THE GINCON CHRONICLES

BUNNIES!

Tears for Fears

It's been a long time coming. I have been increasingly depressed about my debilitated state. I kept thinking that Dr. O'Connor might come up with an assist for my R knee, which is the biggest problem regarding my mobility. When he said last week that no brace would be appropriate, and that the only solution is a total knee replacement which none of us want to do now because I'm too young and they only last @ 10 years, my greatest fears were at last confirmed. It was like a small death sentence, the killing of any hope for being able to walk. It brought on deep sadness about my inability to do the simplest things which others take for granted. It made me long for the days when I was active and well, even the days after the first accident when I was 100% disabled but not confined to bed. The other factor in today's sadness was that it is Cinco de Mayo, and Don & Victoria will be playing the Mexican Connection from today through Saturday. After yesterday's visit to the doctor and the grocery store, I am hurting A LOT, even in a reclining position in bed. We had to decline Laura and Rusty's invitation to go and see D n V tonight. I may not even be able to go Saturday. They are leaving soon to go back to New Mexico, and despite Don's promise that he would call me, I've heard nothing from them. The sorrow from that is deep; my close friends for nearly 30 years can't make time to visit this pathetic cripple. I know that good things came from the first accident: being able to be home with Bri, not commuting, and not working the stressful job which was slowly making me ill. But right now, with the appendectomy and subsequent sloooow recovery, it's just too much to bear.

When I read aloud to Bri the email I had composed to Laura and Rusty about not being able to go with them tonight, I started to cry. Then Bri began crying. The 2 of us had quite the crying game! Lots of Kleenex... They say crying is good, letting things out, but it also dries out the eyes and gives me a big headache. Bri had to go lie down, he was so exhausted from its emotional impact. So that was our big event--supposedly we're better off for it--we'll see!

Weather or Not

New Website

I've decided to create a new website as a sort of rotating photo gallery. I'm not sure how many pictures will fit at one time; it's an experiment, but I'm hoping that somehow people will find their way to it. Maybe I'll ask Bri to put the link in his BLOG. That's after I've put up some photos, of course! ;-) I'm going for a formal approach, to perhaps resurrect my days of professional photography. You can link to it via:
Virginia H. Conard Photography (for now, at least)...

P.S.

Isn't it ironic that such great amounts of emotional and physical energy went into planning and packing for a vacation during which Mommy wore one of my "muscle shirts" (a dress on her) the entire time, under a single (repeatedly washed) sweater, and I wore PJs most of the time. I did use one bathing suit and coverup, but never wore dressy "dinner" clothes once. No need, eating on the coffee table in the living room... All that excited planning, for naught. Just goes to show, you never know...

Not Quite Florida

Well, it's been a long time since my anticipatory pre-Florida rant. Little did we know the nightmare that "vacation" would become. I'd nostalgically place a hefty bet that Mommy and I won't be going back to the Manasota Beach Club (MBC). Not because of anything they did other than charge outrageously for the privilege of occupying 2 single beds in a cottage overlooking the beach--oh and those other charges: the rug, the bed, the blankets, the bedspread, sheets, pillow, chair...because my mom was sick and sullied various and sundry. Never did we think they would charge her for all that, too.

Backing up, starting from the beginning: I waited to drive to CT on the day the snowstorm was NOT predicted, but the snowstorm had a mind of its own and lay in wait, there in the darkening skies, releasing in full force its snow and wind on the last and final day I had to get to CT in time for our flight to FL. Kept awake driving down partially due to the frequent accidents by the side of the highways--a particularly graphic and nasty one near the top of the Mass. Pike had a tractor-trailer on its side down a hill, crushed against the trees, with the grossly twisted metal of the trailer causing one to cringe at the thought of the tractor. More red lights than a traffic jam on the Jersey Turnpike, but here all flashing, rotating, crying out: police car! ambulance! fire truck! more police cars!

Having arrived in CT in one piece, I found Mommy in her chair (where she lives and sleeps almost exclusively now), watching a cooking show (usually either Emeril or Martha Stewart). I asked if she had finished packing, and she said she hadn't started. She couldn't find the suitcase, which was in the front of the summer closet, where I put it after our trip 2 years ago. I took it out and put it across her bed as requested; she said she'd been preparing and collecting her things, so I thought it was just a matter of putting them in the suitcase--she reassured me she'd get to it...

