So I had been feeling “not good” for a couple of weeks.  Didn’t want to make a big deal out of it mostly because it might start to appear to others that I’m turning into a drama queen hypochondriac.  Just having gotten over the broken foot and two UTIs (TMI) over the past couple of months and never-ending dental work, I’d just about OD’d on anything ever remotely associated with hospitals, doctors, dentists, drugs, ANYTHING health-related.  I’m not going to go into my symptoms b/c so many of them are “female” things and who in the hell wants to hear about that crap?  Not even me.

So Friday aftenoon when I felt an excrutiating band of pain around my midsection, I started thinking that maybe I was going to die I should take how I was feeling a bit more seriously.  Up until that point I was able to attribute all my uncomfortableness to the sorts of things “women my age” experience with the big M. (Menopause)

About an hour later the pain was gone but I was still on alert, lest it return.

Saturday afternoon PD and I spent hours and hours searching umpteen stores for the perfect window coverings for the windows in our new closed-in front porch.  I wasn’t feeling great and couldn’t wait to get home and relax.

By 7pm I could hear the Emergency Room calling my name and explained to PD that a trip was in order.

By the time the triage nurse called  me to get my information I couldn’t even sit down.  I found myself pacing in little circles trying to find a comfort zone.  There was none.  I was fighting tears by that point and getting scared, wondering what was wrong with me.

A CT scan and a urinalysis resulted in the report that I was in the process of passing a 5mm kidney stone, which then resulted in an IV full of anti-nausea drugs, Toradol and Dilaudid.  I actually turned down the Dilaudid at first and PD talked me into having it before we left.

A little after 10pm I was released and PD went to retrieve the car.  It was then that I found myself sitting on the curb outside the ER enjoying the hell out of the fireworks across the way.  You ain’t never seen fireworks until you watch them in a Dilaudid-induced stupor.  I wish you could have seen PD insisting that I “Stay put!” as he walked toward the parking garage.  I wonder where he thought I was going to wander off to.  The sidewalk wouldn’t even stay in one place.

Thrilled to be pain-free, I thoroughly enjoyed about half of the ride home.  It was a beautiful night, the car windows open, good music, pretty lights.   I could probly tell you the exact second the anti-nausea wore off and how grateful I was for the pretty cornflower blue barf bag they’d given me.  I only had to use it twice.

So today I felt pretty good for most of the day.  The past couple of hours, not so good.   Time will tell.  PD is BBQ-ing pork that’s been marinating in JD BBQ sauce and baking potatoes for what promises to be a yummy dinner.  I’m crossing my fingers and hoping I’ll be able to enjoy it.

Was performing my semi-monthly YouTube surfing marathon and came across this band.  Razorlight.  They are entirely awesome.  I favorited a whole slew of their videos and will be adding some songs to my iTunes as soon as I get my $50 iTunes gift card that I paid $25 for on eBay.  I know!

Here’s my favorite song of theirs so far… It’s called Somewhere Else.

Sorry YouTube doesn’t feel like sending video to me tonight. You’ll have to copy and paste this link into your browser:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mEHAzzydF0

Somewhere Else by Razorlight

Or you can try clicking on that.  (I’ll be darned, that works!)

If you like that, check this out too:

Wire To Wire by Razorlight

My gut feeling is that now I’ll see and hear this band all over the place.  That always happens to me.   I hope I’m right about this.  Considering all the big names they’ve been associated with and so many great things they’ve done, I can’t believe I’ve never come across them before.

Are any of you familiar with the band and if so, what songs do you like?

Was cleaning out my mail when I came across a stray comment from a reader which led me to this post.  I read it and kind of liked it and decided to repost it.

****************************************************************

Saturday, January 07, 2006 (Repost)

SOMETHING IS ME

I may or may not have alluded to the fact that I am turning 50 in a few months. Chances are I have mentioned it, it’s not something anyone - especially

if it is Me- can just disregard. It’s kind of like having the Hindenberg hanging over your head. You can’t just pretend it’s not there. I don’t think any of my Readers are anywhere near even conceiving of the idea what it might feel like to be looking down the barrel of a big Five-Oh.  It actually is the number that is bothering me more than the physical state of being alive for fifty years.  And the first one of you who says “That’s half of a century” is going straight to hell, no questions, so shut your unlined little mouth.

There’s no way I’m this old. Sure, my body and my face may look it but my mind has never matured past late puberty. It’s really funny though, I often feel like I’ve already started the “full circle” thing you’ve heard old people refer to.  I often catch myself talking and acting like a fourteen-year-old. I drive worse (read:  faster) than I did at sixteen. And I certainly play music as loud as, if not louder than I did then. My music collection rivals surpasses the one I owned then. I wore bell-bottom jeans at 13.  I’m wearing them again except they’re called “flares” now.  Now they’re called low-rise, then they were hip huggers. I have shoes in my closet that aren’t any more sensible than the ones I wore in high school. Some are just as dangerous. I pay about the same amount of attention to the rules as I did then too. Now though, it’s not as much about rebellion as it is experience. The similarity though,  is that I thought the rules were dumb then and I think they’re dumb now. I didn’t give myself credit for being ahead of my time.

