.) and walking a straight line, I started to giggle I had a picture in mind of a cop stopping me and ordering me to walk a straight line. That would be a hoot.

Think my choice of day will be to sit still or just go to sleep all day if I can.
Darn crystals in the ear, I have necklaces to make with real crystals.

new collection started for 2012 and second shop:

2012-01-01T19:02:00.000-08:00

I thought I had more pictures but that is the beginning anyway.....

2012-01-01T18:53:00.000-08:00

Had my saints mixed up on last post

2012-01-01T18:38:00.001-08:00

It was St Simond I think or Simon or whatever but not St Thomas Island.
Yikes...I am getting old.

2012

2012-01-01T18:34:00.000-08:00

Holidays gone, done, over with.

They were not as bad as I had thought , I had not made any plans at all and everything that was needed came in perfect order.
Sabrina has a lovely Christmas party, her house decorated to the max, felt warm and lovely. Rhonda and grandsons invited us all for the Christmas eve dinner, her new apartement is charming and the table was darn right gorgeous, the meal spectacular.
We all had a nice calm evening and I was asked to read my last story about Red.
I felt uncomfortable but then got into the swing of it and finished it with some tears. Tears of great memories of the ones no longer with us.

Christmas day was calm for both Bobby and I. He has had some set backs and Shannon could not come just yet until he is calmer with new medicine.
He missed all the parties but he is better that way without commotion.

Boxing day Sabrina and I took off for a few days at Jekyll Island.
If I cant be on the Hawaiian islands then I want to be in Jekyll.
It is quiet, one road around the island so to speak the rest is closed with some strategic parking lots among the giant old trees decorated with tons of
Spanish moss. I love Spanish moss, so do the chiggers. I did not tell Brie that as I made her take a photo with a moss wig.
I will post photos too.
We went to the other well spoken about St Thomas island but I like Jekyll better.
The best meal was at 31 latitude, I had Alfredo sauce with plenty of shrimp and
(can't find the word) the round white oh! scallops.
It was delicious, sauce no doubt made with pure cream, back on the hips I'd say.
We returned the next day for lunch so Brie could have her crab legs.

What we had not planned or knew is that L and C were there for Christmas and leaving the day after we came. We planned to have dinner together on the Monday but the traffic had other plans. From Columbia on 26 to 95 the Florida route it was
bumper to bumper, what usually takes 7 hours took us 11 hours so we had to cancel our engagement. L and C visited us in our room (they had the same hotel too) and brought a bottle of fine wine, I was also drunk from swaying in the car one yard at the time.....never again on Dec 26 will I leave the house...unless I fly somewhere...years ago Bob, young Bob, and I flew on Christmas day and the plane was virtually empty, we went to Belgium, of course.

The island trip was a jewel for me as it was quiet and the shops had nothing to make me spend money (that is rare) so it was all about walking the beaches and between the fantastic houses built around 1886 to 1900.
J P Morgan came there on his yacht and decided they need a club there.
They being the Astors, Vanderbilts, Rockefellers.
The club house is now a gorgeous hotel, we had lunch there and I watched the all white clad gents playing croquet on the lawn. My imagination took me to 1900 and I saw the ladies mix with the gents in gorgeous white lace dresses and big hats....oh what a sight it was...then I had to open my eyes again and settle for what was there now still enjoying the good life.
I did not find out what the rate was at the hotel, besides that I always want to be on the beach and ours was indeed right next to the beach and dunes, only 10 steps from our room. The rates were do-able but I am sure that when we left they went up as there was a Blue Grass Festival this week end and the hotel was filling up very fast.
It was a perfect get away, Brie drove a long distance to give me this thrill.

New Years week end, Shannon came but had to go home yesterday on Dec 31st.
Bobby at long last had a friend to talk with about all the latest in their lives.

Shannon gave me a gorgeous portfolio and in it I found most of my stories neatly typed and sorted. She called it "a work in progress". It was very sweet of her to
think so much about my stories.

Life is good....
2012 lets keep it good!!!!

Christmas eve 2011 and the future

2011-12-24T10:20:00.000-08:00

It's that time of the year but I am already looking forwards in 9 weeks,
to be exact, when I will turn 80!

There is something magical to me about becoming 80.
I just never in my wildest dreams thought I would ever see that number.

When Bob and I first dated we both had this idea that most of our lives were
already lived. I was 36 and he was 42.
I do not know why we both felt this doom hanging over our heads for a short life.
We decided that no matter what the remaining years would be heavenly...
they were until he became ill. But, we had 42 years together, so much for the negativity of our youth.

Bob read palms in his spare time away from astrology charts.
He kept showing me that he was going to live till about 50.
He made it till 84, he did not want to read mine afraid to see
when I would leave, he was serious about it.
Made my chart before he took the notion seriously about dating me.
"dating" was just going and have some coffee in a coffeehouse full of hippies. It was the late sixties after all and neither of us had money to pay for a dinner.

My mother read palms, she was serious about it too and told many in our office about what would happen, she was on target too. I begged her time and time
again to read my hand and she would just take a slight peak and refuse.
She would have tears in her eyes. I thought "Its that bad!".
So my hands may have told a story but no one would tell it to me
and surely I thought I would be gone by age 50.

Now I am telling every living body that moves and speaks to me that I am going to be 80 soon. It is like a trophy!!!Well, I did have a brush with cancer, suffered years in my twenties and thirties from rhumatoid arthritis. Some times I could hardly walk with the swollen feet.

So this past year I started again to make jewelry, I had done some in the sixties with the hippy craze. I opened a booth in a small mini mall and to my surprise people liked what I did. So come Feb 2012 I am opening my second shop.
It keeps me extremely busy but that is what I want.

I often try to just sit and relax and read a book, love to read, so the problem with that is that I fall asleep. Fault of the writer? Maybe. Fault of the thyroid? Possible. Fault of 79 3/4 age? Perhaps. Having to be busy and counting beads and trying to find a 1mm hole is a challenge which needs me to be very awake.

I love the result because I only make what I would love to wear.
That the whole female population will agree with my taste is impossible but at least a percentage of them will. Besides that I do not overprice.
If I counted my hours I would say that I work in the red BUT most crafters work in the red. It goes with the territory.

My only problem with being 80 and semi retired is that I love to travel, love it, no matter how close or how far I like a suitcase in hand. Now I have the time and a tiny budget but no HEARING. I am very deaf. Yet to find hearing aids which are even 80 percent giving back my hearing. I cant take long trips. I can hear the blaring announcements in airports nor the waitress who wants to know if I like a, b, or c on my salad. I often say the first one and have no idea what I will get.
I am tired of telling people that I can't hear.
I am tired of my kids telling me that I am yelling at the table in the restaurant and people around us just found out what was left in my account.

I am grateful that my eyes are good , thanks to the cataract surgery I can see without my ugly thick glasses. Just need reading glasses...when I read.

The skin is shriveling (is that a word?) and the wrinkles multiply overnight.
For some reason that does not bother me. So I look 80, so what ? I am 80.
I am no longer looking for a mate or to win beauty contests, I am looking to see how long I can stretch that 80. Do I think I will become 90? Absolutely not but
83 would be nice or maybe 85. With the condition that I have all my marbles and can walk on my own and continue to make necklaces.
The world needs more necklaces!!!!

December 23 2011

2011-12-23T16:07:00.000-08:00

My oldest grandson is 26 today...where does the time go???
I can still see him, gorgeous eyes, gorgeous lips and blond hair with a POUT. Oh! Could he pout!!!!He also told you as soon as he could talk if he liked you or not.
He had an opinion, now he is very quiet, graduated from VT, yes that one, and works in the Triangle in computer science. He can cook and is now learning about wines.
What he tackles has to be to the minutest detail.
A brain in working order to be sure.
Looking for the perfect wife!!!!Yep! Could luck with that one cause she has to deal with the perfect mate.

He will cook our dinner tomorrow night at his mothers house.
I am told it will be a feast!!!!

Here in the Valley it is a quiet day.
Shannon could not visit as Bob is not doing well at all.
The dr. is playing guessing games to what medicine will help him.
I guess that is the only way to find out. There is very little concrete knowledge on how to cure agoraphobia and severe panic disorder.
My heart breaks when I look at him.

I am glad it is quiet. I am not in a party mood this year and looking forward to a mini vacation next week.
Christmas for sure is not the same without my partner. He was the nut for all that stuff.

Found myself walking Bijou and just crying and crying....what is up with that?
I asked myself and then I laughed for when I was little and crying my mother
would say :"Go ahead and cry then you will not have to pee so much".
That then turned my crying in anger but I did stop crying.
Now it is different Dr. tells me I must pee a lot to work the lonely kidney...orders..orders...always orders...if not mother talking to me from wherever then there is the expensive surgeon giving orders.

One thing I know for sure (Oprah!) is that no matter how old you get to be you still hear your mothers orders. No matter how old your children get to be
you are still a mother and try to let them live their lives but would love to give more orders.

Peace on Earth is my wish this season!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

RED and my family

2011-12-18T14:28:00.000-08:00

Christmas 2011

2011-12-18T13:13:00.000-08:00

OK so I am not in the mood for Christmas, New Years, Ground Hog Day, Easter, Valentine's Day, St Patricks day and all the rest of it including mothers day.
That is just me.
My husband made sure that every nook and cranny was filled with red berries (his favorites) red bows, ornaments and anything red and green he could find.
Now I am thinking about decorating since Sabrina's house was so inviting (it was the candles!!!) and I keep thinking if I should dig up some old ornaments somewhere...then I think : "Gosh I have to take it all down again in a few weeks"
Nah! Fogettaboutit!

I wrote in several publications and here in this blog about the childhood Christmas which was the very best for me in 1944, unfortunately it also co-incides with the Battle of the Bulge about a 4 hour ride from the Flanders. BUT still occupied.
I will not repeat my story as I know most of you know it by heart.

My second best Christmas was about 14 or more years ago.
The story starts in my youth, in fact in January 1945 when a ship by the name of "Seapower" parked on the Canal of Terneuzen right in front of my house.
The corps of Engineers aboard where there to fix the electrical plant a 100 yards or so away (in my back yard so to speak, or was I in their backyard?)
The plant had been bombed many times and was not operating yet.

My father had decided to leave my mother and join his mistress a few miles away leaving us with a broken down house, roof and windows broken from the bombing and no food, garden empty except for some Brussels sprout and rutabagan. The cats were now all wild and the rabbits we had let go when we fled before the battle started in our neck of the woods.

My mother was very Victorian and in awesome pain that the only man she had ever known had deserted her for an ugly bar lady who owned her own bar and several houses too. So mother decides to keep the green shutters closed and sit around with candles as to pretend that no one was there. She was sure we would be raped,
2 women alone she would say.....then she summoned my grandfather to come and stay with us to show a male presence. Albeit by now not so young male.

One day a knock on the front door, no one ever used that door, a shiver up our back..remembering that the SS had done that too when they came to search our house, in front of us a Master Sergeant not that we knew about his stripes but we found all this out later. He asked my mother if she knew anyone who could iron his shirts to his satisfaction, evidently the laundry man on board were not doing a good job.
My mother was suddenly coming to life and invited the man in and told him that she would iron anything while she showed her coal stove and old fashion irons which always sat on the back of the stove. He was a bit puzzled by these antique instruments and brought his shirts. Before the week was over mother had a traffic of some very picky soldiers who liked her ironing even with an antique iron.

The Sergeant was Walter E. S. he had a wife and two girls in DC working at the Pentagon and a son in State of North Carolina playing football and studying engineering. He was from Boston, told us his wife had been a beauty queen and was from the same region.
The second soldier who became part of our household was a bright red haired young kid of 20 who had married Lois the day before he left for the army. He was from coal country in PA. his father and a bunch of relatives all coal miners.
He told my mother that he had never seen so much poverty as there was in our house (imagine he came from coal country, not exactly chateau country). He decided to bring us food. It was "ferbotten" by the Captain a Republican to the core man who decided that there would be no fraternizing with the locals.
"Red" decided to chance it, I still see him coming down the path to our backdoor with his Eisenhower jacket on , he opened it up and dropped an enormous large piece of meat on my mothers table and said: "My hands are clean, Mrs Droesbeke"
Mrs. Droesbeke was in awe, what difference did it make if his hands were clean?
This much meat she had not seen in ages and surely could not afford it if we found it. Red continued to be our supplier, he "procured" a grey all wool blanket from a British soldier and mother made a coat out of it for me. I remember it being itchy as hell but warm and with sleeves that were long enough to cover my growing long arms. Red brought us "Camay" soap, we had made our soap for years now, this was LUXURY and mother made me smell it , I waited anxiously for her to open the paper and lets just try it...not my Mother...I do not know if she was waiting for WW3 but she quickly put it in the drawer of the armoire her father had made.
This armoire is in my dressing room and guess what is in the drawer????

During the war it was "de la mode" for young girls to have a "Poesie" book.
It would be a small book with empty pages so your friend could fill it with poetry.
I dragged that with me (and will write about it soon) wherever I went, not having many friends and thinking the grown ups were my equals I would not leave one soul untouched. I approached the engineers when we sat in the bunker waiting for the bombs to fall, I approached anyone to write anything in my book.
It is my most precious book of my 80 years and I will try and take it with me when I leave this earth, do not have a plan yet but I am thinking.....
No , it can not be burned with my ashes, back to the drawing board...