The evening progressed, she opened the presents I'd brought her, she sat in the chair enjoying them, as I grew more and more concerned. We had to get up @ 5:30 or 6 a.m., so every moment she wasn't packing brought us closer to a very late night. When after midnight she began and realized there was too much to do, it was WAY too late. I'd offered to help, or to do it if she just wanted to lie in bed and direct me (although I was exhausted and wrecked and in pain by this time as well). But no, she wanted to do it herself. But she DIDN'T do it. 3 a.m. finds her calling the credit card company to activate the credit card she needed to bring with us to use. She said she slept for 2 hours; I slept for 3. We were supposed to be downstairs in the lobby for transportation at 7:30 a.m. I was ready and made the appropriate calls for wheelchairs and help with baggage (as well as cancelling delivery of the newspaper which she hasn't reactivated to this day). Everyone arrived on time, only to find Mommy still in her nightclothes and not packed. She seemed to be throwing things in randomly; I helped her find some of her clothes from her closets. The transportation, nurses, and wheelchairs left without us, only to return to find Mommy totally not ready. Finally Carol Dills (or Bills, Mommy calls her one or the other so I don't know her real name!), head of resident care of some sort, arrived and made Mommy close her suitcase--still only half packed--while I put the luggage strap around it and she helped Mommy finish dressing. I don't think we left until after 8:30, for a 9:30 flight.

Perhaps all of this hysterical detail has given away the clincher: we missed our flight. Mommy had paid for first class seats for us 2 years ago when we were supposed to go but couldn't because Brian and I had had our serious car accident. It took the attendant at U.S. Airways about an hour and a half to find us first class seats both ways, but she persisted and we were greatly relieved. The next flight to Fort Myers wasn't until after 2 pm, so we had a wonderful brunch/luncheon at the Sheraton restaurant in the meantime. We passed from one wheelchair to another, one plane to another, one tip after the other, until finally we were met by David, our friend and transportation guru of the MBC, sometime around 9 pm or so, in FL. Turns out Mommy should have had us fly into Sarasota instead, as it is much closer, but oh well...

When we arrived at MBC it was around 10:30 pm. David was trying to help Mommy up the stairs by Blue Heron South, since the steps are flatter and fewer there, when a rude woman threw open her cottage door and demanded to know who was there and what did they think they were doing on "her" deck and why weren't they using the proper steps to our cottage. When the explanation that Mommy was having difficulty with steps after her hip operation was presented, this information was met with silence, a haughty retreat, and a slammed door. We lamented having such neighbors, as it meant we wouldn't be able to use the easier steps during our stay, for fear of intruding where unwelcome. We unpacked essentials. Mommy sat down and couldn't get up. I had to lift her "deadweight" using an underarm lift with back bent. Not good. Worried since the last time we had come to MBC (after my first accident, before my second), she had had problems with her legs giving way for the first couple of days after arriving. But this night we fell into bed fairly quickly (once I set the alarm so we wouldn't miss breakfast), and all the exhaustion and pain disappeared for the night. Ahhh blessed sleep.

The alarm beeped faintly, bringing me to fuzzy awareness the next morning. Mommy was still having trouble with her legs, and I had to help lift her up from the toilet, which was built for midgets sometime in the fifties, no doubt. Added to the gymnastics of the previous day, lifting Mommy full weight up off toilet and chairs put the left lower quadrant of my back out, which is really quite disastrous, as the right lower quadrant of my back has gone into spasm after @ 3 minutes of standing, ever since my first accident.