My face still breaks out, I still get cramps.  I still hate shaving.  I still run up and down the steps.  I still spend my extra cash on music and books and make-up. Some things never change. Some do.  I no longer drop what I’m doing and run to answer the phone.  I don’t usually blush when I’m talking to guys. If I’m home on a Saturday night, it’s by choice.  I don’t write in my diary and lock it up and bury it under my mattress.  Now I put it on the Internet for the whole freakin’ world to see.  Go figure.

There are good things about being my age. Very good things. It’s only been very recently that I’ve become aware of many of them. I believe around this age you develop a kind of uber-awareness of yourself and how you relate to the immediate world around you. I’m just speaking for me, but I hope it’s a universal woman-thing because it’s really cool. If you’re my age and reading this and aren’t identifying, maybe there is something wrong with you .

I’m positive that my hormones are behind whatever this transformation is. And they bloody-well owe me something after the hell and havoc they have been wreaking on me for the last few years. Like to make you think you’re a lunatic. The sooner you can part with the damn things I think the better off you are. They’re complicated little bastards that just lurk in your insides and play games. Back to what I started to say…

The good things… I am feeling more comfortable with me. As an adult, I never thought that I wasn’t but I am aware of “fitting into me” better. I accept my faults for what they are and they no longer feel like things that need fixed. They’re just there and part of me.  My limitations, I can accept.  I no longer feel the need to overcome, to find ways to compensate. They are now just things I can’t do.  So what.  I never really needed to do a cartwheel. I am not as compelled to please people who have no special significance in my life. I appreciate the people who are special to me more than I ever did.  I have become more stingy with my time and fill it more with things I enjoy. I am more relaxed. I’m learning exactly what I can change about my life and what I can’t. A lot of things just aren’t important and it’s not so hard to differentiate between what is and what isn’t. I used to worry what other people thought about me. I still care but I don’t worry. Some days I care more, some days I say “what the hell”. It’s good to have choices. Very soon I want to start a good exercise program. Of all the things I’m giving up worrying about, the way I look is not going to be one of them. And I’d like to be around when I’m sixty. That should be a lot of fun. By then I won’t give a rat’s ass about any thing at all!

***************************************************************
Back to the Present… Let me wish you all a very Happy Fourth of July

And may it be safe as well.

Several times lately I’ve sat down here to write and realized that things I wanted to say needed to be explained and didn’t have the time or energy to get into the whole whatever so I just didn’t write.  And Lord knows I don’t need one more reason to add to the list as long as my arm that’s keeping me from writing here.  So if you can find it in your heart to bear with me and muddle through a bunch of uninteresting but necessary (to me) details so that I can maneuver around this bump and move on, I’ll love you forever.

So I saw the foot doctor on Thursday.  He’s more or less satisfied with how my foot has healed (nearly 100%) but concerned about the pain I’ve had elsewhere in my foot since the boot came off.  So he wrote me a script for an anti-inflammatory and ambushed me with a hypo gave me a big-ass shot of cortisone in that little hollow spot in front of my outside ankle bone.  Crikey, that “pinched.”  Kind of like the same way a guillotine pinches your neck.  Incidentally, I lost the bandaid somewhere in my bed between that night and this morning when I woke up and found it pasted to my right ass cheek.  WTF. He told me to keep doing what I’m doing, stop when it hurts and come back on July 30.

Yesterday I decided I was totally fed up with sitting around and cleaned my whole house and did laundry and brought the rest of my summer clothes out of the attic.  PD and I decided we felt like entertaining so we invited some friends over to sample his recent acquirance of bison meat and I spent a couple of hours making supplementary food and getting the back yard ready for guests.  In other words, I totally abused my foot.  And it felt good. (The abusing of, not the foot, per se.)

Work is still the same, basically but with a few thousand twists.  No need to elaborate, so I won’t. *Yawn*  HR is being a pain in the ass, starting to pressure me about not working the over time.  They can’t quite seem to understand the complicated medical term “until further notice.”  Duh already.

In case you’re wondering, I still can’t get below 10 cigarettes per day and no, my weight has not changed despite the massive amounts of food I ingest on a daily basis.  Is there such a thing as a tapeworm with a nicotine addiction?  Surely there must be.  I must confess though, that several times on recent weekends, due to the frequency of friends dropping over to enjoy a fire and a few beers, I’ve gone over my daily limit.  I know.  You can’t say anything I haven’t thought or heard already.  But thanks.

So now we’re up to par on the foot/work/cig/weight fronts.  Now I can move on to other things.

Oh wait!  The old guy?  The Friday before Father’s Day, I spotted him (standing this time) on his porch.  Still with that faraway stare out into space, hands folded on the crook of a cane.  A car was parked in front of his house this time and a younger man was leaning into the back seat.  Led me to wonder if he’d had a visitor and who and why and a zillion other things for the rest of my drive home.

And YES I’m loving being able to drive again!  JOY JOY JOY

This is mostly for me. But if you’re interested, this is what I’ve been listening to lately. I must say it’s a mess of some really kickass music.  Put this up in a rush at like 2am so sorry if the links are messed up.