So, naturally I presented my book to the soldiers and they wrote poems or just wrote words like :"Paddy from Liverpool"
How I explained all this must have been via my mother who was fluent in English, I had just learned a four letter word which I had no idea about and it started with F... SOldiers would often yell it out as their trucks drove by.
Good thing Mom told me it was not "good morning".

My "Red" friend one day picked me up at my school downtown , he sat in front of the school building as we came ready to run for the street car and I stopped in my tracks, saw the red hair ,grew 3 inches taller and felt like he was my boy friend who came to rescue me....he drove me home and mother yelled at him that I could have fallen out of the Jeep.....but Red wrote his name under someone elses drawing, a very unusual name.

By june 1945 the factory was working , we had electricity and mother had a job in the office of the paper plant near us. Grandpa stayed for quite awhile.
My heart was broken. No one had told me the ship was leaving, they knew how attached I had become to the new fathers in my life, men who cared if I had something to eat, men who gave me chewing gum by the dozens of packages so I
started to sell it at school and introduce my friends to the wonder of chewing all
day long on a piece of rubber (while I hated it) I became the "dealer" of gum.
These men taught me Canasta and I soon was an expert at the game, the sergeant left us his decks and container so we could continue to play with grandpa.
It was great being liberated and knowing this new security of men in uniform.

The Sergeant I had named Uncle Pam and his wife Aunt Julie, the family in DC had started to send clothing for me and I became the American model, I could not fill the tops of the dresses but Mother would readjust and sew and sew.
I was 13 that year , very tall for my age but flat as an ironing board, I did play catch up later...So the family promised me that if I ever wanted to come to America they would be there waiting for me and sponsor me.
My dream had started. I wanted American children.

So in 1955 I walked the streets of NY with my Belgian husband, I was 23 and had married at 19 and waited in Montreal for the last 2 years for a permanent visa.
It took 4 years in all to get to come here to the USA and get the coveted green card.

Over the years we got to know the whole Uncle Pam clan and visited all their relatives and became part of them.
Both of the elders are now buried in Arlington. They were extremely giving people.
Gave me my life here.

in 1957 I had my first American daughter.

The story does not end there as I was totally indebted to "Red" he had been such
a fun guy and had given us hours of his company and goodies from the ship.
Being underfed he had taken me to see the ships doctor and with vitamins I had become whole again. I had suffered 6 months from pleurisy and that had knocked me on my knees.

I lived in New Jersey, Campbell CA, Brookdale Ca, Nerja, Spain for 5 years, NC for the last decades but in every town I went on all the travels we did in different towns and states I would check the phone book for Red's name. Never found it UNTIL my son introduced me to a WebTV and I began searches on there in 1997 , found nothing until I emailed with a man who ran the site for Marauders (my brother in law was a Marauder) the man gave me 4 names which could have been Red and I was on a mission. I wrote to a man in Harrisburg PA remembering that he had come from coal mining country in PA. Did not get an answer for awhile and was ready to start all the other names. But the holidays were coming and I was very busy making Father Christmas dolls and doing shows every week end. So Christmas eve came along and all the kids and grandkids piled into the house full of joy and noise admiring the
"red berries cottage" and all the packages under the tree. I had been cooking for 3 days, I always cook for an army. The phone rang and I looked around and wondered who it could be as my gang was underfoot, all of them, picked up the phone and a voice said : "Janet (they called me that) I am back in your life after 52 years...by the way this is Red!". I ran to the quiet bedroom and started to cry,
he said "Merry Christmas girl, I often thought about you and your mother".
I was in a total shock, I found out he was indeed still in PA and was now retired from the telephone company where he had worked all his life.
I was so afraid to ask about his wife "Lois" I had a photo of her on a stamp which he had given me in 1944. So...I stuttered and said a lot of hm hm hm "I have to ask about Lois, Red, what happened?" He said:"She is sitting in a chair right here knitting for the grandchildren". We promised to visit each other which we did but Lois had Alzheimer and he did not want to know it, he just took care of her and hid what he truly knew in his heart. Both passed on within a year from each other. My children and grandchildren all got to hear his war stories and stories about me.
A lot I had not remembered, the ship's crew had shot down a German plane and it fell within yards of my house totally in flames and he said: "remember that day?"
I have not. I have many other incidents burned into my brain but that one I choose to forget.

I honor every soldier , the last wars were not so great for returning Vets, we have ignored a lot of them, even today as I write this ,many are in hospitals without limbs, memory and on and on. At their homes without work and with a mental memory that no one should have to endure. I think about the kids in Iraq and all what they saw and one day when they turn 80 will they write down about the pains and about the joys of seeing Americans ?????I Wonder.

My second best Christmas in my lifetime was the night Red called. My hero!

debt forgiven????

2011-12-11T15:19:00.000-08:00

The N C state has a program to help deaf people.
It works well, I think, they came to me within a day after I called them.
They gave me 1 hearing aid.
It did not help all that much but in the quiet of the house I can hear the water running if I used them.
My hearing loss is at 80 percent right now= severe in their lingo.
So when Bijou went on the destruction path I sent an email to the State
BECAUSE these are "loaners" (who would want my old hearing aid?)
and I signed my life away when I got this pair.
I am supposed to pay back and can't get a new one until 4 years from now.
Looks like they may forgive me my debt, at least that is what was written to me.
I am never sure when it comes to government agencies but I hope this is so.

I resurrected my last cheap one which I bought on line, it only has one setting: LOUD which does not work in restaurants or public loud places.
I will go and see what other options I have since I started this journey into "faux ears".

Problem with this is that I can't travel alone. Go to dr.s with Brie as they all tend to whisper no matter how often I say "I can't hear you". Can't enjoy a table of 4 because the echoes ring loud and clear but the words are mumbled.
I often order a glass of wine and listen to my own thoughts.
A deaf person becomes a lonely person. If I had been smart I would have learned to sign and I can still do that but then I will have to find others who sign.
It all is not worth it anymore. Stay with the computer and "talk" to my friends over the invisible wires.
So sorry to bitch!!!!

chewers and barkers

2011-12-07T11:03:00.000-08:00

I went grocery shopping and was in such a blah mood, could not get out of it.
Wanted to sit in a corner alone and just cry.
Picked myself up a little bit to finish the day with dessert...that did not help either...if chocolate does not help..then what to do?

Once home I felt totally spent, sat in my recliner and dropped my hearing aid on the table next to me....a voice said :"NO do not put it there the dog will get it"
I did not listen. I answered: "Just for a minute I will soon get up and go to bed"
too lazy to get up and put it away, that I was.

10 minutes later ...Bijou quietly sits on his bed in his cage.
He has a zillion chewable toys in there, none interest him for chewing, he just keeps them there as this is his shrine and the Corgy does not go in there to steal.
This time he has a tiny item that is in shreds.....
You guessed it.

For a few minutes I went balastic, knew I would throw up and not handle this very well......
The hearing aid is from the NC hearing center and they have paid for this my 4th one,a single, did not get a pair, I signed my life away with them as these are loaners and if something happens to them I PAY. Charity for the deaf ends when a Maltese takes charge.

Neil Diamond

2011-12-06T06:53:00.000-08:00

OK OK I am acting like a teenager who wants to see lady Gaga.
My guy is Neil Diamond, I think I have loved him forever, his America song brings me to a fountain of tears. It always reminds me how I sat dreaming in Belgium for the day I would go to America. Years I did this. His song hits me smack into my soul.

Well, I sat trembling by the computer, debit card in hand and waited for 10 00 am
when Ticketmaster would start selling the June Concert in Atlanta with none other than Neil Diamond.
I got it and I could hardly remember my name.
A little clock in the corner tells you that you have x number of minutes to make up your mind. Did it. Then another page with address and other info....another clock started...where do I live???Oh Hendersonville is such a long name especially with a
keyboard that has all these worn letters all blank.
Then another page and on it went , all pages flying in on some mysterious magic carpet of air and bringing into my view. What a world it is now I am thinking, no lines in front of a glass booth and a tired lady telling you that the last one just sold.
Finally the magic shows the last page with a number of proof that you just got tickets to the master balladeer. (Spelling?}
I jump up with joy and start dancing in a round and feel kind of nauseous...Bob tells me to stop it...then I remember I have vertigo and I am going to fall flat on my ass if I do not stop. Ass by the way is English for what I call my derriere.

OK I promise I have not been drinking hard liquor....I should.....

2011-12-02T17:02:00.000-08:00

Just a week ago I was the old lady on the balcony enjoying the sun and sea now I am the old lady who can't bend or turn around in bed...vertigo is back...it was gone for a few months but back again.
I almost started to laugh at Bob as his head was bobbling left and right and I thought :"this is not the reality of it, this is my brain " somehow it is hard to comprehend when the room is dancing and lamps are moving yet you KNOW that is not so.

I do not do nausea very well so then I have to take a pill and sleep for the rest of the day..........

enough bitching........tomorrow is another day and maybe, just maybe the little crystals in the ear stop running about and go in the water for a swim....well that is what the ear dr told me....

wish you all a good night and missed seeing Rhonda yesterday and not being able to go to Lunch tomorrow with L and C. Hate that part.

Thanksgiving 2011

2011-11-30T08:58:00.000-08:00

In the past years Thanksgiving was at Meme's house, that is me.
In the past my dining room table was filled we were always 12 and sometimes 13.
I brought out the Limoges with the gold and cobalt blue borders , the gold rimmed glasses and polished the Lilly of the Valley Sterling flat ware, in the mniddle of
the table the 8 arm sterling candelabras. Was I wealthy?? Heavens , NO!
I was and still am an ANTIQUE DEALER.
Did I grow up with such niceties? We were lucky to have a few pieces of 18/8 solid stainless steel forks and knives. The working knives for cutting the preparations of meals were getting smaller and smaller, they were ancient and the Gypsies came along once a year to sharpen them.
Never heard of eating a turkey and a chicken was for Sundays or when we had enough money.
The contrast of the way I lived and the gorgeous table was just more a passing fancy it was all about the FOOD. I love food , I DID love to cook.
I started 3 days before Thanksgiving, Sabrina was in charge of the store and I was in the kitchen just glowing with every spoon of butter which entered into the pan.
Thanksgiving day I had the TV blasting with the Parade in New York and the Giant balloons and pretty girls dancing and freezing their nipples off while they were in hardly covered up attire.
I glanced now and then onto the screen while I continues to cook for an army.
I always had way too much but my mother always said if you do not have left overs it means someone left the table hungry. Should not be happening.
My husband would fuss with decorations and surveying the pots and pans while coming to "sample" a bit. It was heavenly.

Bob became ill and in the last years the task was getting heavy, the kids brought dishes of food and we ate from Melmac plates while Bob wondered who were all these people....The fall of my kitchen duties was hard but I was too tired to care.
Everyone showed up and we wondered each time if that would be the last one with Papa. His last one was indeed in this house. He passed in September 2010 and our first Thanksgiving without him was weak at best.

I had put out my lovely table on the side of the road with a sign "FREE", it was gone within minutes. A very well stacked lady was delighted and I figured she was going to feed a lot of people at that table, there would be laughter and singing and lots of food. I let it go to a fun place, I just knew it and delighted in it.
Kids brought food and we managed to eat on trays on the carpet and wherever.
We all missed the person who would sit in the bergere and laugh with us.
It ended with arguments over politics and the room became quiet or heated and very uncomfortable. I decided NO MORE!.

So this year Sabrina and her family plus another teener and I went to the beach.
I packed sweaters upon sweater after all it is end of November.
Turned out to be 70 during the day and I was stuck with my white T shirt for days , the one with short sleeves. I did stay in the room or balcony for most of the time. I was playing word games on my Kindle and loving it while the sun shone on my
wrinkled face and I did not give a damn if 100 more wrinkles would appear. It was heavenly to watch the Atlantic which looked like a lake.
Kids went deap sea fishing, I was not thrilled on the catch (baby shark) but ..hey..chacun a son gout. The fish were frozen to go to Brevard anyway.
Thanksgiving day we were on the road so we stopped at a Shoneys and had their buffet, no one seemed to care about the date, we were "en route" to crab legs fresh from the ocean.
Football was on and 3 guys jumping up and down or booing, take your pick.
"That's how you play as a receiver!!!" , " What you do not know how to catch a ball?"
"Idiot call on that one!!!" Testeterone in full action.
I did not care I just kept playing my own game.
I missed Bob, we loved traveling together. Most of all I also missed the fun they were having around me. Not hearing the conversations , the jokes, the answers...it is not fun. One can't keep asking :"What did he say?"
Hearing aids suck in plain English. That is my 4th set!!!!
So I was lonely in the crowd but I would be that at home too and when I looked outside and saw the sand, the kids making sandcastles and the Atlantic Ocean ...then..I was glad to be there....I was glad I was not home cooking.

PS I gave my Limoges dishes to Rhonda, sold my gold rimmed glasses, still have my silver ware and candelabra but packed away.
Life at 79 without my partner is different.
Should I be thankful that I am still here? Some days I am and some days I am not but I am thankful that I had the 4 days at the beach.

antiques and thrift stores

2011-11-19T07:36:00.000-08:00

When I started the antique business ......years ago, an "antique" had to be over 100 years old. Rule used by customs in the USA when you brought in some juicy bit of European history. Mind you the Europeans did not like these things to come to the US but at that time they needed the bucks which we had....how times have changed.