We went to the dining room and had breakfast by the window our first morning. They said we could have that table during our stay, and I was delighted that we had finally graduated to an ocean view table in the main dining room! Then we hobbled back to our cottage. I was helping Mommy up the steps, where there was a railing AND a big metal post to grab onto, when suddenly she just lost it. She began sliding down, legs collapsing underneath her, crushed against the wooden step. I tried lifting her up, then at least keeping her from going all the way down, but I couldn't maintain. I remember standing in the middle of the flight of steps, shouting "HELP!" "HELP!" a number of times before someone responded. Once they saw our predicament, they rallied some of the heftier kitchen staff to the rescue; they picked Mommy up in a fireman's carry as if she were a leaf, and set her down in the cottage. All that day her legs continued to fail her, so lunch was the beginning of our seclusion.

It's interesting how the mind often forgets the most odious details. I cannot remember WHEN the deluge began. All I know is that Mommy began having uncontrollable, incontinent diarrhea, AND urinary incontinence, sometime that first day. That's when the rug and bed were soiled. To give them credit, the MBC staff and owners tried to help us in many ways during the following week; they got us a raised toilet seat, various sodas for which we had planned a shopping trip we were unable to complete, fresh linens, and a rental golf cart ($175/wk) which we used only 3 times. They got Mommy some generic "Depends" from Eckerd. Then they got more, because the deluge never ended. They got Immodium, which helped only temporarily. They arranged to have all of our meals as "room service," meaning that basically that we awoke for breakfast, ate in the "living room," read (translate "slept") until lunch, ate in the living room, and rested (translate "slept") most afternoons until we ate dinner in the living room. Mommy had to restrict her food intake not only due to her ulcers, but now due to her diarrhea. I ate whatever I felt like. My blood sugar was lower after I returned than when I went, and I only gained 4 lbs., which I've already lost.

Fortunately there was a TV in the room, an unusual MBC luxury and a sanity-saving diversion for us. Unfortunately it wasn't hooked to cable or the satellite, and most of the shows we wanted to watch were on CBS, the reception of which was like watching ghosts in the proverbial snowstorm. We did sit on the deck for a few lovely sunsets. I took some pictures. One day there was a very bright parhelion! There was also a major red tide, so both Mommy and I had pretty bad asthma. I tried going down the wooden stairs to the beach and got my hands and feet wet in the Gulf once, when it was turbulent. Then when I tried again on a calm day, I lost my balance and would have fallen on the beach if not for my cane. No one was within sound or sight to help me, so I would have been SOL. So much for my longed-for swims in the salt water (one great tragedy of the trip). We used the golf cart to explore a little (until I knocked over a path light), then mainly to get to the swimming pool. We'd go late in the afternoon, at cocktail hour (since we no longer do cocktails). The pool was tepid the first day, then lovely and warm the next 2 times. I used a blue noodle to help buoy myself, and did hydrotherapy exercises the first day. Mistake. Ow, ow, my back and many other muscles. I tried to swim, the breastroke, but my legs wouldn't cooperate and my hands and arms had no pull. I could only tread water. I can no longer swim (the most shocking and tragic discovery of all; I am devastated to this day). But even just being in the warm pool was close to the best part of the trip. There were several mourning dove couples there and we enjoyed imitating their cooing calls.

Days passed; we hardly knew what day it was. The time both dragged and flew by. I helped Mommy wash off messes in the shower. I helped her put on her diapers. I helped clean up from her "accidents." She slowly regained the use of her legs, but the damage to my back was done, my bed unforgiving, ergo my back was out the entire time in FL and then some. Of course I went into flare, had migraines, slept an entire day, etc. I tried to explain fibroflare and sarcoidosis to Mommy, but I don't know if she really understood. Of course, she was feeling so unwell that she couldn't complain too much that I wasn't up for a lot either.

Things I learned on my winter vacation: Going to Florida in January/early February is too early for a temperate vacation: the weather tends toward cool and windy, and the Gulf is cold and stormy. I can't hold up my mother if she loses function of her legs. I can't swim anymore, even in a warm pool. People can be very nice, but at least in this case, for an outrageous price, and even then, they're not as nice as they appear. Flying in first class is the only comfortable way to fly, but it's not as much fun when you don't drink alcohol any more, and they STILL don't provide meals. Mommy talks and laughs in her sleep. She sounds like she's having a good time. She also coughs and clears her throut (loudly) in her sleep and doesn't wake herself up (only me). My earplugs are one of my most precious, life-saving possessions. Immodium=good. "Depends"=good but could be better.

