The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

:shock:

:x

This pretty much sums up my current mood. I'm having grave technical difficulties at home. I'm at Comcast's mercy while trying to resolve this issue.

The problem started Saturday, slow, SLOW connectivity followed by NO CONNECTIVITY. I've got a new modem, it doesn't work. I've tried to connect via the USB port instead of the ethernet...it still doesn't work. So now, I'm having to wait for a technician to come to my home *sigh*

My anti-virus detected a Trojan Horse on Saturday morning, but a computer-guru friend of mine doesn't think that's the problem. If anyone has any help or suggestions I'd love to hear from you. If not I'll just have to stay in touch during work hours, sheesh. I despise technical difficulties.

Hope all is well with everyone else :)

Seems like a very 'hot' topic of conversation lately is the insane summer heat. It appears to be a very widespread topic, seems as though everyone is suffering in this weather. I was thinking tonight about the heat and the game of survival we are playing and I had a craving for ice cream.

I am the type of person that likes a good bowl of chili in the summertime and have never understood why some ice cream places close for the winter. I don't really have an intestinal thermostat like others.

While daydreaming about a frosty dish I began to question exactly what flavor would be best?

**Birthday Cake--it's my newest acquired tastebud treat. How do they make it taste like cake and ice cream?

**Graham Slam--a yummy combination that reminds me of s'mores and ice cream.

**Butterfinger Blast--oh ya Butterfinger candy bars and vanilla ice cream. What's not to love?

**Cookies and Cream--I love the combination of soggy cookies and crunchy ones.

What a variety.

Then I began to think that when I was a kid you had pretty basic choices. Chocolate, vanilla, strawberry OR Neopolitan for those that wanted all of the above. Cherry, peach and butter pecan for the more sophistaced palates. And that was about it. If you wanted chocolate-chip cookie dough you had to make it yourself, and that would entail sneaking out some dough because your Mother was convinced salmonella was just hiding there waiting for you contract it. Cookies and Cream was available only when there were some Oreo's in the house. Birthday cake was possible only after the ice cream had melted enough to stir the two into a well blended consistency.

With all the choices I find myself normally picking good 'ol chocolate. I like sampling all the new innovations but when push comes to shove I choose an old standard.

It's well after midnight now so making this craving a reality is out of the question, but I'm thinking tomorrow when the mercury is pushing 100 I'm gonna have some chocolate ice cream! Stay cool.

...being this kid?

Heir Jordan Aiming to Prove He Can Play



By MICHAEL MAROT

NDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Jeffrey Jordan needs no introduction at the Nike All-America Camp. The contagious smile, penetrating stare and determined look on his boyish 16-year-old face resemble the features of his world-famous father, Michael, and offer proof that young Jeffrey is the true heir to the Air Jordan legacy.

If there was any doubt about the lineage, he wears it proudly on the front of his T-shirt: J-O-R-D-A-N.

But Jordan has come to Indianapolis to prove one thing - that he, too, can play basketball.

''I want to show that I belong here,'' he said. ''I guess I'm not the top one or two or three or four players in my state, but I want to show that I can play here and that I'm not just a name.''

The rest of the story can be found here http://sportsillustrated.nets...

Talk about some BIG shoes to fill! I loved watching Michael Jordan play basketball at North Carolina and Chicago. He truly was athletic poetry in motion. The "what if's" are running through my mind at a rapid pace. The whole article above paints this young man with character and charm. I hope that he ends up a success at whatever he may try, be it basketball or Biology. I guess this is about as close to athletic royalty as you can come, huh?

We're right smack-dab in the middle of 'Dog Days' http://www.factmonster.com/ce... here in the South. I've heard the term for years but never knew (or cared enough to investigate) what they were. In this, my 40th year, I've become a little more curious. Why you ask? Well it seems that the 'ol body is not quite what it used to be. I have substantial arthritis in my left foot. I don't know why, I've never broken it or really injured it. I have 'Old Arthur' in both knees but that's no surprise, they've been bruised and battered most of my life. But the foot remains a mystery. According to many 'old timers' including my Grandmother, if you've got any aches and pains they're much more likely to flare up during 'Dog Days'. My foot would certainly agree.