Now the dealers have changed the game anything over 5 days old is called "Vintage"
so that gives one a lot of space.

"Gently used" is also an over used term.
Your thoughts on "Gently" may not match mine.
Some people use whips and think they are "gentle" people.
I do not wish to buy a second hand purse which has been whipped!

Eons ago I started a second hand clothing store, it was in lovely Santa Cruz Ca.
and called :"Second time around". Business was slow but I met my best buddy there so it was worth it. Now it is chic to go shopping at second hand stores. Ultra chic is if you have "vintage", Bravo even has a show on that.
Went to a middle of the road "used" clothing store and was surprised that they are not ashamed to ask $275 for a Coach "vintage purse"....eBay has several ,same style, starting at $69.95...I know my bags ,it is another addiction I have.
Love bags hate shoes.
In my book Italians make the nicest bags!

Telling in our old town is the fact that there are a lot of small elderly ladies with a closet full of Dior type suits. Just go to one the better "used" stores and you hardly find a 16 and if you do find it then it is a church dress buckled up to the chin with tiny little flowers in polyester.....
Hate polyester and I have cleavage so I show it , hey we have push up bra's for something. Also I do not go to church.

Yesterday I hit it well, found a gorgeous boucle jacket which is very warm in mint condition, NOT gently used, Bijou approved of me wearing it this morning on our walk. I paid about 100.00 less then it would have been new.
I love it and not ashamed to admit it.
Outside that particular store was a BMW shining in its red glory. driver may have brought something new (size2) or is hunting too....it is a new world.

back again???

2011-11-17T07:37:00.000-08:00

By popular demand...of 2 of my friends who keep track of me via this blog..I should at least try to keep up a few words to let them know I am alive and well.

Truth is that this is the commercial season and I am doing my best to make some nice necklaces hoping that people love the bling and buy!

I am also enlarging which is always dangerous but the mini mall in Brevard is adding another store and I am trying a second booth so I can also display my linens which I have a lot off.
It is all a lot of work, linens need to be washed again and ironed before they are put up. Vintage jewelry which I buy in bulk needs to be repaired , cleaned (I have a machine for that) priced and put in inventory.

Add to this that I take 2 to 3 hour naps!
The old girl will be 80 in 4 months!!!She needs to recharge the batteries.

All this work when I am retired keeps my mind going.
At the very least I do not have time to sit and think about what could have been, what the pasty 14 years have been and ...........

I always had some game plan, some goal, I have to rethink a lot of them.
I just do not see the use of planning for my 90th birthday.
So plan a for the next 10 years is "try for the next 2 or 3 "
Plan A is selling what I do not need and enjoy mini trips with my family.
In 2 to 3 years I probably will sell the house.
I am not thinking assistant living.
I am not good with that.
I do not make friends that quickly, eating at the table with 3 other old broads and not hearing what they have to say anyway...that is not my cup of tea.
I may have to relent BUT hope not.
If I were wealthy I would move into a studio apartement in the middle of Biltmore Park. Everything is there in walking distance and it is a fun clean lovely place reminding me of some of the European places like the one my Mom lived in.
Prices are too steep here for my budget.

This is not YET a good time to sell houses either. Mine is cute and has a lot of history and is a fixer upper, lets face the truth.

Bob is doing very well with school, the treatment is on going, counselors come twice a week. The other day when I got caught into a rain deluge walking Bijou he came
with an umbrella as far as he could go to meet me, old Bob did this all the time (meet me) I started to cry. I knew how big the effort was on his part.
He managed to drive around the block with his friend but his heart was racing, at least he did it!!!!Major issue!!!!

I am delighted that I sold another painting of Bob's , he is pleased I am sure.
He did not paint the last 10 years and constatnly in his confused state told me that he was going to open a small shop and sell his paintings (the ones he had given me) I used to be so sad when I heard this but he still wanted to be a part of the giving to the household. Confused as he was that still was on his mind.
It is hard to part with them but I can't hold on to them forever and the kids all have very nice collections already.

Thanksgiving is upon us and the Fisher/Kensinger/gang are going back to North Myrtle Beach, we liked the place when we went in September and Frank, Zack will go deep sea fishing on the rentals available there.
I will just sit and breath sea air, my enormous healer..the ocean...albeit I prefer Destin and the Gulf of Mexico but that is too far away.

No cooking for us!!!!!

Ditto for Christmas, on Christmas eve I will join others to go to outback and have a great bunch of ribs. Bobby nor I are Christmas nuts, that was dad's job, he pushed it on us like a very busy elf, without him there is no Christmas for me.
I did not grow up with that commercial side anyway and the church side has left me a long time ago.

Presents I do not do, I give them cash, still good in this country...I THINK...

back to beading......love you very much friends and you know who you are.....I will keep this going now....promise....

not today

2011-11-06T16:43:00.001-08:00

but one of these days soon I will write again....

Not in the mood

2011-10-23T08:12:00.001-07:00

to write, having my let down period probably the thyroid does not help.
Maybe later more news

heater or fans?

2011-09-26T08:02:00.000-07:00

Last week I wondered about getting the heater going, instead I put on another sweater the pat few days the fans have been going!!!!
That kind of mish mash weather makes your whole psyche upside down.
It does me for sure.
Besides that the allergies are in full bloom together with the gorgeous yellow
bushes sitting next to the gorgeous purple asters down the street.
Yellow= I forgot their name , it will come to me about midnight tonight.

Trying to duplicate my window boxes to Belgium, they use Erica's all the time there and they are lovely in the middle of winter. Can't find them here in stores, nowhere.( My mother had a small box by the opening of a balcony on her apartment. Every winter she had it full of erica's and it was so pleasant to look at the purple buds showing up amidst the snow.)
Back to the store:
They look at me like they hear it thunder in Berlin.
Say what? (OK that was a Belgian expression not appropriate for NC, maybe?)
Anyway they say : Erica???
I say heather and then "one know it all" said:" we only sell them in the spring."
Go get another job. It is a winter plant too, dummy.

Saw "Ironman" yesterday ,to my surprise I liked it.
Then the beginning of Desperate Housewives which I think was sort of predictable and not so hot. It is their last season. Hope they find work after that series.

Think it is House tonight the new beginning.

the walk with dogs

2011-09-23T12:57:00.000-07:00

I walk Bijou up the hill to the ancient cemetery.
There are 2 huge lawns there waiting for occupants.
There Bijou likes to roam and squat.
So this morning on a misty grey day I just roam around the lawns letting Bijou
smell every leaf and grass blade. Then it came to me that a recent film I saw on
Darwin showed how he walked on his estate between the trees and flora and always looked for life under his feet. Thousands of specimens he collected every where.
So I started to think how very shallow my walks had been.
What was I thinking while I watched the white furry one bury his nose in this other world? Did I think about the ants I had squooshed and killed just now.
Did I notice that a small moth fled to safety just before my big foot went down?
Did I pay attention to anything at all?
My mind was trying to decide what I could accomplish today, should I do the floor first? Should I do the package I promised? Should I walk to the post? Should I make pasta again for dinner tonight. How many minutes was I out here, 20 minutes counts for 1 point in WW. These ridiculously mondane things are all I can muster.
How much we have learned from scientist like Darwin because they did not bother with this simple life and searched for more answers.(They had wives to cook for them)
They are still out there, they are still looking for cures, they are still looking for the unknown today so it can be common knowledge tomorrow.
Oh! Wait! (she says in excitement , look over there something yellow!
I run towards a plot of yellow mushrooms, they are "my thing", I tell myself I should learn moe about them. I have lots of photos of them and tomorrow I will take the camera. Further there are some huge ones and they look like misformed potatoes, they are ugly! Are they all poisonous? How many people died before they figured out which ones were poison???? Did the Lords send out their slaves to test them?
Did the Kings watch the jester have a bite before he would?
I do not feel so bad after all, the walk has made me think about mushrooms and I am ready to fix the portobello tonight.
Maybe these mushrooms could become medication, maybe they are already being used for that.

Yahoo most clicked on "items" of news

2011-09-21T08:06:00.000-07:00

I am fascinated with what America checks on when they have a computer full of info and still go for ....celebrities...
Yesterday the main attraction was Travolta having his Mercedes stolen as he was shopping for a Jaguar......Poor guy that was in the top ten news worthy items to check out......

Today I saw something a bit more interesting
first on the list is space junk:
Space junk to fall - but don't panic says NASA
That could give one an Excedrin headache

Last on the list of ten today:Criss Angel
do not know what this person did and I am not going to check either.....

it is raining a lot and the dogs smell like wet dogs.....
we need the rain.......
love all of you

Nothing new worth mentioning

2011-09-20T16:47:00.000-07:00

Tuesday= shopping day

Managed to find 2 NEW sweaters at Goodwill , I love plush sweaters and there they were waiting for me, plus Christmas paper at $1.00 a roll , can't beat that.

Sabrina installed the new light in the office, the other one was too dim for the work I will be doing here in winter time. We picked out a 5 light one and it is a great difference as I can see what I am writing.

Lowes we found some viola's the little ones supposedly will survive winter IF the winter is mild....we shall see..I only bought 5 for my boxes....hope to find some
erica's soon like in Belgium boxes, they do well in winter. I should check eBay.

Brie is suffering with hot spells and acts like a lady in menopause.
You know like a pregnant one without the kid to show for.
She is still my rock as she stood sweating and hanging lamps.

I am now running around in sweaters , we AGAIN went from the heat to cold overnight.
low 70's and overcast but little rain.

Wonder when I will cut down the hostas and hoard them in a corner since now I
have so many in pots.

Been busy with beads. Shop very quiet this month we are hoping for a good leaf season and that would bring in the tourists.

Zack will be 16 soon and how can that be????
He was a baby just yesterday!!!
He is going to school trip by train to DC. Did it last year too.
More kids signed up this year and is that not the best education they can get.
So many options in DC to visit and learn from. There is also the new
Martin Luther King statue.
Glad he can go.

A gentleman wrote me that he purchased Bob's paintings in Florida, decades ago, he read my blog and was sorry to hear of his ending with A. He said how much he loves looking at his painting in his dining room.
Bob leaves a lot of legacy with his work. People still looking at his paintings and just loving them. He would be smiling if he read the compliments.

sunday sept 18 2011

2011-09-18T15:50:00.000-07:00

OK so I do listen to Amanpour on Sunday morning and there is this fellow who I am hoping does not know much but declared that Perry will probably be the nominee.
I do not have enough money to leave the country but by golly I do not cherish that thought at all.
Texas is one state to govern, all of the USA is quite another matter.
Did he not want to separate Texas from us all????

Trivia: all of the above. .....

Real trivia: son's girlfriend, Shannon, brought me a cinnamon broom...my kitchen smells heavenly. I did not think these brooms would give off so much scent. Love it.

Real, real trivia: Sabrina went on all these huge going to the sky machines at the State fair. She is now brave since she did the swinging in the trees adventure.
Good for her. We can't live in fear all our lives....she says as she.....fears...and fears...

No trivia: sailors had a very bad night when a big storm came and they were anchored, it seems when that happens you better check your anchors OFTEN.
In their case they could have landed on the rocks along the shore.

Life is exciting at sea, when you have a sailor's stomach to go with it.

Back at beading, must catch up, Christmas shopping will be here before you know it.

Went to Steinmart, Amy on vacation now and leaves October 1st for Indiana.
Kathy manager from then on.
Susan not happy that she is not second in command but did not make an effort to sign up for that either.
Friday morning there is a party for Amy and they invited me.
Staff there is now at minimum.
Isabel still there.
I received a welcome from every one there.
They still love me, how about that?

spitting nails

2011-09-15T17:25:00.001-07:00

Pat Robertson said it is ok for people to divorce if someone has Alzheimer.

Spitting nails

2011-09-15T17:24:00.001-07:00

everything is c0ming up roses

2011-09-15T13:48:00.000-07:00

yup, everything is going so smoothly it is scary, I have to turn around the feeling that the other shoe will drop. Last many months have been surprises which were not pleasant.
It was with some trepidation that I went to the place where they make pancakes out of your breasts and then tell you everything will be .......
I had a good report, everything clear.
As my Dr ordered I am just checking off all the possibilities of the cancer having
gone other places.
So far all is good.
Next the dreaded colonoscopy.
Everything in the household is working smoothly.
Bought 2 new fixtures for hall and office.
The one in the office is way to dim and winter is coming = dark at 4 o clock.
Sabrina is my electrician, she comes next week to put them in.
This girl should have been a boy, when she enters Lowes she beams and smiles like a Cheshire cat. She loves tools. Loves paints. Loves mirrors. Loves gadgets of any kind. I think she needs a gift card in Lowes instead of Steinmart.
She was always more of a tom boy when she grew up and was in adoration of het "Princess" sister, but it was not in her genes to be a "princess".

Again W W

2011-09-12T13:13:00.000-07:00

I am so used to these initials and for you skinny gals it is weight watchers.
I can't remember how many times I have joined that outfit.
Right now I have lost quite a bit since the surgery but I want more so I joined again on line.
Does that mean no banana splits with Brie on Tuesdays?
My bones are brittle and do not need to carry more weight.
So we shall see....shall we?