MOST IMPORTANTLY: Using the phone (a little) and the computer (mostly) for daily communication with Bri was my SALVATION on this "vacation." IM (especially voice) RULES! Thank God for Bri! I don't think I could have kept it together without his love, support, wisdom, and humor...

My conclusion: I think the MBC has seen the last of us. Not that I don't want to go there, but after this year's experience, I suspect Mommy won't want to spend the money when we're really too feeble to enjoy it. It's very sad to think that the era of "family" vacations in Florida (translated: Daddy, Mommy and I, or some combination thereof) is over. I wish Brian could have come with us. But as it was, we could have stayed in Mommy's apartment and watched the Hawaiian Waves DVDs I got her for Christmas, saved a WHOLE heckuva lot of money, and perhaps saved a lot of wear and tear on our bodies. Oh well, live and learn.

NB: To this day, Mommy has continued to have the same incontinence problems (both sides, so to speak). That's over a month and a half. She obviously has a serious medical issue but has been loth to go to a doctor. She finally saw her MD (at a pre-scheduled annual checkup--better than nothing, I guess!). He is supposed to be playing medication roulette to see what's causing her problems, and she FINALLY agreed to hire an aide to help her bathe and perhaps do household chores 3x/wk. Poor Mommy--she's really gotten weak and debilitated. She's STILL sleeping in the lift chair in the study because her suitcase from the trip is on her bed and she doesn't have the energy to unpack or the strength to move it. She doesn't even go to that part of her apt. anymore! She lost the TV remote but has a Universal Remote which needs new batteries. She has some batteries in her closet in her bedroom, but can't work up the energy to go get them. This is SERIOUS stuff. If she weren't getting help and seeing the MD, I would have had to go to CT to help her, which would be a bit ironic, since I've been recovering slowly myself.

Inspiration for the title of this account goes to Rosanne Raneri's song "Not Quite Philadelphia" from her wonderful album "Parhelion."

Diagnosis and Treatment

So now I have diabetes...it's unreal to me, like it doesn't really exist, other than in the numbers on my blood sugar monitor...
I think I have probably had it for a long time. Back to Nutrasweet and goodbye to candy and desserts...the way dinner here at ol' PC has been going, the desserts were sometimes the only good part of the meal. Boy, their new chef is erratic...I wouldn't come back to this restaurant after paying $13 for a few tablespoons of gravy covered with a square of pastry ("chicken pot pie"--my ass). Food is a big part of my miniscule world and now I feel a heavy burden, having to pay attention to everything I eat, poking my poor fingers every day, and not eating all sorts of wonderful things I love.

Well you can bet I'm gonna make this trip to Florida my last hurrah for eating anything I want--they have such gourmet, wonderful food! If I can only keep my mom from constantly reminding me...not too optimistic about that...

Bri helped me all day trying to get packed...it's so hard to pack for plane trips, especially with dressy clothes and clothes for warm weather and clothes for cool weather and entertainment for us and the computer and meds and glucose meters, etc. I'm looking forward to BEING in Florida, just not to GETTING there and back. Leave it to the weather to dump snow all over my travel day when I switched it erroneously to AVOID the snow. Oh well...

I will miss my LOVE but hope to call and compute and otherwise keep connected...and remember that we ARE always connected. I am so thankful to be sharing my life with my soulmate...he is the BEST and I love him beyond expression.

Challenge Censorship: Speak out for FREE SPEECH

Connecting the Dots

Reading some material about gastric bypass surgery (which got me quite drowsy so I will have to continue another time!), I began thinking about connections. For example, between past sexual mistreatment (the term I prefer to "abuse") and body image. And the depressing reality that the antidepressant drug that keeps me balanced in so many other areas of my life has virtually eliminated my sex drive and ability to derive sexual pleasure. What irony, eh? It's not helping in the relationship arena, and it makes me feel robbed, both of a natural function and my right to pleasure, and especially of my ability to please my husband, my love, who is having enough difficulties without this, too.

Other thoughts bouncing around inside this aching head are more ill-defined...feeling as though I've always given myself away upon promise of approval. I did so many things I didn't want to do because I thought that afterward I would reap the reward: a relationship, love, whatever. A whore for positive regard.