*****************************************
Flowers for a Ghost ~ Thriving Ivory

Satellite Skin ~ Modest Mouse

Creeping Out Sara ~ NOFX

Take Me Home ~ After Midnight Project

Stay Over ~ The Rescues

That’s Not My Name ~ The Ting Tings

Fifty On Our Foreheads ~ White Lies

Backwards Walk ~ Frightened Rabbit

Thy Will Be Done ~ Handsome Furs

Cannot Get Started ~ Handsome Furs

Plea for a Cat Named Virtue ~ The Weakerthans

Daniel ~ Bat for Lashes

The Game ~ Echo and the Bunnymen

Out That Door ~ Hoodoo Gurus

Tojo ~ Hoodoo Gurus

You Don’t Know Me ~ Ben Folds/ Regina Spektor

I Don’t Know ~ Lisa Hannigan

Airstream Driver ~ Gomez

Boy ~ Book of Love

Gotta Have You ~ The Weepies

Geraldine ~ Glasvegas

I laughed, and if TC finds the time to come around he will too.  As for the rest of you,  you might want to pass on this one.

I’m feeling especially grateful today and wanted to share my feelings.

Having spent last (but not this past)  weekend with my family made me realize how very, very lucky I am to have a loving, attentive daughter who’s an absolutely terrific mother to my three precious grandkids and a wonderful wife to my amazing son-in-law.  I am blessed to have a husband who appreciates our family as much as I do and who doesn’t think twice about stepping up to help out when I can’t be at 100%.

I’m grateful to have a mother who gives up her time to spend with us and enjoys watching her great-grandchildren grow and thrive.  It made me feel good to have her tell me what great parents the JuJu’s are and what a joy and how well-behaved the little ones are.

I’m thankful to have such terrific neighbors who are not only great friends but willing to help when needed, not only if asked but often before they’re even asked.  They are comfortable with us when we spend time together having fun and still respect our need for time alone.  We share our problems and joys alike.

This whole broken foot-thing has been stressful and trying at times but it’s been one of those experiences that illustrate loud and clear who your friends are.  While it’s been very small on the scale of bad things that can happen to a person, it still served as a reminder to me that you shouldn’t take things like body parts and friends for granted.

I’m especially grateful to PD who’s managed not only to pick up my tremendous slack around the house these past weeks but was able to drive me to and from work.  There were only a couple of incidents involving his Meniere’s that made it difficult and I thank God for that.  And who but someone who loved me more than I deserve would haul his butt out of bed at an ungodly hour every morning after having watched so many hockey games after I’d gone to bed?

Now that I’ve been able to retire the boot (as of Thursday past) I’m going to try to keep my pace slow and smell the proverbial flowers.  My ankle is weak from un-use and my going is still a bit pokey (it’s actually more painful than the break was on the side of my foot, believe it or not) but I’m exercising it every day and planning to run a marathon hopefully soon I’ll start feeling normal again.  I’m keeping my driving to a minimum.  No, the old guy was not sitting on his porch today.  And no, I haven’t gotten a speeding ticket yet.

Today coming home from work, I noticed a very old man sitting on his front porch.  He was withered and pale and looked a little shell-shocked and as I turned to look at him something moved inside me.  I admired what it may have taken for him to be there.  All the events of his day leading up to that moment in time… Who washed the clothes he was wearing and prepared his lunch?  Was it difficult for him to get out of his bed this morning?  Had he watched the news and what did it stir inside him?  What did he think about the cars whizzing past his house driven by much younger people in a hurry to get to the gym or the grocery store… What kind of life had he led?  Did he have family and friends to love and be loved by?  Maybe an old dog asleep beside him on the porch…  Had someone called him today to make sure he was doing ok…  Had he fought in a war or been injured or lost friends or won medals?  Had he ever been in love?  What was his favorite TV show?  Did he play hooky from school ever?

Was he happy or ravaged with regrets?  I could not tell from his expression.  He was just there.  His gaze revealed nothing to me at all. His posture could have been effortless or painful. I could not tell.  His elbows rested on the arms of his chair and his hands were folded on his lap.  For all I know he could have been sitting there, expecting someone like me to notice him and his sole purpose was to give no indication of his condition.  Maybe that’s how he gets his kicks.  Or maybe he was defying me.  I’ll never know.  Or that crazy part of me could become obsessed to the point of marching up to his door and demanding to know his name and life story.  Not likely.

Now, after having tossing these thoughts around in my head, I can’t help but feel a deep respect for this man.  Simply because he was there.  And what he’s endured.  Some might think, yes, but maybe he was a bad man.  Maybe he was the meanest s.o.b. on the block.  If that were the case, I would curse the events in his life that caused it.  No one is born bad or mean.  We have choices, yes, but who’s to say…

I will look at that house every day now for a couple of weeks to see if he’s sitting there.  If he is, I will give him a name.  I will start to notice if he’s wearing the same clothes, if he’s sitting in the same chair.  I will be concerned if he’s not there.  I will catch myself after a time and realize that I’d forgotten to look for him for several days.  Before much more time passes I will forget about him.  Maybe years from now something will trigger the memory of the image of him as I saw him today.

One day I could become him,  sitting alone on my little porch watching the world go by… a prisoner of my thoughts in a fragile and aged body.  Will anyone notice?

PD and I had a lovely weekend with my daughter JuJu and her terrific family.  We celebrated Juju’s birthday, my granddaughter’s birthday, Easter and Mother’s Day.  A lot to cram into less than 48 hours.  Saturday night we had a fire and ate popcorn and had “beverages.”  That didn’t last too long, as the little ones pooped out early and it actually got quite chilly rather quickly.  We also started to watch Bedtime Stories and laughed a lot but we quit for some reason and never got back to it.  Mostly we played and talked and ate.  But it was good, however short.  Seems that with all of our work schedules and my limited absence of driving skills, it gets harder and harder to get together.  And that makes me very sad.  Really makes hitting the lottery and buying a helicopter look appealing.