In the meantime I am having one heck of a headache and I even drank my diet coke.

when do you know it is Alzheimer?

2011-09-11T17:26:00.000-07:00

A Facebook friend said I had not written much about the very beginning.
Here it goes :
Bob was very smart, remembered everything in the art world ,names of painters (disliked the modern ones) and all the patterns of early American pressed glass not to mention librettos of his favorite operas.
The man had a great mind, taught me so very much.

We had gone on a trip to Gent in my native Belgium and visited with friends and family when 2 days before our return my friend E had a stroke while we had lunch together. By 5 a m she had left us and I had to work with a confused husband to arrange her funeral. Bob sat in a corner pretty much useless and speechless.
When we left we were just numb. Once home I was sending him out to pay the electric bill and get a few groceries. He returned irate and yelling that the electric company had moved and they would only take gas payments where he went.
He had an argument with the manager as she insisted they had always been in that
office and he knew better.

I calmed him down and we did the rest of the errands together. I figured that since we left with such a heavy load on our shoulders that he just could not handle it.
He never did "dying" very well. He did not paint for 2 years when his mother and sister passed. He just moped. Finally I told him to paint or I would leave so he started to paint again. It did take 2 years !

I remembered the bill incident as one by one he did strange things.
More often I said: I told you so and he would respond "NO YOU DID NOT"
One morning he was not sure if he needed sugar in his coffee. He always took sugar.
That knocked me for a loop.
Visited the family doctor and told him of my suspicions. He told Bob a story and asked him to repeat it , he did it very well. Dr. said: Your imagination or your fear, Jeannot, nothing wrong with him.
I told the kids of every little thing I had written down and I thought to be
suspicious. The kids shook their head. "No way Mom he is so alert, look at his painting". So I looked with my expert eye of having him painting on front of me for decades. I did not see a change. Then one day he asked me :"what colors do I use for the background? I forgot?"
I dragged him to the neurologist. He did some basic tests like "draw me a face of a clock at 3.00 o clock, he did. Told him a story and he repeated it leaving some stuff out. Then another few simple tests and finally the doctor said:
"Mrs. K. I am thinking that you are right. He is in the beginning stages of dementia/ Alzheimer. I can do a test but it costs 1500 and medicare does not pay for it." I told him I did not need the test, I knew.
Still it took a long while before anyone believed me. Most daily stuff he did without a hitch and now and then would throw me a curve that would always shock me.
I so wanted to be wrong. I so told myself daily that I over reacted.
My kids had to be right. Our friends did not see anything wrong with him.
What was wrong with me???
Second visit to neurologist and he said that he was pretty sure now and perhaps we could start him on Aricept. This was in the 1990's and Aricept was I believe the only medicine then. Bob could not handle it, his stomach ached from it.
Besides that he was a Christian Scientist, he had lived his whole life since his grandmother in Science. He was not going to give in with easy for any medication and only went to the doctor to humor me.
He kept laughing while showing me the Mary Baker booklet on his beliefs.
It had not interfered in our marriage before, I went to doctors, the kids did but he was totally devoted, read the Bible and the M Baker book lesson every day.
He had prostate cancer and at my insistence gave in to treatment till it was gone.
This was another struggle to daily try and get him to take the Aricept.
I started to buy books on the disease, Read everything on line and found out that
in Germany they had a drug which had worked very well on the slow decline of the disease. It turned out that it was just approved in the USA I think it was called Namenda.
The cost then for his pills was 600 a month. I did not know if it would help
but in retrospect it did go down slowly, too slowly at the end when he was unaware of anything anymore but by then we had stopped the medication.
Slowly very slowly the children started to believe that something was wrong.
I started to get some support. We went to a group meeting , I did not know what to expect. I asked if I could sit in with him instead of the caregivers.
He was the least affected at that time of all the others. He was beaming as they were singing 1940's songs and telling army stories. he knew it all and was like a peacock. "See I did well in there, I do not have anything wrong with me"
I looked around in the room and a few just sat there facing the floor, some told out of context stories and I had to run to the bathroom to just cry my eyes out.
These poor people, these poor souls, was Bob going to be like that?
Perhaps he would be spared and would only forget a few things.
Outside with the caregivers I was scolded that I let him drive (I do not drive)
I told them he was still in early stages and they all answered "baloney".
Take him off the road.
Next month I sat in on the caregiving group, in the other room they were singing and laughing...we were almost all near tears. Men and women in this group all taking care of someone. The stories shared that day where of stories in late stages and I felt like I was going to throw up.
The female doctor who gave us instructions on how not to let them choke on their food, how to keep up with the norm of things, have eyes checked ( was she kidding me?) - (Bob took off his glasses one day and said these things are no good and that was that)
In his last 6 months when he was in a nursing home a dentist wanted to take out what was left of rotting teeth and give him false teeth. OH PLease the nerve!!!
BTW a friend of mine was billed from the nursing home by a shrink who charged for 2 visits a week to her husband who was comatose. She fought it and won, of course so do be aware!!!

I did not go back to the meetings, all I heard there were horror stories and I was not ready for that.
If I remember right he drove another 3 years and taking away his license was the worst for him as he did not understand that he did no longer belong on the road, that he missed red lights and that it was time.

A friend of his from CA and I decided we'd do one more trip to Torremolinos Spain. We would watch him in stages and different hours if need be.
Our tour guide found him once in the street and brought him back.
Friend A. forgot to watch him.
We had a good time in spite of it all except in airports where they have
2 exits in one restroom and he had gone out the wrong way.
Then our plane seats had been changed and he was separated from me.
When it was time to leave he went for the front and the pilots, that brought on some commotion. It was his last flight.

Early on I was active in preparations, labeled the cabinets with titles :"glasses" "plates" " your shorts" etc...he would laugh but he never really used them
when it was time to use them he forgot much of spelling.
I installed cheap little cameras in drive way to see if he left the grounds and
run after him. One day he got away and walked 6 miles. He had walked into a
youth camp along the highway and it was a miracle he turned around and out the right way as the camp was closed and was a huge place with lakes etc....
He was skinny by then but he could walk like an athlete , he had always walked.

I do not believe there is a set rule on how to detect this or predict it unless the new tests are reliable. A friend of mine only knew her husband was ill when he
put his hand on a hot stove burner and had a badly burned hand. He did not understand why. She had him checked and he was well on his way to D/A
I worked and lived 24/7 with Bob for decades, I knew him too well and I knew
I think from the very tiny first beginnings. It is hard to accept, you do not want that in your life and his/her life.

If a person lives alone a lot of people would not notice much until one day he/she drives 2 states away and wonder why they are there. Happened to a friend of ours.

My best friend one day said : "I knew it when he did not remember Gustaf Klimt"
That did not bother me in the least, I knew the man, he had no respect for modern art at all and would not bother to look at it or remember their names.
If he did not remember Caravaggio then we would have a problem.
You have to know the person in details, if you will, to detect the first stages of D/A. That is my humble opinion.

Today, of course, as I said before, there is a test but how accurate is it?
For years I read that only if they do an autopsy do they know what kind of disease took the patient. This too may have changed.

Bob left us a year ago. It took 13 years from our golden years.
The last 6 months he was in a rest home as I had broken my ankle in 3 places and could not watch him. That part was very difficult for me. Yet in retrospect he had a good time there, he walked the halls and shook hands with everyone and kissed the old ladies hands. He brought joy to some people during the last months of his life.
Here alone at home with me and my son, not knowing who we were he would have been miserable. At least that is what I an trying to tell myself.

FB Friend K. Hope that will help you on your journey, may it just be a false alarm.

9 11 2011

2011-09-11T09:31:00.000-07:00

Ten years have gone by.
Where were we? Of course, we never forget that day.
How could we?
An attack on American soil in the middle of New York/
How can we ever forget anything like that?
It is the kind of stuff writers of science fiction keeps them busy but not
reality like this.

Bob was still able to drive and understand we were out to have a good time at
Harrah's in Cherokee, 100 miles from home.
We had spent the day before gambling our allotted money.
I had watched him closely to make sure he was not to confused in this
milieu but he stuck to one machine, looked up now and then to see me
then continued.
We had a good time but he no longer could play the poker machine, he forgot how to.
Not sure how much he figured out on the slot machine but he did play for
quite awhile.
After we stuffed ourselves on their fabulous bar, all you can eat, we went to our usual motel. It was a 1950's model, very clean but very retro looking and not
expensive, we always stayed with these people.
Woke up in the morning ready to go to Mac Donalds for breakfast and head on home.
Turned on "Good Morning America", I remember sitting on the side of the bed
and looking at the TV when ,I think it was Charlie, he said:"We just heard that there was an explosion or something happening by the Towers...we will keep you posted and you saw the concern on their faces.
I was struggling getting into my socks as I kept looking at the screen, I remember thinking that this was probably something small to get us excited about.
Calls started to come in and someone said he had been in the army and he was sure it was some sort of missile that hit the tower. He had heard the noise of a missile. More concern! Quickly we had a view of the tower and black smoke, then the notion that a small plane had crashed in there. As I sat staring on the TV with the host of GMA in total shock , I saw the second plane coming at the right for a second was lost in sight and then an explosion.
My heart must have pumped at full speed.
I was petrified.
I said to Bob: "Honey , this is war, we are having a war and we must go home to the kids" he was a bit confused but followed my orders.
Outside I called my best friend Lee and told her the news in case she had not watched TV, she had not, she had kids in NY.
I called our kids and said that we were on our way.
They asked me questions, Mom was does this mean. I said it means WAR.
My childhood fears had returned. After ww2 I just always feared another war.
It took decades to get over it.
It was right back.
We went to Mc Donalds to eat breakfast before we'd go and I saw people in line like nothing had happened, here and there someone would say something about
a problem in N Y but no one was agitated as I was. I think they had not heard all of it yet and did not react yet.
A lady came in and yelled out : A plane landed in the Pentagon.
Say what? another plane????
We jumped into the car breakfast in hand and headed home between the gorgeous mountains of The Blue Ridge and part of the Smokeys.
All the way I kept calling the kids but lost contact.
I told Bob that for sure this was a declaration of war from somewhere...
I said: first thing we do is plant a vegetable garden, we will need this, we will
have shortages. I tried to remember what I could plant this late...
rutabaga , beets, Brussels sprouts, spinach ???
Bob agreed with it all. He no longer was getting excited about such things but he
was somewhat agitated. Too much commotion.
Once home and in contact with the kids and watching TV till all hours in the night I started to calm down with my war idea.
As things developed and became clear the shock became greater because of the loss of lives.
All our N Y friends had survived and were in state of numbness ,one had a gorgeous just renovated shop a few blocks from there and ultimately lost his business.
Will I ever forget that day? Not possible.

What followed was another catastrophe with thousands of more lives lost on both sides, the "enemy" and our men and woman in a war far away and not needed (in my opinion) a war in Iraq.
Followed by...Afghanistan......
I do not have to plant beets in September but I am sure that in these warn thorn places a mother is wondering what to put on the plate of her children....
"War" an ugly word.

started my morning with ...........

2011-09-08T08:50:00.000-07:00

choking on a Belgian Spekulaas, a Belgian cookie. Could not breathe in or out.
Son came to the rescue with the H maneuver but it took forever (so it seemed) to get wind in these old popes. Did I see my whole life flash before me knowing this was it?
No, not I, I thought "I am going to die choking on a Belgian cookie, that is so not cool" As Bob worked one me over and over again, Bijou, barked and barked.
He got the rest of the cookie.

other interest today one of our Father Christmas dolls is up for sale on eBay.
They call it a St Nicholas, how gauche. It is a Father Christmas, you dummy!
There are 1600 of them out there so it is bound to happen.

Sky is still grey but I do not think we will have rain today, sun promised for week end, I am enjoying the cool weather...love it.

I got up at 7 with his majesty, Bijou, crawled back into bed and woke at 11...
what is the rush..........no rush for nothing......
With so much beauty sleep I should go back 20 years but it is not happening.....
I have orders for necklaces I need to pick it up....

the 7th September and rain continues

2011-09-07T09:17:00.000-07:00

I think it is part of that storm Katia but we do need the rain in this area.
Yesterday I did nothing but take naps, I was exhausted from the vacation.
But today I feel terrific and happy that I had that change in scenery.
It all worked out very well.
Zack is my bodyguard and he takes his job seriously.
We are already planning on trips together, ha ha.
We get along so well.
Brie is so happy that she conquered another fear and can now dive into the waves.
She is taking on a lot of old fears and growing while she wins them.
Bijou is still hanging on to my every move, guess he missed me.
He does not let go of Mama.
Everyone is doing fine so that is the best news.

Labor day gone

2011-09-06T09:48:00.000-07:00

So we had the beach, the hotel was lovely, the room spacious for all of us with kitchenette and extra Murphy bed.
The Young ones did their thing and I did mine.
I now know that I am having to watch the vertigo and the back.
The ride in was brutal at the end as we started late and I had been running about before our departure.
We went past Florence and had a good night rest before we hit North Myrtle.
The only problam wwas check in at 4 pm, we got in at 3
but the kids went and did their thing on the beach while I read in the lobby.
Frank went fishing every day but did not catch, on the Pier the sharks circled and ate the fish before the fishermen had a chance...that is his story anyway....
Brie and Zack were water rats, Brie overcame some more of her fears and just loved it in the waves. I did go into the "river" in a tube and it was relaxing to say the least, the back can't get hurt that way
It was a lovely week end and I would do it again after I save some money and the kids have a long week end.