So I just got a message from my therapist that she can't see me on the scheduled date and time this week, and wants to see me instead on Saturday at 12:30. Why do I have this strong belief that weekends are inviolate; appointments are for weekdays, and weekends are for quality time--uninterrupted by business. The connection that follows is that I view therapy as business. In a way that's true: it's hard work. But I should be, and am, thankful for my therapy sessions. So why am I so disturbed by this?

So here we are, back to the giving in to prevent disconnection. I didn't tell my therapist in my return email that her schedule changes are really NOT alright with me. I've scheduled appts around the ones she had given me before; now I feel a bit used and abused, although I'm sure that's not her intention. My initial email said it all: that I preferred later appts, that I preferred weekday appts, etc. But I took all that out and was the nice girl, so as not to disrupt our relationship. It feels like I'm soliciting approval to assure goodwill. I do a lot of that. A lifelong pattern. Perhaps that's why I need so much therapy...

That and anyone who is still connecting the dots at 51 really is in NEED of therapy! Time to move on to painting (even by numbers) or, perhaps, basketweaving...

Buttons

Most people would agree that buttons are a useful and necessary invention. They keep our clothes on. They probably have a long and fascinating history (fascinating to buttonologists, or buttoneers, or buttonmasters). A simple glance at the dictionary reveals many definitions and permutations of meaning for the word "button:"

button

\But"ton\, n. [OE. boton, botoun, F. bouton button, bud, prop. something pushing out, fr. bouter to push. See Butt an end.] 1. A knob; a small ball; a small, roundish mass.

2. A catch, of various forms and materials, used to fasten together the different parts of dress, by being attached to one part, and passing through a slit, called a buttonhole, in the other; -- used also for ornament.

3. A bud; a germ of a plant. --Shak.

4. A piece of wood or metal, usually flat and elongated, turning on a nail or screw, to fasten something, as a door.

5. A globule of metal remaining on an assay cupel or in a crucible, after fusion.

Button hook, a hook for catching a button and drawing it through a buttonhole, as in buttoning boots and gloves.

Button shell (Zo["o]l.), a small, univalve marine shell of the genus Rotella.

Button snakeroot. (Bot.) (a) The American composite genus Liatris, having rounded buttonlike heads of flowers. (b) An American umbelliferous plant with rigid, narrow leaves, and flowers in dense heads.

Button tree (Bot.), a genus of trees (Conocarpus), furnishing durable timber, mostly natives of the West Indies.

To hold by the button, to detain in conversation to weariness; to bore; to buttonhole.

(Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.)
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button

Aleppo boil \A*lep"po boil\, button \button\, or evil \evil\ . (Med.) A chronic skin affection terminating in an ulcer, most commonly of the face. It is endemic along the Mediterranean, and is probably due to a specific bacillus. Called also Aleppo ulcer,Biskara boil, Delhi boil, Oriental sore, etc.


Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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Wow. I've never heard of some of those things. And of course the fact that "button" can be used as a verb. And I wonder if that's where buttons come from: they grow on trees!

There are many other kinds of buttons in this world: elevator buttons, all sorts of mechanical buttons, the button to launch nuclear missiles, the button that people know how to push that gets you where you live (as in, "she really pushes all of my buttons!"), and many buttons on our PCs (or Macs, as the case should be).

These latter buttons (aka "keys"--but that's getting into a whole different area) are the ones which have recently caused, and continue to cause, great frustration with regard to my BLOG. All it takes is one mis-placed keystroke, hitting the wrong button, and I lose my BLOG entry. Sometimes these posts have been lovingly slaved over, others great psychological revelations, others frivolous yet not replaceable.

As this has happened twice in the past week (one of the incidents a few minutes ago), I felt moved to vent my frustration that making a mistake with so small a thing, such a swift error, could have such disastrous consequences. But being the glutton for punishment that I am, I will try again to publish this post...(great intake of breath, tension mounting, expectations hanging in mid-air, she slowly moves her finger to the BUTTON...)!