So my house is quiet now, but still relatively clean.  It was a bit of a wreck before the weekend.  PD isn’t quite finished with the front porch closing-in.  The outside wall in the living room looks like we took a wrecking ball to it but the new window is in and when the dry wall gets put up and the painting gets done, all will be good.  The new window looks out on to the new room window so we still have a wonderful view of the field across the road and the hills and trees beyond that.  I can still watch the sunrise and the colors of the seasons change in the trees.

Well, this is short and I’m tired.  Plus, I hear the music of the Good Humor truck outside.  I need to run.

Sheesh, I haven’t posted for a week.  Two reasons for that, actually…  One, I been busy.  Two, I’m irritated that only three people watched the vid I posted last week.  I feel kinda bad, b/c one person reported in real life that it ruined the song for him forevermore.  Didn’t mean to do that…

Great news on the homefront; the JuJu Clan is coming for a weekend visit.  I can’t wait.  Now I gotta run and get this workday out of the way.

Total Eclipse of the Heart: Literal Video Version

Put this on full screen mode for full effect.  I laughed my butt off.

(Thanks PB, that was the best chocolate chip cookie I ever ate…)

So I had my follow-up visit with Jeff the Cute Podiatrist this evening.

He took two more x-rays and the fracture is very nearly healed and he was happy with my progress. You can barely see the crack at all.  He said that I was fortunate that it was a nice clean break in “a good place” if there is such a thing.  He said it’s a large, hollow bone that, if kept stable, can heal very nicely.  And mine appears to be doing just that.  We discussed the possiblility of physical therapy and he didn’t see a need for it.  He thinks that I was walking nicely on it without the boot (from the exam room to the X-ray room.)  He said if I were older and wasn’t healing as well, he would recommend it but in my case, didn’t think it’s necessary.  That’s fine with me.  I’m tired missing out on things, extra hours out of my day sitting inside with professional people telling me to do shit isn’t something I would be happy about.

I need to wear my boot for two more weeks.  Then if I’m comfortable, I can switch to a good tennis shoe or go back to wearing my hard-soled shoe for another week and then the tennis shoe.  No driving while I’m still in the boot.   But no 10-hour days at work at least until I go back and see him on June 25.

I’m pretty happy with this.  Especially walking crutchless and no OT.  Poor PD though, still playing chauffeur.  And it breaks my heart that it’s going to be that much longer before I can plan a trip to NY to see the JuJu’s.  But as long as I keep healing the way I am, I can stop worrying about the possibility of surgery and a real cast and crutches and all that crap.  It was nagging at me in the back of my mind.  So I’m relieved in that respect.

Thanks for the prayers and putting up with my whining.

There’s another storm coming through and I think I’ll get off here now.

Finding myself with some wonderful free time this morning, I decided a pedicure might be in order.  I’m seeing the doctor about my foot later in the week and would like to have presentable toes this time.  If you recall, last time I only had polish on one foot.  Yeah, classy, huh.  Anyway, I happened to notice on my bottle of nail polish remover, a little red logo proclaiming “Contains Bitrex” and underneath it says “Ingestion Deterrent.”  Well, I’m thinking a coupla’ things, not the least of which is why in the HELL would you need to ADD anything to a bottle of acetone-based  pungent chemicals that are strong enough to dissolve hardened lacquer to keep someone from drinking the stuff??? And the other thing I’m  thinking is how damn bad must Bitrex taste to make nail polish remover taste even WORSE???

I’ll let you ponder that for a moment while I’m enjoying listening to PD bust a gut, laughing at a bird…

Last night after the Penguins game, (which I kind of watched actually even- mostly because I didn’t want to feel left out and because my beloved neighbor, Crazy Harold went to all the trouble to carry his TV out onto his patio because it was a beautiful evening and all the neighbors were all hyped up for the game.) we had a fire and cooked out and sat around and laughed until the wee hours of the morning.  When we do this, more often than not, the embers from the fire are still quite hot the following morning, which would be today.  Just now, as PD and I were enjoying our coffees on the porch and I was over at Mark’s reading and commenting, PD started howling and sputtering coffee all over creation.  When he calmed down enough to speak intelligibly, he said that a bird had evidently had his eye on a tasty-looking morsel and had lit on the white ash pile, only to immediately do a sprawling back flip, not once but twice, and high-tail it out of there in a major rush. (Okay, those were my words, not his, but that’s what he meant to say…) It must have looked like a scene out of a cartoon, only the bird wasn’t screaming and his eyes weren’t bugging out amidst a cloud of feathers and smoke.  But it was worth a good laugh, mostly for PD but his laugh was contagious so I got a good second-hand laugh myself.

I’m sure it was funnier yet to him in light of the fact that he was totally irritated on a quiet Sunday morning, (earlier today) having to dismantle our downspouting on the back corner of the house to free a trapped starling that’s been terrorizing him all week.  (You remember awhile back when PD had that vendetta against the squirrel who took up residence in the walls of our house?  For weeks he was a madman, hellbent and bleary-eyed on capturing that varmint who woke him up all hours of the night, scratching and scrambling and gawd-knows-what-else inside the bedroom wall, a few feet from PD’s sleeping head. I still have images of him, in true Elmer Fudd-form, crouched with a BB gun, waiting for the squirrel to emerge from his mystery entrance/exit in and out of our attic…) The damn starlings had built a nest in the eaves above the bedroom window and once again, PD has had to endure chirping and rustling noises interrupting his slumber.  I’m sure it seems to him that the forces of nature are (once again) conspiring against him and his need for shut-eye.  Last night when we discovered the bird in the spouting, he hauled out the garden hose and was trying to drown flush out the bird by aiming the hose at the top of the gutter, hoping it would encourage the bird to I-don’t-know-what, I was kind of busy trying to enjoy myself.