Anniversary one

2011-09-05T16:09:00.000-07:00

it's a year.
I miss you so much.
At Myrtle this past week end.
I remembered how we walked the beach in Destin for many years
how lucky we had that.
Me and my budget.
We had a budget from one wednesday to the other
and one Tuesday night you wanted donuts.
I said No more money in my budget.
Tomorrow morning we will run to Dunkin.
You pouted and I did not give in.
The vacations were nice but we did not have extra money so I
took this seriously.
You never did understand money.
You understood flowers of all kinds, trees, clouds....oh how you loved clouds even when you no longer knew their name you pointed to them
One day an airplane flew near the clouds and you acted shocked, you asked me what that was. I said :"an airplane, honey, you have been in them many times".
You smiled and said :"really?"
It seemed to please you but you went right back to looking at the clouds.
Today as we drove home I pretended you were in the truck.
I can't hear the conversations around me so I am having head talks with you.
I always win too.
You do not talk back.
I so wanted to see another blue butterfly, none showed up, we stopped at a rest area and some bikers had a picnic near us. The girl bend down and in the small of her back she had a gorgeous blue tattoo of a butterfly.
I was happy.
That biker chick had no idea that she gave me a signal from you.
I miss you I love you and always will.
Hope that you are in a better place. Hope you are healed and happy.

the other side of September

2011-09-01T06:50:00.001-07:00

What is it we are supposed to say?

White Rabbit, White Rabbit and all will be fine!

September it is!

2011-09-01T06:48:00.000-07:00

9/1/11

Been reading a lot of European mail lately and the confusion set in
as they write 1/9/11 and my slower brain has to justify it all.

I am going to have a slow week end.
I am going to relax more.
I have 3 books on the Kindle, lets see what I do with it.
I have replenished the stock for shoppe, will be a busy week end for them.

I am trying to redirect my mind and forget that the 5th is one year when
Bob left us. The whole week the scene of me saying goodbye kept flashing in front of me. I still have a lot of problems with remembering him when he was well and
functioning. I can't imagine that he went shopping, in the car, alone, to get what was on my list. Did he ever do that? I question myself. No visual in the memory bank of that.

When I walk Bijou I look for his image at the end of my street, to the day that I broke my ankle and he had to go to a rest home, he stood there, I could count on him to stand there and look for me. If he turned around the other way he became confused and walked towards 5th Avenue. If he kept focused on me coming down the
hill then he was ok till we were close and Bijou thought he just found his friend.

Why is it so hard to remember the good times. To remember him healthy.
I want to forget the last 13 years, should I forget???
Can I ever stop the pain?

Katia? then Lee?

2011-08-31T08:30:00.001-07:00

EYES ON THE ATLANTIC: Tropical Storm Katia is in the Central Atlantic, and it could be upgraded to a hurricane later today.

But under that I noticed they are also talking about one named LEE, how about them apples Mrs. Kush?

Stay dry for a change

Brie still sickly and the Hudson river in 1954

2011-08-30T14:08:00.000-07:00

She said she could not even find the cough syrup Robitussin (sp) it was all sold out.
I guess there is something good about being isolated in your house , you do not see people but you do not see sick people either. Ha!

Ran out of dog food and waiting for my ride in the meantime i am checking the freezer and making them salmon with rice. It is good to be a dog in my house, believe me.

I am back to calm but I have no appetite, what is up with that??
No wonder my hypogl.....is kicking in I forgot to eat lunch.
I also slept 3 hours this afternoon.
I should be a beauty by now if I am getting all this beauty sleep.
I think it is a "wrinkle" sleep.

I was thinking a lot about the Hudson river last week as Irene embraced the area.
I went back to 1954 ,living in Montreal waiting for a visa and my sponsors to arrive stateside. My then husband and I purchased a 1949 or 47 I am not sure Studebaker, green, it was a dud, of course we knew nothing about cars, none of our peers back home had cars as yet so we were very proud of that clunker.
The Schachts (our sponsors) arrived in Camp Kilmer New Jersey after their last tour of duty in Germany. With them came my dishes, my clock, my most beloved Spooky.
I had to give up Spooky for my dream to come to the US.
Spooky was a wirehaired terrier and loved me and vice versa. He was my baby.
The Schachts came to gethim in Ghent before we departed and I can still see him on
the back of the seat just looking at me "What have you done?" he said.
I crumbled for weeks thereafter.
So now we have a chance to go visit while still waiting for our immigration visa.
We managed to get a visitors visa and get into the car , no insurance, no worries but getting to the USA for a visit.
The Studebaker soon told us it liked oil. Not gasoline but oil. At every small and big town we filled the oil while we left somewhat of a trail of smoke.
As we crossed the border I did some more crying, I was home and I could not stay.
It was just a short visit. I believe the only super highway finished then was
the NJ Turnpike. We just went from village to village enjoying every white church and steeple as I seen in the Life Magazines I had looked at back home.
America was as beautiful as I had been dreaming.
Then we came to a point that we followed the Hudson, I remember at one curve we were shocked as in front of us were hundreds of left to rust army boats of all sizes.
They looked to me like all "Seapower" size, the boat who came to repair our elctricity in 1945 and parked in front of my door at the Canal of Terneuzen.
We stopped and just stood in wonder of all this hardware which no doubt had seen a lot of war and had been the place where people had died.
It was a somber view hard to wrap your head around it.
The ride in the Catskills had surprised me as their were many hotels and resorts and on some they had signs "Gentiles only" ,I did not understand what this was until Sergeant Schacht explained it to me.
Once we found Camp kilmer it was a closed camp. I think Eisenhower had closed a lot of them. My friends were the skeleton crew to keep order in the barracks and they lived in a huge barrack with room to dance around in it.
Spooky came slowly towards us but did not know us and my heart started to break in pieces....I yelled out : Spooky, Spooky!
He knew that voice and came running at me in full speed jumping in my arms.
We were there 3 days and he never left my legs, in the bathroom, the shower, by the bed , Spooky was there. He broke my heart, we could not have taken him back to Canada, we were not allowed dogs in our apartment and we were hoping to get the permanent visa any day now (took another year).
I left my heart om N J that year and the return to Montreal was anything but fun with the smoking Studebaker.
The Hudson River did not seem that great now and the boats did not even make us stop on the return.
A week or so later a letter came from America.
The Schachts were in shock and in pain too, Spooky had just gone to sleep and died 3 days after we left. He had a broken heart.

Calming Monday

2011-08-29T16:48:00.000-07:00

My New Jersey friends are OK. Maggie in Wilmington is OK. Lee in Mass. is OK.
Kids on the boat are OK. Noah is OK , Sabra too, I can relax now.
I only watched half the news tonight and let it rest.

Latest on news is that chocolate including milk chocolate is good for combating heart disease, wonder if Nestle was the sponsor of the search.

The Monday quarter back, is that what they call it? I am not into football.
Well now different opinions are being posted everywhere about how the predictions were handled. Give me a break, it is mother nature and she is fickle. We are doing better at this year after year but still are we supposed to say:
"You know people it may be very bad or nothing at all, go play bridge, run around naked if you will, all is cool. We just do not know much, bye bye".

In view of Katrina's past I do think that we need to be vigilant and the politicians have a lot at stake here. We need to know what to do next and if suddenly the sun appears then get a sun tan!

Irene out of here? On way to Canada?

2011-08-29T07:03:00.000-07:00

I have not watched the news this morning.
I am on news overload.
I was so antsy and at times started to think I had to move the garden furniture.
I became disoriented at times...not good.

The boat people have decisions to make and if you read Rhonda's answer to Ana then you know that they expect a lot of debris on the Hudson.

Debris and cleaning up water in many townships is the heartache now.
Seeing the lovely New England houses row by row in water breaks my heart.

Getting all these sick people back to N Y will be a project.

Rand sent a photo taken from a high building in NY , you see the street below and five huge trees all down in the middle of the street like dominoes...

Mother would have said it is good for the tree farmers and landscape artists.

Maybe not, maybe there is not going to be enough in the budgets to replant.

I keep looking out at that naked, dead tree a street up from me it will fall this winter, it will just miss my house but will drop on the cop's house if it falls in our direction.
I doubt the lady who owns it has the funds to have it cut down. She is somewhat of a recluse.

Sabrina sounds like Lauren Bacall, she has problems in the windpipes for sure...

A new week and less worries....Imagine that!!! Great!!!!

The cab driver said it would not be bad but...the mayor said:

2011-08-28T17:32:00.000-07:00

Worst Poughkeepsie flooding in recent memory, officials say

POUGHKEEPSIE – The city’s most senior officials say Hurricane Irene caused the worst flooding of Poughkeepsie in recent history.

The Hudson River crested over its banks and flooded Waryas Park, extending past the Ice House. The Mid-Hudson Bridge was barely visible during the height of the storm and its driving rain.

Mayor John Tkazyik said now comes figuring out how to pay for the overtime and repairs to any damaged infrastructure. (Listen to interview with the mayor.)

“We are hopeful that given what the President and the Governor have stated that we are going to be able to keep track of many of these additional costs that we are experiencing and get some financial support and able to cover the overtime, additional manpower and additional resources we are utilizing,” he said.

The Hudson also crested over its banks in the City of Newburgh and flooded out at least one popular waterfront eatery.

Residents experiencing flooding may call 845-451-4000 to report them.

Ana, who?

2011-08-28T17:06:00.001-07:00

Ana I read is not due until 2015

Gert may come up next

There was an Ana some time ago too.

boat found in perfect shape

2011-08-28T14:16:00.001-07:00

we can relax now.
Is there another one coming our wAY? A hurricane I mean, someone emailed me that but that is a cruel joke, no?

How to spell Poughkeepsie

2011-08-28T10:04:00.000-07:00

I am tired of trying different ways to spell that town so I will be glad when they are on board and on the way to places I can spell.
Irene I can spell and never want to see or hear it again.
I have had at with this storm and news man standing in 3 inches of water trying to make it sound worse. A friend wrote me that and I had been thinking it all night, wondering how much disaster they could actually show.
Now when I see house without a roof I feel the pain of the owners and when I hear about 13 dead in N C I am quite devastated.
I am still waiting for N J and Mass friends to tell me that their trees did not come down on their houses, that is a concern.....

google:

2011-08-28T09:57:00.003-07:00

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2011/06/23/geraldo-rivera-sailing-to-orlando/

2011-08-28T09:54:00.001-07:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jag9889/2141229349/

67 feet?

2011-08-28T09:53:00.001-07:00

amateurs — 43 electronically and nine celestially, including all-female Etoile, three double-handed, 10 short-handed and three family boats. Two Voyagers vie for prizes in different classes — a 40-foot yacht skippered by Clifford Kurz and a 67-footer skippered by Geraldo Rivera.

Sabrina is sick no groceries tomorrow, no lunch, no giggling

2011-08-28T08:40:00.000-07:00

I hope she can get well in a hurry , she has a long week end off coming this week and she should not be in bed for that, poor kid, exhausted.
Having major problems with internet disconnecting for a few weeks now and its a mess.
Brie thinks it is only allergies, summer colds can be such a bummer.
Wish her well and speedy recovery.

News from Gypsy is that the storm is beginning to hit them and high rising river is on the way. Horizontal rain, she wrote.
Lets hope all goes well with the boat.

I better go and do some baking as we are out of buns for breakfast.
I have been sleeping most of the morning.
Mild worrying makes me sleepy.

woke up as light came between the drapery cracks

2011-08-28T07:02:00.000-07:00

turned on tv
it was 6 something lay down on the bed and fell asleep again
wokeup after 9 and walked Bijou.
There is a gentle breeze outside not enough to keep it cool
I am sweating walking.
I read all the emails and Gypsy blog
going back to the bedroom to watch TV
E and Gaston have kids in the USA
one couple with kids are in Manhattan locked up in their hotel
he belongs to games put on by firemen over the world.
the other couple are in L A far away from this mess.
Hoping for the best but it is not over yet for NY

maryland is getting wet feet

2011-08-27T13:24:00.000-07:00

and Rhode Island coastal people are now getting orders for evacuation.
I forget how many in NC are already without power, in the thousands.
DC Mayor is still keeping the underground working, they have sandbags in front of entries but I saw like 2 rows of them, that is not going to hold much water.
NY City hospital has 6 patients too ill to travel, one has a brain tumor and sister was beside herself. If the water goes into the basement that is where they are housing their generators!!!!All other hospitals belonging to city (5) and nursing homes are evacuated. I think Bloomberg is trying not to see a New Orleans when Monday rolls around. Obama has been visiting centers and how the preparations are going.
NJ is being slammered with heavy rains. Maryland is now the Main problem at this hour.
Irene is as big in size as Europe, hard to imagine, she is very wide and round.

NY will see it all tomorrow morning.

The boat people in Poughkeepsie are heading out to hotel.
A large sailboat belonging to a celebrity is near them, the captain is staying on board and will keep them up to date via phone. If the phones keep working.

The water is already higher at Battery Park said the man , just inches right now but the rest will be tomorrow morning.