Another problem that seems to have surfaced recently is the directions my brain sends to my fingers. This route has always been very quick and responsive until recently. I type for a living and not to brag, but am pretty darn good at it. But in the last few days the signals from my brain have been taking some unexpected detours instead of reaching the hands. Not sure where they are but you can be assured there's one heck of a pile-up right around my elbows. No matter what keyboard I sit down in front of be it for recreational or professional use I'm typing like some 14 year old High School Freshman, just clicking away at the keys typing gibberish that makes a cool sound. I know what I want to type but making it happen is proving to be a little more difficult than usual. This would bring me back to the Dog Days...

5 years ago I was making breakfast on a Sunday morning. I was attempting to pry apart two frozen biscuits when I stuck the knife through my left hand that housed the frozen dough. It was a small cut, not more than a half-inch long. But the sharp pointed knife had gone deep. I gasped as I watched the blood squirt everytime my heart beat. Yes, I was taking the blood thinners and I was fearing bleeding to death. Not really a possibility but in a moment like that my mind tends to wander. I went to the ER and had the small incision sewed up. I kept asking when the feeling would come back to my hand, the Dr. seemed very unconcerned and just sort of blew me off. I had an app. with my regular Dr. two days later and posed the same question to him. He examined my palm and asked if it had been that way since the accident. It had. Long story short, that tiny nick to my hand had managed to cut a nerve and tendon. Lovely. I had reconstructive surgery, ended up with a total of 27 stithes that zig-zagged across my life-line. Weeks of physical therapy followed. I was told by my surgeon that arthritis would eventually set up in the hand but the best thing I could do was keep it active. Typing! Perfect therapy.

The 'Dog Days' have left my left hand very stiff and achy. The abundance of rainy weather hasn't helped much either. August 11th is the last day of 'Dog Days' so I ask that you bear with me until then, hopefully my typo's will decrease along with the hellish heat and humidity :)

The last week or so around tBLOG land I keep seeing spammer posts growing at warp speed. At any time you can look at the left hand side listing new posts and most of them read something like this:

cobaseball1card1single1vi ctory.tblog.
moking1crock1healthy1pot.tblog.com
Cheap Backup Dvd Free Software Blog
by: cheap1backup1dvd1free1sof tware


These sites selling everything from crock pots to tickets to see the Blue Man Group. If you check in on any given afternoon that will be virtually all you see. Am I the only one that thinks it's insane??? Surely not. There's got to be a way to get rid of them, and I think I might just have a plan....


KUDZU
Kudzu is strong willed vine that is very prominent in the Southern United States, actually it covers about 7 million acres in the South. Initally kudzu came from Japan as a vine thought to be perfect to aid in erosion. What we didn't count on was how well the vine would grow in this climate. There are old wive's tales that claim it grows a foot a night, and that may be just hearsay, but seems pretty darn accurate to me. They grow beautifully but 'choke' out the sunlight for the forrests. Herbicides have been used many times to try and kill the kudzu, but the scary thing is most of the herbicides just made the vine grow faster! It's like the vine you cannot kill!


What if we planted some kudzu in a few of these spam blogs? Maybe with thier rapid growth it could only be a matter of time before they were completely overtaken? We could even have a beauty pageant and crown some lucky tBLOGGER "The Kudzu Queen & King" I think we're gonna have to get tough with these spammers and this just might be a way to do it. What do ya think?

btw here's the link for the Amazing Story of Kudzu http://www.cptr.ua.edu/kudzu/...
Check it out sometime. And lets put our heads together and see how we can rid of all the crappy spammy and get our little tBLOG back like we like it :)

...Milk, that is. I don't drink nearly enough cow juice, but when I do it floods me with memories. Tonight was an 'every man for himself' kind of thing where dinner was concerned. There are plenty of heat-em-up, eat-em-up, dinners here, so the variety was good. I decided to have a plain ol bologna(pronounced balonee around here) and cheese sandwich. As I was putting the mayo back in the fridge I saw the gallon of skim milk sitting there. Eureka! An ice cold glass of milk will be the perfect compliment to my sammich.