I’m not sure if I’ve completed the story or not, this post has gotten ahead of me.  Let me know if I’ve left out any important details needed to make this all make sense.

May you all have a safe and enjoyable Memorial Day weekend and be sure to take some time to remember all those who have given the ultimate gift so that you and I can enjoy our freedom.

(Note: Certain aspects of this post have been “embellished” for effect.  My husband is neither psychotic nor homicidal.  Nor does he wish to have animal/fowl activists protesting and camped out on our front lawn.)

You know how sometimes you just come across something and it triggers a memory and you laugh and think, holy cow this would be a hoot to put on the old blog?

No?

Well, I did and it did and I am and it is.  For me and I hope you too.

Once upon a time, long, long ago and far away, my bff Kate and I attended a concert.  On the bill were Johnny Lee, Mickey Gilley and the Urban Cowboy Band.  The concert doesn’t stick in my mind as much as the After-Concert shenanigans.  Oh, and when Kate and I got together in our younger days, there were always shenanigans.  You have no idea…

Anyway, I don’t recall the exact circumstances, but bff Kate and I found ourselves invited to join the party on Mickey’s tour bus.  Mickey didn’t invite us but at least one member of the Urban Cowboy Band did.  And that would have been Dwight, the bass player.  Yeah, I’ve always had a soft spot for bass players.  I got a cheek kiss and an autograph before being invited to the party.

(I need to say, that just now, searching all the links I found for the Urban Cowboy band, I have yet to find a bass player named Dwight.  So he either had a short stint with the band or there’s just no record of him. At any rate, I still have the autograph… so I don’t think I dreamt it.)

So, not long at all after stepping up into the bus we noticed that the entertainment had already commenced in the form of a video playing on a screen above the dashboard that I seem to recall as a popular one at the time entitled “Debbie Does Some City that starts with D.”  Rather than flee, we talked the party people into replacing that tape with [what the heck is the name of the movie with Bill Murray and the gopher???] Anyway, that one.  Not Groundhog day, the other one. I always get them mixed up.  Ah, Caddy Shack! Somehow that seemed to add a little more (haha) class to the whole adventure.

So we hung out there for awhile, had a beer (I still have that Schlitz can somewhere) and I don’t remember much else except that Mickey came out from a room in the back for some reason and all I could see was a huge flash when the light reflected on his diamond pinky ring.  I also remember that Johnny was nowhere to be found.  Rumors at the time had circulated that he and Charlene Tilton (of Dallas fame) were on the skids and he wasn’t in much of a party mood.

So there you have it, a little trip down One Wink’s memory lane…

… this awesome band is getting the recognition they deserve.  Not that Leno is the be-all and end-all of arenas for bands to get noticed, but…  it’s a decent place to get seen.  Months ago, the Kings played on SNL  and still weren’t seen by many people I know.  Maybe now.

This song is a good one, but far from my favorite Top Five.  You should check them out if you haven’t already.

I was pretty happy for them yesterday when they announced One Million followers on Facebook.

Kings of Leon – “Use Somebody” on Leno 5/15/09 (TheAudioPerv.com)

The Airborne Toxic Event has released a new version of their Sometime Around Midnight video.  I can’t believe it’s been out there for over a month and I just happened to find it.  Why didn’t they call and tell me when it came out?

Sometime Around Midnight (Video) – The Airborne Toxic Event

People keep asking me how my foot is coming along.  I don’t know what to tell them without going into the whole big long story.  Which is this:

The x-rays show that I broke my foot.  It hurt initially but about the time I left the ER, the pain went away.  It didn’t swell and never bruised until day 3.  Three days later the bruise was gone.  I tried using the crutches for 2 days but my left wrist hurt so bad I gave up on that crutch.  I wore the Ace bandage and the hard-soled shoe they gave me at the hospital.  A couple weeks later I went to the podiatrist and he took more x-rays and fitted me with an elastic sleeve for my foot and a boot to stabilize it.  He said to continue to use the Ace bandage and crutches.  Ice, if I feel it to be necessary.  Come back on the 28th.  The elastic sleeve cuts off the circulation in my ankle and hurts.  I use the bandage and the boot and the crutch and try to stay off it as much as possible. I cannot measure pain I do not have and I do not have x-ray vision.  I am not a physician.

So people ask me how it’s coming along, if it still hurts, how long do I have to wear that thing, etc., etc.  I know they mean well but I got tired repeating the story.  Now I just say “I don’t know, I go back to the dr. on the 28th” which is all I know and the absolute truth.  They screw up their faces and look at me as if I’m trying to keep something from them.  And a lot of times it’s the same people asking me daily.  Isn’t there some kind of etiquette for dealing with people with disabilities such as a broken foot?  When I encounter someone with something wrong, I say “How you doin’?” to show I care.  If it seems they want to offer more information, fine.  Unless, you know, it’s one of those people who thrive on the attention and give you way more information that you wanted.