Had a lovely lunch with L and C

2011-08-27T11:17:00.000-07:00

Went to Sinbad and it was delicious.
Could not wait till we got home and I saw what Rhonda had blogged.
Looks like it is going as good as it can.
Anxious for tomorrow.
My puter has problems, that is the server hope we can have it
fixed on Monday.
I am exhausted.
I gave a chair to Jaime from the bedroom I need more space
I need more throwing away junk time.
I am going to take a nap and check CNN

what we learn in emergencies

2011-08-27T07:45:00.000-07:00

The gas stations run out of gas.

The ATM machines run out of cash and of course the storm is on a week end.

sand bags are at a premium and so is boarding up material

so now I am wondering where does the sand come from?
Depleting our shores?
Just wondering.

Last I heard NY is still on the target

Mariners 2 :

2011-08-27T07:09:00.000-07:00

just saw on CNN that NY hospitals continue evacuation and bringing people to hospitals in Poughkeepsie ...saturday 10 08 am

here sunny and calm

Mariners :

2011-08-27T06:53:00.000-07:00

Just read your new blog.
I think it best you do not see the hype on TV, it is getting me in a tizzy.
But I watched Katrina too, I am just trying to see what we can learn from all this.
The way we built..surely...the way we prepare...
no use buying a bunch of groceries when you know you will be without power for awhile.
I made a funny on Facebook
Sabra: now where did I put my arc plans?
Jeannot: I think your brother Noah has them

I am so witty. Noah of course is still in NY , the last I heard.

I have no idea yet where it is all heading.
It will be cat 1 in N Y but they say not to be fooled by this.
All transport at a still at noon today,
that will be eerie, New Yorkers do not use cars that much,
they take the subway and the busses.
All will be stopped.
I am sure we will see photos of what it looks like.

Washington too is in state of emergency.

the best one can do when all is said and done is to find shelter and pray if you can.

Bubbles around you!!!!

My mother said:

2011-08-27T06:30:00.000-07:00

That in every calamity or disaster someone will benefit....
How so? I thought.
She was right.
Very simple example:
I fall down the steps in the snow.
I break my ankle in 3 places.
I give work to :
2 ambulance drivers
staff of many at the ER
surgeon, his helper, his nurses, the guy who makes me sleep
the room nurses around the clock
the janitor who cleans my room
the people who wash the sheets
the therapist who insists I walk a bit
then the service to get me to rehab (2 guys)
rehab: around the clock nurses
nurses aids
cleaning ladies
cooks for my meal
therapists by the dozen
visits to the dr more special drivers
then home and a visiting nurse every other day
therapist too.

6 months later I am without pain and can walk.
I gave a lot of people a lot of work.
Somebody benefits.

During the war my mother said:
Every body benefits from misfortune except in the war.
We die, get shot, bombarded etc...the only ones to
benefits are the undertakers and the casket maker.
The men who dig holes to put you in.
Well, she said with a laugh, I never met an undertaker who is not jolly.
He can count on work no matter the world economy or politics. People will die.

Just reflecting on what mother said.

trends and who cares about what

2011-08-27T06:21:00.000-07:00

something i do not understand.
The Yahoo trend today is numero uno Will and his wife.....
will they or are they going to split.....
BIG news item and searched and over searched.

Number 10 on the list :the hurricane Irene.
Irene may cost lives and a great deal of damage
that is the last on the list of searches..............

I just do not understand anymore......

calling our sailors , Friday eve 11 16

2011-08-26T20:35:00.000-07:00

OK I followed the New Orleans disaster minute by minute
I am doing this with Irene too.
This time with a lump in the throat.
I have kids in this storm.

Last I heard about 20 minutes ago is that in land will have A LOT OF flooding too,
Lee worried about her trees, they have had rain for days and everything is soaked
another 5 to 8 inches of rain added and the trees may fall.

I could not sleep, I kept thinking the crew was going to Baltimore to get their cars to safety as they expected floods there too.
What are they thinking I said to myself. The N J Turnpike is already closed, all transportation in NYC stops tomorrow at noon. Never been done before.
Hospitals are empty along the low line Manhattan.
Evacuation was with ambulances, helicopters, busses. Unbelievable to watch.
Even babies in incumbators, no one died in transit so they say.

Army has been called and is in NY to help after the fact. Reserve

At this moment I wonder how high the Hudson will be rising???
Does anyone know???
75 Mile winds can do a lot of damage.
Hope the boat is insured.
But first think of your safety.

No gasoline along roads, I saw some fighting for the last tank.
In a situation like this you see 2 different kinds of people.
You see the sharing ones who will take care of strangers, feed them and
give them shelter and then there are the ones who panic and feel that
they should have the privilege of survival over any body else.

I am glad I got up and saw the new emails and now know you will be safe in a hotel and stay away from windows.

So glad the keys will be in Baltimore and pray tell if they expect floods where are the cars going to be safe from that?

Noah tells his mother that he will come out there on sUNDAY, she thinks he is nuts, she knows hurricanes, these New Yorkers are not buying the danger. Time and time again young people interviewed say "Nah, nothing like that will happen"
Hope they are right.
Now I will go to sleep. it is 11 32 almost Saturday and the eye should hit NC in 8 hours.

Poughkeepsie calling

2011-08-26T15:24:00.001-07:00

Rhonda if you read this there are cars on the road with evacuation , in the millions, forgot the numbers, get a hotel asap before they are full.
You should see the highways.

Bloomberg:

2011-08-26T12:28:00.001-07:00

Get out of low lands!
Traffic from Jersey shores is piled up everywhere.
Take on a hotel or pay in advance because everyone is going for higher grounds.
That is directed at my boat people.
Go as far as you can away from the sea.

Irene starting to make the NC coast a bit wet

2011-08-26T08:17:00.000-07:00

Maggie from Wilmington is going for higher grounds but no evacuation was asked for, the governor did tell the people on the coast to just go and mandatory evacuation is in force on the island and the immediate coastal housing and hotels.

I watch it all with care, and I hear that New Yorkers do not listen to anyone, least of all officials. That may be a problem for them on Sunday.
If Irene keeps going the way she has then Manhattan could be flooded according to predictions. This storm is the worst in 50 years.

The water rats stayed in Tarytown last night but are en route to poughkeepsie which is 60 miles from Manhattan, hope that helps, wonder if the Hudson would not crest too?They have reservations at a hotel for the week end. Of course the boat is an issue of great concern I am sure.

We in the mountains will not get a drop of water from it all and we continue to be in heat if you pardon the pun. We do need more water.

My friend Lee is in Mass and no doubt will have some wind issues so I am concerned about her in that marvelous part of the country with so many older houses, churches and buildings.

On to later with update Irene.
Lets not even think about the next one which is brewing in the oceans somewhere.

Sailors en route on the Hudson River

2011-08-25T17:37:00.000-07:00

I have watched the reports on Rhonda's blog and they are probably still sailing till they will hit Tarrytown and stop there for awhile (?)
Guess adventures have different plans at times.
Irene is messing with them and millions of others.

blue butterfly in the garden

2011-08-24T16:42:00.001-07:00

Finally a nlue and black butterfly came into my garden today, he did not sit on my shoulder like last year but he did fly around me a few times so that I would notice him.

so where ARE the gypsies in the boat?

2011-08-24T16:07:00.000-07:00

Last I heard they did not know what they were going to do with Irene.
Now the latest on this Wednesday is that Irene may even be in NY on Sunday
and on to Boston, so going North was not an option and if they returned sOUTH they are bound to run in foul weather too.
No news on the blog today.
I hope they found a place to hide the boat and go inland ans wait it out.

Nancy Reagan tripped today on a part of pillar to hold back a rope,
she just hit with her foot a little bit and started to fall.
Then they gave us the amount of people over 65 who fall and hurt themselves.
I am not alone.

shopping day

2011-08-23T06:30:00.000-07:00

Nice lunch, I hope, and a bit of grocery shopping.
Weather is nice, sunny blue sky not a cloud to be seen.
Being Miss I have to worry about something...I got up middle
of the night to check if I had paid my house insurance...
of course I did.
Where did I get such a notion??...storm coming...a dead tree in the other street
that will in no way reach me but the guy across the street....possible floods in the sub basement...I see where my demolition thoughts are so damn positive.
Cheer up girl, a lot of states need the water, the sailpeople are on the alert,
life is good at home...why invent worries???
I was born that way.
Now smile...take a shower and go shopping!!!!!

Good night Irene, Good night

2011-08-22T15:29:00.000-07:00

Just stay away from our coast. We have had enough "natural" calamities to last us.
Now we also have kin on the water to worry about.
Yikes.
Land fall by week end?Maybe?

topless?

2011-08-22T08:08:00.000-07:00

Yesterday some women in Asheville were protesting ....what do they want now?
Well, it is simple. Since men walk around with their torso bare the other gender wants the same privilege. Come one, be serious ...you just wanted to show off that you have pretty breast and you could not care enough about yourself so you wanted to share this with the world.
Nothing to do with equality. Get a grip, girls.
Go to work and fight for the rights to be paid the same as the man who is doing the same job as you.
There are so many ways to ask and work towards equality showing your boobs is not the answer.
Let's just suppose that this would become a law, would you walk around topless in
20 years? Or after you nursed a few kids? Get a life.

Bijou is a thief

2011-08-21T16:49:00.000-07:00

He managed to talk the big dog to get the pot roast piece on the counter, when it fell he took it away from the big dog and ran to his caqe and growled at me for wanting to take it away. He probably will have heart burn all night....serves him right!

My bf in Belgium celebrated their 60th anniversary yesterday, there it means reception in city hall!!!!Then they had a special dinner out and it was a great feast. Her husband lived across the street from me when I was born, I think he us about 4 years older than I. She went to my school and I knew her forever , we3 lost touch for a long while. My mother did not like me to run around with other people when I visited. She always paid for my trip and she wanted me to herself.
After she passed on I revisited Elza more often and now her husband and I email
every day. Congratulations you two!!!!!!60 years is what it would have been if I had not divorced numero uno, I take it back I would not have stayed alive so long.
I probably would have killed him and be in jail or death.
I too had married a few months before E and G.

E. stayed in her mom's house all these years, I was a gypsy and went all over the place, Canada, East Coast, West Coast back to Europe then to the South.

I have looked for blue butterflies to come around. Last year I could not get rid of one, he would come and sit on my shoulder for the longest time and fly around my head, the last tattered one we saw was when we put Bob's ashes in the river in the forest. All I get now is white moths.

Who has been messing with my scale. This morning I got on and saw immediately that I was reading kilos. Now that is not upsetting to me, I was born in kilo land and grew up in meters. Yesterday it was set on lbs!!!!

Got to go and prepare for night night with fat belly Bijou.

The energy wagon is going by too fast

2011-08-21T08:52:00.000-07:00

I can't seem to get on it and I am lazy and tired.
This whole week has been nuts like that.

neighbors

2011-08-19T09:51:00.000-07:00

My English is self taught and for the life of me I never know how to spell the word :"neighbor" I always put another g in there somewhere. 50 plus years and I am still not getting it.

What I am also not getting is the change in our culture ,speaking of neighborhoods.

Rhonda wrote in her blog that the people they meet, while they are living on a boat,
are so friendly. A boat will dock next to them and immediately there is contact.
People are so friendly, she writes.

So I go back in though to 1955 when I moved here and lived in New Jersey for awhile.
I knew every one in the street. We did get a cup of sugar from Mabel across the street, found numerous babysitters all around us. Lady next door had a major drinking problem with 5 kids. The oldest came to me every day telling me Mom had the flu and how would she cook this or that. The 16 year old ran the household.
I helped when I could. My babies were born there, day in and day out I had the
pram outside the front door ,babies stuffed in blankets and as a good Belgian girl I knew they needed fresh air every day. No one ever touched these little ones.

Moving to California we first bought a house in Campbell and again we met everyone
and had chit chats over the fence, watched each other kids and sat at the table with a cup of coffee while we discovered where to shop and what to bring to the new community in this new neighborhood.
Then all hell broke lose when husband nr uno was arrested in the food store he managed. He had given discounts to "ladies" when he checked them out so he went to jail overnight and then got headlines in the paper.
No one talked to me anymore and we moved into the mountains hiding my head in shame. Husband thought he was robin Hood and gave to the poor...yeah right.

In the mountains we found a neat old house we could afford, having lost the new house we just purchased months before. The town was then very, very small.
Soon we knew everyone and again the camaraderie was there and the welcome.
I felt very safe there. No one knew about the San Jose newspaper article.

Fast forward to 1969, a new marriage and the event of hippies in the gorgeous quiet valley that I adored. Strange happenings with drug scenario, people moved next door and had sex orgies with very young girls and no curtains, calling the cops was no help it took me 35 minutes to get to us.
We fled for 5 years to Spain.