Fun With I-Chat

Today Bri & I discovered the fun of using I-Chat (with microphones, of course, duh) instead of using the phone. What a cool thing. I don't know why it was so much more fun--other than the obvious fact that it's a lot easier to just lie in bed and talk with the computer in front of me and not have to hold a phone or even wear a headset which pinches my head)...but the enjoyment was due to something more subtle. I think maybe it just felt like we were home together, talking to each other from room to room, instead of being hundreds of miles apart. A sense of closeness, intimacy. And of course there are times when neither Bri nor I feel like using the phone, and this bypassed that problem altogether. Although when it comes to talking to my bunny, anything goes--as long as we can get to talk together! Click your heels together three times and say: There's nothing like bunnying. There's nothing like bunnying. :-)

Tonight I crashed. Every day I've been staying up much of the night, getting a big boost of energy late in the evening. Except tonight. The TV was on; Mommy wanted to see The Guardian and Judging Amy (and I hadn't even seen that particular episode of judging Amy!). But I crashed hard, and apparently snored right thru Amy and the news. Wow. I guess it's starting to catch up with me. Gotta keep goin' so I can make it home tomorrow. I can't wait to bunny in person!!! YAY!!!!!!

Stormy Weather

Well, it's official--the BlogMasters can't restore my huge Xmas psychological purge--oh well. Just the process of writing it was helpful at the time, so there's that--it's like those letters you write and don't send--but it would've been nice to have a record of it...

It's Monday and wouldn't you know it, I'm at Mommy's, due to return home tomorrow, and I have a migraine/vertigo/fever, one of those "stay in bed" things, yet still so much to do to help Mommy and then PACK! I just checked the Tuesday weather forecast for Saratoga and there's a Severe Weather Alert for a.m. freezing rain along the entire route I'd be driving, and they're predicting snow by 3 pm. Maybe the universe is trying to tell me something? But I SOOOOO want to be home with my bunny! It was fun Instant Messenging today. Almost like being there...well not quite...but lots of fun! I feel very pulled in different directions: I want to be here to help Mommy, but I SO want to be home with Brian. The weather may be the determining factor, Tuesday being the only BAD weather in sight! Phooey! I wanna go home! Waaaaah!

Loss

I'm literally in tears because I wrote for 2 hours about Christmas and my dysfunctional family and the deaths of my father and nephew, and the illness of my mother, and how my husband and I are (lovingly but with difficulty due to our disabilities) having to take up the slack left by my brother and his wife who refuse to have any contact with any of us despite cards, flowers, gifts, calls, and e-mails on our part. It's been over a year since Mike died. It's Christmas, when we always got together as a family, even after Dad's stroke. Last year was understandable, because Mike died less than a week before, and Bri and I had been in a nearly fatal car crash the same day and I was in the hospital for a month, while Brian was trying to move us into a new apartment in a retirement center.

But all of the pathos, the feelings, the anger, the sorrow, was in that entry. And because I pushed the wrong button, as far as I know (I wrote for help but doubt they can recover it), it's gone.

And so this is Christmas....

// posted by Gini @ 12/25/2003 04:56:00 AM

Loss Redux

(NOTE: These are out of order, no matter what the time stamp says; I wrote the above post first, and this one afterward!) OK, now I'm getting mad. I wrote a short post to speak to my utter frustration and sense of deep loss over the disappearance of my 2-hour-long chronicle of Christmas and our family over the past 2 years, and I'm almost positive I posted it correctly, and it says it was posted, but it still gives the date of my 2nd post, in mid-December, and my latest tiny post documenting my tears over the previous post's loss, seems to also be lost. Loss, loss, loss, loss, loss, loss, loss. That kind of sums up the past year+.

So tomorrow Mommy and I will be staying in her apartment and eating re-heated, overcooked Christmas dinner out of styrofoam. There should be a law against that, don't you think? Plus the presents she ordered for me haven't arrived, probably because she cheaped out on the shipping option (now, now, don't take this night out on her, remember, you love her dearly!).

I'm just feeling REALLY bad now. If these posts don't get into my BLOG I'm going to have to quit. That was a LOT of psychological work lost.