Just sayin’… next time you encounter someone on crutches, I promise you, they have already heard all the silly jokes AND don’t need to be reminded that they will have one big old muscular thigh when it’s all over and done with.  And it would be much more appreciated if you would just maybe smile.

Oh yeah, and if you decide to yank the door open for someone on crutches,  first make sure they’re not leaning on it for balance.

((I realize this makes me sound like a bitch. This was just a rant to let off some steam and frustration.  Mostly people are great and helpful and truly do care how I’m doing.  And I’m not ungrateful for that. Don’t take me too seriously.))

This little guy has taken up residence under our back porch.  Twice now I’ve attempted to photograph him nibbling on the blossoms on my Bleeding Heart bush.  Both times he’s gotten spooked and took refuge under the porch.  I’ll keep trying because it’s so cute… the way he sits up on his hind feet and latches on to a blossom and yanks his head back and forth until he pulls it free from the bush.  I hope it’s ok for him to eat them.

This morning I woke up to Mr. Moon blatantly glaring through the window into my bedroom.  It was so bright, at first I thought it was the sun and I’d overslept.  Was kinda nice waking up bathed in moonlight like that.

It’s a beautiful day here.  A little cool but the sun is shining bright and the sky is blue dotted with fluffy white clouds.

I hung a couple of crystals on a plant hanger on my back porch.  This time of day the sun is behind the house and shines on the crystals.  Sometimes they shine through the windows and there are miniature rainbows dancing on my dining room walls.  It’s so cool, I wish you could see it.  Oh wait, you can.  One of them, anyway.  It’s the only one I could catch that wasn’t moving.  The picture doesn’t do the colors justice, they are very vivid and bright.  So use your imagination.

Since I’m finding myself with more free time due to the inability to do much more than SIT, I actually could be posting more… if not daily, almost daily. But the thing is that my brain must have been in my ankle and now that it’s broken, I can’t think so well.  Besides, it’s buried underneath all that elastic and hardware.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m not getting inspired to write much.  So I’m appealing to you.  What would you like to hear or read or know?  Tell me and if something clicks in my foot head, I’ll do my best to accomodate.

I’m not even coming up with any suggestions.  Everything I think of, I already wrote about.  I guess that happens when you’ve been blogging for as long as I have.

˙sǝıʇıןıqɐ ʎɯ uı ǝɔuǝpıɟuoɔ ɹnoʎ ɯǝǝpǝɹ oʇ ɥɔıɥʍ uı ʎɐʍ ןןɐɯs ɐ ǝq ʇɥƃıɯ sıɥʇ ʇɥƃnoɥʇ ı ’sǝnssı qǝʍ snoɹǝɯnu ʎq pǝƃuǝןןɐɥɔ uǝʇɟo os ɯɐ ı ǝɔuıs

I figured that since I had to actually type in my blog log-in info that I was overdue for a posting.

My life is still crap only worse.  Honestly not sure if I blogged about my visit to the podiatrist but since I still have pent up anxiety over the whole deal, chances are, I didn’t vent on you guys.  I don’t think anxiety is exactly the right word but we’re going to go with that until I come up with the right one.

So last Thursday I went to see my PCP.  The cute one who lets me swear and pretty much do whatever I want in the office.  I was missing him (being that I hadn’t seen him in awhile) but mostly I wanted to find out how my foot looked to a trained person and when the hell I could drive.

I was sitting waiting for him on one of those awful hard bed things covered in paper with NO pillow.  I was the last appointment of the day and had put in ten hours work already. I was tired and hungry and across the room there were a couple comfortable-looking chairs.  I hobbled over and parked myself there and grabbed his stool-on-wheels and propped up my foot and was nearly asleep when he came in.  I always forget how good-looking he is.  I’m not sure if that’s what made me jump to attention or the fact that I was nearing REM, but either way it made him turn around and he still had a funny look on his face like he was trying to figure out where his patient was.

We talked and he looked at my foot and by that time I was falling asleep again and so was he.  He said my foot seemed good but he was concerned about keeping it that way and was very polite about not chewing me out for having walked on it sans crutches for over a week.  He knew I didn’t want to go the whole orthopedic route and had a podiatrist buddy and would I at least indulge him and if so, he would set up the appointment at my convenience.  Gotta love that guy.  It was almost funny how many times he sent the receptionist out to get it set up (three or four anyway.)

Long story short.  The next afternoon I saw “Call me Jeff,” the podiatrist guy who was nearly as handsome as his friend, my PCP.  (What is it with these guys, do they have a club or something?  Not to make them sound any less skilled as medical professionals, but he swears too.)  More x-rays, yes it’s a navicular fracture.*  He gives me this excrutiatingly snug elastic sleeve that fits from my toes to well above my ankle and this gawd-awful black boot adorned with hardware and velcro and spongy insulation and mylar balloons and even a plug thing for inflating.  Criminy.  It goes clear up to my knee and PD said it must weigh about 4 pounds. Oh yeah, and strict orders to use the crutches.

Thought you might enjoy this snippet of conversation between Jeff and his receptionist as I was setting up my follow-up appointment.

Nancy (speaking loudly to Jeff who was in the adjoining room):  “When would you like to see Linda again?”

Jeff: What’s my schedule look like the week of the 18th?