Moving to where we still are in 1976 in NC. People around us where older than us and extremely friendly. Over the next 35 years the old left us for better places (we hope) and new younger and younger people arrived. At this point I do not know the names of the people across the street. The retired policeman on the other side waves. No one goes from house to house to borrow sugar or have a cup of coffee.
People are rushing out at 7 or 8 AM return in the evening.
The neighborhood is quiet. Where is the cameraderie? Are we so busy working?
Are we just "into our family? Or just into internet such as I do?

interesting show about psychics last night

2011-08-18T08:20:00.000-07:00

Of course the famous Randy was there offering one million bucks if someone could prove to him that they had indeed psychic powers and in touch with the unknown.
No one even came close. Sylvia Browne refused his tests time and time again.
BTW SYLVIA Browne on Montel had told a family that the missing son was gone and showed an area where he might be. Family mourned for years and then the boy showed up last year very much alive, had been abducted. It was all on the news, Sylvia
apologized to the family.
James Van Praag was interesting, did not convince the journalist neither did he convince me and I am an easy target.
At the end two L A psychics got to another reporter ...one was that nasty lady who had been on the wives of Beverly Hills .....
Late in life , I am having great doubts about a lot of it.
What I do not like is the money angle. I think if you have such a gift and you can help people you should not charge a penny.
Van charges 125.00 a person in a very large group in a hotel and he gives them tid bits, he is a fabulous cold reader and people do not realize in the moment how much information they are handing him on a platter.
I tried to count the heads in the room at least a hundred there easy money for an hour of work. He lives by the sea in a nice place..........
the two in LA had nice pools and homes..........
a gift like this should be shared...........I had a lot of premonitions in my life
many who became reality ....I read cards....but I would never charge a dime.
Someone brought me a bouquet of roses at one time. I took them but did not expect that.

the reality shows and are they going too far??????????

2011-08-17T17:24:00.000-07:00

I doubt they will stop any time soon, the dollars are pouring in on Bravo, the more fight in New Jersey the more viewers, they always have to have a bad guy or girl.
One of the husbands on the wives of Beverly hills committed suicide this week.
He was often in the picture and had a sour puss ,turns out he is broke and could not keep up with the show motto of wealthy women. Besides that his wife had accused him of hitting her in People magazine...more readers.....more drama.

Show me the money...that is the story of interest....

Loyola University did a study

2011-08-17T17:19:00.001-07:00

it seems that 2 glasses of wine a day for men and one glass for women will reduce people from dementia/Alzheimer by 23 %, guess my friend in Mass. will be bright forever and I will have to start a new hobby. Zinfedel (sp?) here I come. (Maybe)

walked Bijou tonight by the cemetary and I thought

2011-08-17T17:12:00.000-07:00

the sun was on fire. It was gorgeous, wished I had my camera with me.
Just a fabulous night. If the clouds go away we may see some more of that harvest moon too.

the good and the bad about the Internet

2011-08-17T12:34:00.000-07:00

I can't be without my computer.
I get out once a week and otherwise see very few people.
So I play, write, email, buy and sell on the internet.
It is part of my day, the most part of my day.

When I started to sell on eBay it was 1977.
That was some time ago and I can't believe how fast it all went.
Ebay I think was 2 years old then and an infancy full of problems
and joys. Now it is totally an enormous business to deal with not to mention Pay pal too. The policy now protects the buyer a lot more than the seller.
It is also expensive.

I can write to my pals in Belgium and get an immediate reply if they are "on" no more waiting for 5 days till the mail gets in.

Overall it is a marvelous tool for me BUT...I started to blog 4 or so years ago
husband was very sick with Alzheimer and I was a caregiver going out of her mind with worries. Writing about it helped and I had hoped that it would help other people in the same situation. It did for some and got me a job for a year with a site now gone and broke. So somewhere I hope it all did some good.
Sept 5th will be the first anniversary of my husband's passing.
I thought of stopping the blog but a couple of friends asked me to continue and write about my life, my youth, and just about anything.
The request was flattering and I may give it some thought after Sept 5.
However I was very naive when I started this all.
I was a Pollyanna thinking that life was just nothing but lillies and daisies.
What I do regret is that I also discovered that there are mean spirited people who may use your blog for their own gain. Perhaps they are mentally ill and can't help themselves but they are on the internet just like anybody else.
So I made one decision and that is not to write anymore about my son. His life is different from mine and he lives the way he wants to and should be free of freaks and crazies. No research will be possible on this site about Bob. Basta!!!!

August 17th

2011-08-17T07:18:00.000-07:00

On AUgust 17th 1955 I came into this country quite legally having waited 4 years for an immigrant visa, together with a family who was willing to take us in and sign for us.
Times have changed, the family would have been responsible for us if we did not start working ........why did we stop that law????
It makes sense.
Also entry was not so easy if you wait 4 years for it and you could not have TB not communistic activities.
Came in on a Greyhound bus from Montreal to New York, no a/c then, hot hot hot bodies and different odors everywhere but all I could think off was "New York".
I remember having a pink peasant blouse on and pink skirt.
Started my period during the trip, oh joy!
Near Connecticut we ran into a huge storm .they did not number them then but this
was frightening. The bus had to stop several times as the driver could not see where he was going. The storm had a name but I long forgot it. Could have been Diane.
The bus drove from small town to small town, no major highways then along that road.The N J Turnpike was fairly new but that is all I remember in major highways.
By the time we hit NY it was nightfall.
My then husband decided to go and hunt for a hotel and found around the corner,
he returned to get me and the suitcases and told me to hurry as he had turned on the tub so I could have a bath (knucklehead he turns on the water and leaves?)
The excitement to finally be here was probably raising my BP even then, at 23!

Talking about this to my second husband we realized that we met on Aug 17th in Santa Cruz when I was renting a shop space in a mini mall. He had the space next to me. The rest was 42 years of a great union.

so today, August 17th, the memories are vivid of both events.....
they bring smiles and happy tears .............

56 years in this country! Wow! Was it not yesterday when I was 20???

Shopping day

2011-08-16T06:49:00.000-07:00

It is cooling down, we will reach 80 today and I can feel autumn in my bones.
Nice not to turn on all the fans and being able to breathe.

The new Roomba is a peach, I work her in every room every day and stay on top of
Carwen's shedding, this one is not so temperamental with cords, she seems to be able to dance her way out of entanglements but she is fussy about her brushes. She stops more then the old one and tells me: clean my brushes. There is hardly a pile up on her brushes but she wants them cleaned so I do it. When she is tired she goes to her station and parks herself. I hardly pick up anything with the vacuum when I followed her one day.

Short list for shopping today but we have a haircut planned.

I love the tomatoes I have grown, started them late but have them now to enjoy.
Next year I will do some more.

Zack started school yesterday, he is now a towering junior, he overshadows us all and finding shoes is not easy for him. He does take after his Fisher Grandpa.
Fortunately he does not hunt.

getting ready for my weekly lunch and shopping day. love it!

another friend passes on

2011-08-15T16:24:00.000-07:00

we did not see much of each other in the last decades, he lived in Hawaii.
We did enjoy him in another time and in another place namely Spain in the 1970's.
May he rest in peace.

My address book is almost on empty , I am like Georges Burns, check the obituaries if I am not in it I get up and face the day.

The day was morose and not too upbeat...got to get out of this mood.

about the money

2011-08-15T07:34:00.000-07:00

Rhonda wrote about the pennies she finds but the day Bob left us I found a dime and I have been finding dimes every since. Guess he is sending me the inflation extra!

Visited Ari's grave yesterday and there were 9 pennies by her stone.
I still miss that girl.
I had planted one of her mother's plants in a pot there and it is
thriving. Of course, her mom is there with her and I am sure she
is tending to do the plant.

We did cancel our beach trip there are too many other things to do around the house and my mood for ocean is gone.

closing in on the 1 year..........

2011-08-14T12:29:00.000-07:00

he is on my mind all the time now.....I am working on emptying his chest of drawers...I find all sorts of treasures, bottle caps, rubber bands, used stamps...the G string I once bought him decades ago...(Ha Ha) cards I wrote him ....rags...a bag full of pens (mostly dry now)....pennies all over the place...

on Sept 5 it will be one year since he left us....

I ran away two days before that..I left daughter Rhonda in charge to be with him and she took this to mean "do not leave him" , she stayed with him day and night.
For this I am indebted to her.
I was at the end of my rope, I had watched every change day in and day out.
Thirteen years, I had watched ...first he still knew how to drive well and we did our usual day trips ....I started to tell him when to change lanes..when the light was red and he needed to stop. Then the decision to take the license away..he never forgave me for that one.
I watched how much he loved his coffee till one day he looked at me puzzled and said he would never drink that stuff...when I said he drank it every day of his life he looked at me and said :"I never would drink that".
Lucky for me he kissed me till the end. But then at that time I think he was kissing every one.
He dressed himself quite well for a long time then like a switch had turned off he put his pants on backwards and could hardly walk but did not notice the reason for that .....when I wanted to change it, he turned grumpy and said not to touch him.
I saw when he would smile as I crawled in bed and cuddled next to him and then I saw that the eyes grew angry and he told me"Get out of my bed, no strange women come in my bed". I slept on the couch bathing in tears.
He stopped walking the dog, he often would kick the dog as he was not happy with movements around him.
If a workman had to come in he would yell and tell him to get out.
His house and garden were his territory and he felt no one but him should be there.
He started to hide things....hid my hearing aids for which I was still paying, we never found them, hid my new Roomba (a Christmas present from Bobby) but he hid it under leaves and it got soaking wet. $400 down the shute, "they" fixed it but it never worked well again.
One day he said :Oh it is gone and laughed very hard...I said what is gone?
He pointed to his pinky, he had worn my insignia ring from my teen age years on his pinky since we met. The ring was gone. He managed to show me that he had flushed it in the toilet. I am sure it was by accident as he was losing weight.
I managed to buy him a sterling wedding band and switched his gold one and hid it
ditto with his father's ring. I did not want them to go down the sewer too.

I can and may still write a book about it all but today I am beginning to feel that the 5th is near. Review the year and go forward knowing that I did all I could for him while alive. I love him so much. If there are soul mates then he was it.
I am no longer sure about that title. I know he was the one who gave me life.
A very good life full of love. I was 36 when I met him and that was the day I was born. What happened before was not that pleasant.

Ok Dr bones has an opinion...I do not have to agree

2011-08-13T16:57:00.000-07:00

said he, yes the handsome one, I did not like his shirt tie combination today ....
so said he:"your back is ugly....IF you fall again you will go through the same scenario....your bones are brittle...take vitamin D (I already do)".
Goodbye!
I decided that I am going to walk on eggs until I am steady without vertigo and
just let him talk and do my thing.
He told another lady I know after he did her shoulder surgery:
"this will probably come back so be prepared!"
I think he is wishing for more clients so he plants this stuff into our
subconscious.
He also told me a few months ago that his friend had the same surgery as mine
and they said he did not have any cancer anymore and he died from cancer 6 months later. He looked at my necklace then and said: Will this to Sabrina!
Hello?????
The end of this month it will be 5 months since my surgery...yikes....

I am going to the beach for the Labor day week end with Brie.
We both can use a "run away" time even for a few days.
The ocean loves me and the sun there is stronger then here (S C )
so I should get some help with the scalp which is now one landmark of psoriasis,
I do not flake little tiny flakes I have snowflakes falling from my
stresses!!!!!

Bob is doing very well in the humor department.
He is triply kind to me, he is a nice guy.
He will conquer this disease, he has to.
He still has a lot of life in him.
Girlfriend is still upper most on his mind.
Good so!

Sabrina went sliding or whatever they call it,
just going down a rope at 55 miles an hour and 200 feet above the trees.
She loved it.

Got to do some dishes

tomorrow shopping day, dr Bones day too

2011-08-08T15:36:00.000-07:00

wow!!!!!This is going to be good!!!!

so our credit rating is down the toilet.

2011-08-07T10:38:00.000-07:00

It will be interesting to see what the next weeks will bring.
was watching Amanpour and no one at the table was very happy about the way
this was done. Politics, who can understand the undergarments of politics,
the deals made in quiet rooms, promises to the industry, promises to countries, wars, costly deals.

Our loss today in the human scene is greater with more soldiers dying.
22 of our elite men , blown up in a helicopter. Belonging to a very small
group of 300 or so. Thinking of all the families at home today, children who
will never see their father again. This is now almost a daily routine...cost? enormous, cost of lives? not replaceable.

If I start thinking about it all I will go in a corner and sulk, what can I do to change anything? I can help with world hunger and hope the people who need it
will get their share of it.

Forget my mood, I am grouchy and I no longer have PMS to blame it on.

lovely week end

2011-08-06T15:27:00.000-07:00

Had a nice visit with Bob's girlfriend.
What I learned so far is that she is very considerate and remembers things about you, she brought me this large glass which holds a zillion tons of water, it is double walled so it keeps it cool, in the wall is a blue butterfly.
She remembered the butterfly story and she knows I need to drink water, she gave it to me with orders to DRINK THE WATER.
Same with her Mom who made raspberry cheesecake for him as his favorite fruit is
raspberries. They seem to remember the little things.

On the other side of the coin, a stalked who made his life miserable for 2 years,
he never met, never talked on the phone, is back on the email trail to make his life miserable. A sicko person who needs mental help. When are we going to help people who need that kind of a hand????

I probably gained 5 lbs with the cheesecake, calories were left in it.

I did enjoy some very cool moments today with a bit of rain and started to be able to clean the house. I did, honestly I did.

Rhonda is at sea on the way to Maine.
It is her dream.

I am feeling very healthy so hope all the other tests will be fine too.
They have to be.
I have much to see and do.

the brutal honesty .......