And so this is Christmas...

Peace on Earth and Red Alert.

A Day in the Life

It's technically Tuesday although I feel like it was a very full day. Why? I don't know...was awakened by Bri who was on his way out to do errands with his mom, at maybe around 2 or 3pm? Not enough sleep...but no nap today! Talked to Mommy--she sounded much better and had a very active day herself. She walked a lot with her therapist, put the dishes in the dishwasher, and still her back is better-YAY! I wrote on all her cards so she can have a supply for when she needs a boost; I'll take them down since it's only a week away--AAARRRGGGHHH! Much to do! Bri and I watched Sandra, Lill, Jon, and Darrah on the CBS (cbs.com) Morning Show (taped of course!), and a little of the hubbub surrounding Saddam Hussein's capture. After calling Mommy, had dinner in the LR for a change of scene, watched an amazing documentary about CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome). There was a kid who reminded me so much of Mike, who got CFS--totally bedridden and on a feeding tube--his junior year of high school at--no kidding--Kingswood-Oxford in West Hartford (where Mike went to HS). They showed him being taken on a stretcher by ambulance and wheeled up to get his diploma at graduation. It was very moving, and made me feel sad thinking of Mike. Bri ordered a VHS copy of the documentary "I Remember Me" at Amazon.com.

Then he was in the mood to take some pictures, so he got the digital camera out, and he and I both took some photos--it was really FUN! I'm going to have some real fun cropping and editing some of the photos...and I put up our altar again...it didn't feel right to have it all jumbled up in a box. Then I got crazed and decided I had to know whether the batteries we ordered were going to fit in the scooter. Then I got more crazed and wanted to find out if I could remove the harness and carrying handle from the old battery and put it on the new one--and I did it, after copious perspiration and heavy breathing (no, not that kind). Will have to do the other one tomorrow so we can charge up the batteries/make sure all's working ok.

Speaking of which, I need to follow up on some business: that guy who sold us the broken scooter that's too small for me NEVER called me back last week! I have to get our $1700 back!!!! And I have to deal with Miles Kimball (online catalogue) who got Mommy's monogram scrambled up...we'll see what they will do about that...

So I'd better get to it--a long night on the computer ahead (or should I say morning)...hard to believe it's 27 degrees in Hartford and 2 degrees here...although not really, they got @ 7 inches of snow and we got nearly 20! Thank goodness for John, the plow guy--hafta remember to talk to Tom. Can you tell my mind is reeling? The only thing that'll help is to start getting some stuff done. And hey, I'm so glad my first BLOG post came thru! Now I just hafta figure out how to do the links and recommended websites...

'Til tomorrow--or later today--whatever--

And So It Begins...

Welcome to my BLOG. I don't know what form it will take, where it will lead, whether I shall control or merely follow the ideas, thoughts, emotions, memories, and ruminations which arise. My therapist suggested keeping a journal. This is as close as I'll probably get to that...although I tend to start out with good intentions then slowly run out of steam (and entries). We shall see...

Another late night (early a.m.). In the middle of a nor'easter (blizzard). Missed the Final 3-hour Survivor Episodes and Reunion--forgot! Dementia sets in...or at least short-term memory loss; I had it on my calendar, but didn't look. Oh well, found a good running account that some dear person typed in as the show was on, so feel almost as if I saw it...except for the faces and expressions. Gonna look at the last 30 some minutes I recorded before turning in. I hope Brian will stop blaming himself--I forgot too! And, after all, it's only TV. And it's over, done, kaput! I did write to CBS and beg them to rerun the show due to the football game and the possible power outages from the storm--maybe they'll put out a special video or DVD for people who missed it? Doubtful, but now I feel as though I did the best I could to do something (other than email Laura and call/email Sakula). Now its in the hands of fate...

Oh, and how awful did Saddam Hussein (sp?) look? I know he's said to have done despicable things, etc., but it was hard not to feel sorry for this man who was living in a little box underground for who knows how long. I can't help but wonder what this will mean to the political climate, the elections, and the anti-war movement...

See? Here I said I was going to bed soon...here I go...maybe after a little snack, too...this is how I stay up until daylight!