Nancy:  No go, you’ll be in Mexico.

Jeff:  Mexico??? For what?

Nancy: That wedding.

Jeff:  Wedding?  That’s not Mexico, it’s New Mexico.

Nancy (still studying calendar, slightly irritated by now):  Same thing… Linda can you be here the 28th at 5:45?

So there’s how that went.  Only good thing is that Jeff wanted me to take some time off and when I explained the work situation and the OT, he said “Uh. No.”  So I’m excused from working more than 8-hour days, at least until the 28.  While that would seem to be just the thing to make me a happy camper, all the freakin’ rain we’ve been having has served to dampen my spirits somewhat.  Pun intended.

So PD has been chauffeuring my butt to and from work each day.  And I keep praying that he has good days so he’ll be up for the task.  At least he can get up at 6am to take me instead of 5am.  That’s something.

The very worst part was having to cancel a trip to NY which would have been a really great Mother’s Day present for me and Ju to give each other.

* This makes me laugh, as I seem to have a penchant for injuring myself in ways that are normally reserved for athletes.  For example, remember when I had that lower thorascic muscle strain that mostly heavy weight lifters get?  WTH?

Lawgirl over at Renewal tagged me in this meme.  (Awhile back but I just found it last night, sorry, LG)

Rules:

1. Mention the person who nominated you. Be sure to check out her blog.  That would be Lawgirl. 

2. List six unimportant things that make you happy.

• Waking up with the sun shining in my window.
• When the phone rings and it’s one of my kids.
• A hug for no particular reason.
• Driving with the sun roof open and some good music.
• Morning coffee on my back porch.
• An uninterrupted night’s sleep.

3. Tag six blogs, state the rules and notify them with a small comment on their blog.  (I’m not into putting pressure on people, so tagging ain’t my bag.  Feel free to do it if you like.  Just let me know so I can check it out in a reasonable time frame.)

31 Today

This was just some random video I found with a blonde and an age in it.  Those are the only two similarities to the fact that my sweet daughter is celebrating a birthday today.  Really.

JuJu, I hope you have a beautiful day.  I hope you’re afforded the opportunity to look around you and appreciate the life that you’ve help build for your family.  Notice the loving homey touches around your house that make everyone feel welcome and comfortable.  Look at those beautiful kids you’re helping to raise and see how smart and polite and funny they are.  Look at your handsome husband and see the love and adoration reflecting in his eyes.  And appreciate how wonderful it must feel to be responsible for so much love in our family and yours.  And take the time to look in the mirror and see how far you’ve come and what you’ve accomplished.  And while you’re at it, blow yourself a birthday kiss from me.  Close your eyes and feel my hug.

And when you blow out your twenty-something candles, I hope your dream comes true.  Like you did for me

Happy Birthday Sweetie! PD and I love you so very much.  We will be together to celebrate in a couple of weeks.  I’ll bring wine.  Lots of wine.

Probly should mention that that’s Aimee Mann performing up there.  And I wonder if the redhead is symbolic of aging itself.  It’s just always there and gets more annoying as time goes on…

PS I scheduled this to post this morning and now I find out at 7:30 pm that it did not.  Sorry, Ju.

MY DAD

It occurred to me today

and it hurt me to my soul

I can’t hear your voice in my head.

So many questions I wanted to ask you and we ran out of time. Those last months we tried to make up for the days we couldn’t have. A hundred years wouldn’t do.

I would give a year of sunny Sunday mornings just to sit with you once again; to listen to you tell a really long joke, to watch you try not to laugh, to see you look over your glasses and complain about the gas prices. To see you sleeping in your chair, to watch you nibble on a baby’s ear, to hear you sing “Lucille,” to watch you run your silver comb through your hair.

The last conversation we had ended in “I love you too, Winker”.

But I didn’t know it would be the last time you’d say it to me. The next day you were zonked out on morphine and breathing slow and raspy. I took your comb and combed your wavy, now white, hair and told you it looked good. I knew there would be no answer. But two single tears rolled down your cheek. One was yours and one was mine.

No breath came then.

I said “I love you Dad” and put the comb in my pocket.

This is for my Dad who died along with a piece of my heart April 29, 1998.

(Repost from April 29, 2006)

*************************************************************

Miss Madeline Grace is four years old today.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Sweetie

I hope you have a day filled with sunshine, laughter, dancing, rainbows, cupcakes,  pretty bows and smooches.

Nana loves you soooooo much!

(photo courtesy JuJu)

*************************************************************

The other day I was thinking.  I do that from time to time, it’s not terribly unusual.  Although I so rarely get from the initial idea to the point of fruition. It’s a combination of the fact that I’m easily distracted (always looking for something more interesting in my head) coupled with the fact that there always seem to be outside distractions.  I’m never alone with myself (and my thoughts) for any length of time that’s necessary for me to complete the thinking process.

Not a good thinker.  Dreamer, yes.  I could rival any great dreamer throughout history.  I have lived a gazillion different experiences and several different lives in this head of mine.  I’ve written books, short stories, my own versions of what “should” or “could” be.   Or maybe I should say excerpts of all these.  I’ve never quite gotten to the ending of any of them.  At any rate, I guess the point I’m trying to make here is that when it comes to thinking, I’m much better at making up stuff than actually figuring stuff out.