2011-08-06T06:14:00.000-07:00

people who know me, know that I tell it like it is.
No bandages, no pretending, I am who I am, would I like to improve? yup, I surely would and I strive for it all the time, it does not always work.

The girl in Bob's life is a plus.
I said it before, he now laughs a lot and tries to walk a bit further away from the house, it is a good start.

I run ,again, 2 businesses, eBay and my shop in Brevard, it remains to be seen if I will make money. I also sell a great deal of my "collections" time to try simplicity.

Simplicity! It has never worked before, we always were working out of this house.
At first Bob and I made our Santas on the kitchen table, rabbit fur was everywhere, creeping into the nostrils even and in parts we did not know we had.
We had so much fun but the house was such a shambles. Fabrics here and there and a sewing machine here and there. We worked hard until we rented a studio above our shop and that became our haven for fur and fabrics.

We did shows for years and years, high end craft shows, the Father Christmas dolls sold for 175.00 and we never made the same one twice.
We did art shows all over the Eastern seaboard with Bob's work.
We did antique shows in Atlanta, Charlotte, Mount Dora when it was antique heaven and on and on.....
The unloading of stuff often in the house and starting all over again next Friday.
We were not allowed to make this a commercial site but we should have.
Bob took in restorations and paintings with holes were to be found in every corner waiting for the master.

I can work in chaos. I am not orderly, never have been, and that is what I want to change...and then I buy hundreds of different beads ,chains, threads tools all for the necklaces I make. It is another puzzle ....I am trying to sort them all out as they come in and then when I start making a necklace I mess them up trying to find THE bead I want. Excuses , excuses, to try and tell myself that I am OK..I can't be like Sabrina who used to empty the ashtray of her husband as soon as he had a bud in it. She is a bit better now, at home we call that the cleaning sickness.
Here it is OCD, I think.

So....I sat down this lovely lady who is new in our lives and said:
It was very hot this week, I did not do anything to prepare for company..the floor needs washing and I have beads on the table which I need to prepare for their destiny....so dear girl, you have to learn to take me warts and all, I will no longer scramble to get everything in order before you come into the door.
You have to take me as I am....

She was polite and smiled.....wonder what she thought....does it matter to me?
Yes, it matters a lot what people think about me and how dumb is that?
I have lived a long life with ups and downs as we all have and I am the product of it all.......

Now I better go and clear my desk.............or not

Too hot to move!!!!

2011-08-04T17:50:00.000-07:00

Doctor review

2011-08-03T13:43:00.000-07:00

The CT scan needed from my solo kidney was not what I had hoped for,blood test showed it was not working full force.
So then the people who know about these things decided not to do the dye test and make the the kidney work harder.

I was a bit wondering what would be next...phone call a few minutes ago from urologist: everything looks good, not unusual for the kidney to be a bit slow
taking on the work of the other one too.
Not to worry....

So not worrying I will do, I feel fine.
Some days I know I am bloated but I must learn to drink more water instead of junk.....

Lunch at Bistro was not as good as usual, waiter's head in the cloud, service not so hot....the flower shop I did not visit this time...not in my budget..we are missing the discount we got with Rhonda working there...now it is a bit expensive for my taste and I am finished planting anyway.

Zack and friend came yesterday to finish the back yard.
He managed to get the formidable wood growing weed up the phone pole, it was a problem and not quite on my property. Do not think that Miss Ross knows that.

Sabrina forgot her phone yesterday and it was like she had lost her best friend...we joked about it all day...she finally started using her glasses case and talking to it....

The heat is making me sick and nautious....enough already.....I think SC is in the three digits.

The government paid our social security today, thank you for small favors....
some body said it was a gift we receive....a gift?....how much do you pay each time you get a paycheck????

Hate to think about the voting next year....blame...bashing...lies...it will be a circus....Prez you got my vote, I knew 3 years ago you could not clean up this mess in one term, probably not in 2 terms either....

Got to go and walk a hot dog in the hot sun.....

the house of smiles

2011-08-01T12:44:00.000-07:00

something is happening in our house....the tears are dryed up most of the time....the pain is almost all gone....both physical and emotional....the garden is starting to look better....my finances are better...but most of all love has entered these walls.
These walls have been too moisterized with my tears for a decade or more.
The walls are hearing more and more laughter....son is happy...that is an elusive word that I no longer use...so son is content and I am content.
Son is finding new love. It may be forever, it may be for a short time, who knows but love is giving him a lot of hope, he is going to try to get healed by his own will
if possible.
You can tell he is better because he jokes with me and he puts his arms around me more often. We both need "the touch". Another human being just hugging you and
meaning it. He did not do that for a long time, he was lost in his own
sadness and he does not b s people.
What Bob what he gives you is what he is capable of and means it, good or bad.
I see him in front of the screen doing the sKYPE visit in the evening and he is
all smiles. He is a good man.
I have hope for him and I am all for it, the healing, the new life, another grandson (age 5) ...all is well in my world....

CLEAN UP YARD DAY

2011-07-29T17:26:00.001-07:00

tomorrow the crew will come once again and trim the hedge, that thing grows like a weed, almost as fast as kudzu.
Then there is a lot of other overgrown bushes , Brie comes wih Zack and his nephew now strapping young lads.
It will be in the 90's again for they better drink a lot and stay cool as they can.

I will enjoy the end products and if things are short and cleaned up I can manage them better myself. Last year I was out of commission for broken ankle and this year the broken back....I still have to watch it all....yikes...getting old is not for sissies ...that is what they say...but then who is getting old.?

the week that was.........

2011-07-29T07:58:00.000-07:00

Friday and end of the month.
The government is in shambles....leave it to the Republicans.........
still no vote at this late moment.....
social security checks may be late....
can we tell the electricity company that they have to wait too???

Some odd circumstances brought me to the attention of the passing of a man
who once was my husband for 17 years and fathered my gorgeous women/daughters.
I have to thank him for the help in that case.

He was 82 and his wife 59. I do hope that she had a great time with him and that he stopped his chasing and infidelity.

I had not given the man much thought during my last 4 decades.
I was just so darn happy with Bob who was such gentle, loving man.
Our son reminds me so much of him as he has the same basic ideals of honesty and decency.

My girls grew up in an art world, visits to Museums, opera's ,travels and living in a Spain for 5 years. It was a great life with feast or famine but I always managed to get us fed as my contour will attest. A true artist is a very different persona then the rest of us , Bob was that, he loved old ladies with wrinkles so he could paint them, he loved flowers and trees for watercolors and still lifes.
With him I learned to pay attention to colors, nature , forms, and what beauty is.

So back to husband numero uno , does a long term relationship when you are young, foolish and trusting also make you a widow again? In that case I must be a black widow (just kidding here) 2 husbands in one year? Gone!

Truly I am just joking here, Joe (numero uno) was no longer a part of my daily thoughts, unfortunately, he came back in my dreams after Bob died. Go figure!
Night after night he was there, young, (I never saw him old) full of beans as he was a joker and he was cheating on me and I would cry buckets. Night after night.
I would get up so angry and it would take me a few minutes to get back to the reality of my daily life.

In my case I would tell anyone who cheats on their relationship, women or men, that they probably have no idea what trauma this causes to a person who was trusting.
Trust does not come back with ease, took me years to trust Bob.
The pain is with you for a very long time and actually for me it must be somewhere in my mind to return in my dreams after 4 decades +.

Joe I read in his obit was in Belgium on a visit and died from a stroke....
it was on June 8th 2011....on that day my husband Bob would have been 85 if he was still with us.....

Weird!

of great interest:

2011-07-24T08:19:00.001-07:00

check out this link and learn something about agoraphobia:

http://alifeinpanic.wordpress.com/

I do not like surprises

2011-07-21T08:57:00.000-07:00

I am set in my ways....you kidding me? I am so damn set and stubborn.

So I sort of lost it this past week end.
In retrospect it is silly, stupid, and too much about "me".

Son and I are very quiet.
He does his thing in his room or the living room and I do my thing in
kitchen and office.
We cross now and then in between rooms, sometimes we hug, sometimes
we ignore each other like we are ghost living in one place but do not need
to communicate. We are fine , we have space.
What does invade our space are the 3 dogs and sometimes the cat too.
They follow one of us when we move, does not matter where we go, they have to know if this is going to involve food or a special treat.

So a shock came early in the week with son telling me that he was
starting a long distance relationship. I knew he was writing to people on the internet, just like I do, it is his and my connection to the outer world as we are both stuck for one reason or another. I do not drive, it is hot to walk downtown, or I had doctors orders not to, and he has agoraphobia...had it for years.

So when the announcement came that he was starting a relationship I was in
seventh heaven. I knew he was lonely, I know that having a 79 year old around is not exactly a "young thinking" person. He needs young people.

So he explained that the young lady, and he had been writing for a long time, he said 2 years, she said 1 year...pick whatever,
she is 35 and divorced and has a boy age 5, Bob adores small kids.
So it all sounded very good.

Two days later he announces that the girl will come and visit ...when? said I with apprehension. He answered this week end, like in 2 days.

My head started to spin. I shop once a week and have everything sort of in orders for just Bob and I and not much extra as nobody comes here to worry about.
The available food was at minimum..ok I knew I had frozen chicken, that is good,
and I have russet potatoes....the menu started to shape up....ok ok I can do that.
I would have liked advance notice to go shopping but that was not in the cards.

What all followed during the visit is a bit much to rehash but I felt like the
aliens had invaded and I already had Bob married in 3 months and gone to another state. Could I live alone? Absolutely! Did I know it then??Absolutely NOT.
I was frantic and out of sorts , grouchy,
I asked the young lady out to lunch, she politely refused as she wanted to be with Bob....of course she did that is why she came here.....but that too bothered me...
I bothered a few of my friends with my lament.
I was very selfish in my thinking.....my son needs to get healed...this may force the issue...he needs to be happy....maybe this is in the cards for him...
I behaved badly and I regret that I am re-acting out of fear ....
I am somewhat ashamed of myself...

Urologist is happy,mommy is happy

2011-07-20T07:51:00.000-07:00

pain in my back he thinks is muscular, the test came out clear, got hell from Brie because I do not drink enough water to make the left over kidney work.

I have had a rough week with ridiculous emotions but I am getting over it.
Sabrina always sets me straight.

Soon all the tests which I hate, did you try to drink all that stuff before a colonoscopy? I asked my urologist. He shook his head and said it is ridiculous and he could hardly swallow it.....I was throwing it up by the third bottle...hate it...just hate it.

Fun day in Asheville today

2011-07-19T06:24:00.000-07:00

I love to go to Asheville but most of my visits there lately have been to see doctors.
Got to see my urologist for check up, not very happy about that since I have been having pain in my back. Do not want the other kidney to start any trouble.
The trophy I get afterwards is a nice lunch at the Bistro on the castle grounds.
We have a year pass, Brie and I, and we treat ourselves to a nice lunch at the Bistro.
Usually just a cheese plate and fantastic bread.
The best of cheeses which melt in your mouth like butter.
Then we go to the garden shop and see if anything is affordable and needed...cross out needed....what do we need but bread butter and wine...cross out wine...the psoriasis does not like it...bread butter and a good cup of java.
Then we meander into Michaels ...maybe...but most of all the huge Habitat thrift store...they do have so me neat things at times and it is a very clean store, no clothing but furniture, art work , and do dads.
Then we stop somewhere for an ice cream in the afternoon, get groceries and call it a day. For me that is heaven! Thanks to Brie I get this treat!
Also Rhonda gave us the pass to get into Biltmore.

surprises come in all different sizes

2011-07-18T08:06:00.000-07:00

and packages.
So surprise, surprise,
Bobby has a girlfriend.
Started via the internet and they met for the first time
this past week end.

My son deserves to be happy, no question about that.
He said to me the exact words his father said:
I am getting lonely.

Old Bob was 42 and a bachelor and decided he was lonely
and found me in a fleamarket of all places, best bargain
we both had.

Viva le 14 Juillet

2011-07-14T07:46:00.000-07:00

French are celebrating today and soon the festival in Ghent will start for 8 days and I wonder if I could still handle the crowds.
Last time we went during the festivities was with the grandsons and we rented an apartment right on the main street of noise.
I loved it.
A piano player was busy till 4 am right across the street. I sat at the window
watching all the young people run around.
Elvire and Leonard where still alive.
Come to think of it we went another time much later just Bob and I , it was still fun then. Then both of our friends had gone and we became friends with the nephew and his wife, we still are friends with them!!!!
Great old times.
Well, frenchies have fun today!

the hosta corner

2011-07-14T07:41:00.003-07:00

I had this vision of having tons of different types of hostas all in one area in back yard.
The dirt there is so hard to manage because of the tree roots in place so I decided to put them all in pots and then make a little red brick road aro9und them.
In my head it looks great.
Started it this morning while it was only in the seventies but moving all the pots I planted was no small task, dr Bones would be upset.
I did it, Bob has major issues with allergies is on second set of antibiotics so I dd not want him outside.
I am not happy with the look but have not gotten to the bricks yet so many that will change.

visitor on Saturday

2011-07-14T07:34:00.000-07:00

Bob has a friend coming to visit on Saturday.
That does not seem so unusual to most people.
For Bob it is, 4 plus years with agoraphobia does not give you
much of a social life.
I am delighted for him that he can talk to someone closer to his age
than Mom's.