I really got off track here.  Surprise!  What I started to tell you is that I’ve noticed lately that when I think of things that I would like to have- and we all do this, especially these days when we’re all doing without certain things for different reasons- I no longer find myself wishing for the material things.  I’m happy with the belongings that I have.  I love my unfinished house, my neglected yard, my “evolving” garage, my car, my wardrobe, my general accumulation of “stuff.”  In fact, if anything, I have way more than any one human being could possibly need in any one lifetime.  All my “stuff” may not be the best that money can buy but there’s truly nothing that I need in the way of material things.

The things that I think of that I would like to have are not tangible.  I crave time.  More time to spend with family and friends.  More time to enjoy quiet mornings watching the world awaken when the sun is rising and the birds are chirping.  More time to savor that first steamy cup of coffee when I’m still in my jammies and my thoughts are fresh and untainted by the stresses and obligations of daily life.  The hours when I don’t feel the pressure to make that phone call or be ready for an appointment.  When there’s no need to hurry and accomplish something.

I yearn for patience.  In myself and for dealing with other people.  I tend to have high expectations that are rarely reached.  I want and need more compassion.  I often get caught up in my own struggles at the cost of overlooking things other people need from me.  I fantasize about what it might be like to possess even a little more self-control.  If only I could focus more on where I am and where I need to be.  Not only in a year from now but a day or even an hour in the future.  I’m my own worst enemy.   I get caught up in living for the moment and while it makes perfect sense to me to live that way, it’s completely unrealistic and the end result is almost always, “Why didn’t I…. whatever?”

I wish for peace of mind, not just for myself but for the people I love and care about.  For their burdens to be lighter, for their lives to be happy, their problems to go away.

Life has become more and more complicated and it becomes necessary to focus on the truly important issues such as Health and Love and Spirituality.  To hell with a new car and a big house with a pool.  A picket fence.  What is that?  Yeah, a vacation would be nice, somewhere posh and swanky or far from the madding crowd.  But there are more important things closer to home to enjoy and relish.  With no dollar amount or price tag attached.  I’m going to concentrate on those.

Starlight (Muse) – piano version

His birthday is today, April 22.  He’s got a website now and I feel honored to have been invited to join there.  It’s a pretty fun place.  Consider becoming a member.

Happy Birthday, Ago!

PS I forgot to remind you to look at the Moon and Venus this morning. I hope you remembered!

Came across this interesting bit of information tonight while surfing the web.  I’m so glad I found it because normally I would find out after the fact and find it necessary to get quite pissy about it.

Assuming it’s not raining or snowing or cloudy, I’ll be able to share this awesome sight with my awesome husband.  Normally I do not see him that time of day because he is sound asleep.  But this week his butt he will be up with me.  And hopefully each day he will feel well enough to drive me to work.  Normally I can drive my own butt to work.  But this morning around 3am I came downstairs to get a drink of water (or something.)  Normally this is not a problem due to the nifty night lights we have at the top, on the landing and at the bottom of our stairs.  They are motion-sensitive and when they see me coming they jump up and down and sing You Light up my Life get brighter. Bad thing tho’, is that the one at the bottom casts a shadow on the bottom step due to the newel post being between the light and the actual stairs.  I always have to be careful to make sure I’m actually on the last step.  Normally I slow down when I get near the bottom to make sure I know where the floor is.  Normally, I said.

This morning I did not slow down at the bottom.  I thought I was on the floor when my left foot was on the last stair.  So when my right foot came down, my heel caught on the stair and my foot did this weird twisty collapsing thing which explains the fairly loud cracking noise that triggered the nausea button in my tummy.

Long story short, a trip to the ER for X-rays which showed the broken bone and resulting in my nervous breakdown. having to wear an Ace bandage and one of those sexy-as-hell navy blue clod-hopper boot things with the come-hither Velcro straps.  All the more alluring with the addition of crutches.

It’s all cool though.  I got Percocet to keep my mind off the fact that my life, which couldn’t possibly have gotten any more sucky, indeed has.

Today I’m going to scrub down my back porch and outdoor furniture.  I can’t wait to enjoy weekend morning coffee out there and an occasional evening before bed.  Although I saw that the extended weather forecast for the coming week includes the possibility for snow on three consecutive days, in the event that next weekend should be nice also, I want to be ready.

Next weekend we have plans to visit the Juju Clan to celebrate Juju’s birthday and Maddie’s as well.  Little Maddie will be four years old and I’m still pinching myself in an effort to accept that as reality.  She was just born a couple weeks ago, it seems.  I’ll post pictures of our visit/celebration.

I’m thinking of joining the Twitter brigade.  (No, Ashton had nothing to do with it.)  I’m always late to the table, that’s no big newsflash.  But being that I seem to struggle to find time for posting these days, I think it might be a more reasonable way for me to stay connected.  At least to those of you who tweet.  Later today I will get signed on and I see on my WordPress page that you can put your Twitter on your blog.  So maybe it will show up in my sidebar in the next day or so and I can commence to recruit some sort of following.

Anything interesting happen this past week?  Not really.  Had some family health drama that turned out less serious than originally thought, so I’m grateful for that.  PD has started work on enclosing our front porch.  His “help” is here now and I’m enjoying the sounds of the bandsaw and all that.  Going shawpin’ tomorrow for the Birthday Girls with my mom in the rain, most likely.  Other than that, nada.

I’ve been listening to this and loving it:

K, I’m outta here.  Have a terrific weekend