I love a glass of milk with most any sandwich, especially the bologna and cheese. From the moment that combination reaches my tastebuds I'm taken back to grammar school. We didn't have sandwiches that often back then, schools still believed in serving well balanced nutritious meals instead of the chicken nugget, pizza, hot dog and hamburger offerings of today. But when we did have sandwiches I remember how good that little half pint of milk tasted. There was no chocolate or strawberry milk like kids get today, it was just basic 2% milk...and we liked it. I even liked it when it wasn't so ice cold. I think it was because drinking out of those little cartons were fun and made us not care so much about the temperature.

Another thing that milk served as the perfect compliment to was those incredible homemade yeast rolls we had with every meal. Oh my Lord you could smell those things baking at 9:30 in the morning. Big huge rolls, crusty on the outside, and fluffy and delicate on the inside. They were just big square shapes. But with a few pats of 'real' butter they were some of the best tasting things I ever had. I was always disappointed when by 10 am you didn't smell the yeast wafting through the halls, this could mean only one thing, the bread of the day would be cornbread. The milk even made the cornbread taste better, which was no small feat!

It's funny how something like a simple sandwich and a glass of milk can bring back memories that were deeply hidden. I smiled as I ate my sandwich and thought about all those little boys and girls in that cafeteria, and wondered what they were doing now. I see some of them but only a small fraction. I wonder, wherever they are, if they think back to the little chairs and small cartons of milk and smile?

JennJr posted a few days ago on the subject of eavesdropping. It made me think of this elderly lady I know. She's very sweet, in that old lady sort of way but she has a terrible habit of just 'including' herself in on any conversation. I don't really know how to deal with it. I was speaking with a co-worker a few weeks ago while she was in the office. She just wanders into my office and begins to listen. Not only does she listen, she glares at whomever is speaking and if she has any questions she just says, "Who? Who are you talking about?" this has happened several times.

I don't know how to handle it. Being raised in the South I've had it drilled in my head to respect my elders. This lady is so nonchalant about it all I'm not sure if she's just stupid or overbearing. It's getting to the point where I don't like her much because of it. If this is truly part of her nature I hate to offend her by saying something about it. I don't want to run away everytime she comes around but I don't appreciate the invasion. Other people have noticed it and have said something about it to which I usually just smile and say something like, "bless her heart."

It's not like I'm ever discussing some high level secret, to me it's all just a matter of bad manners. But what can you do with someone over 70 who's probably been doing this all of her life. I suppose this is just another instance where we grin and bear it.

Tonight was the finale of our annual Vacation Bible School. I had co-director duties as well as teaching two nights of the teen class, and am utterly exhausted. To add insult to injury I'm almost positive that I have a bladder infection. I've been involved with VBS for what seems like forever. Every year I say, "this is my last year" only to return the next Summer. I've come to the realization that I love doing it, plain and simple. Like so many other things in my life, I force myself regardless of how bad I feel in fear the day will come when I won't be able to.

My best friend and I had agreed earlier that we'd stop by our favorite Mexican place for some spinach dip and chips afterwards with the kids. Neither of us had any of the pizza at the church and were famished. I was in agony but was looking forward to it. Once there I had this craving for a tamal and some rice. I skipped the dip and had that instead. I was probably half-way through my meal when I looked down on my plate, and there in the rice was a very long, curly black hair. My stomach churned and I thought I was going to 'flash my hash' in the aisle. I pulled it out as I tried to swallow what was in my mouth. My stomach and esophagus began to revolt and I had to spit out the food into a napkin. My friend and my daughter looked at the hair with as much disgust as I did. I was so tired and in so much pain from the suspected infection that I put my silverware in my plate and pushed it away. In addition I didn't say anything to the staff.

Under normal circumstances I would have complained and asked for a discount on my meal. I know that accidents happen, and I really don't believe any of the workers deliberately put the hair there. But tonight I just wasn't up to the fight or trying to make somebody understand what I was saying. The night shift isn't very proficient in English. Now I'm angry with myself. Granted my meal cost only $3.80, but I shouldn't have a side of hair unless I order it. I go to this restaurant atleast once a week and have never had it happen before. Could that be reason I wasn't more willing to say something about it?

I'm wondering, if this has ever happened to you, have you let it go without saying anything or would you definitely let the staff know about it? And would you want to be compensated?

**DISCLAIMER** This post originally aired on October 22, 2004. I have several different committments this week and am extremely busy but wanted to post something. This is one of my fav kids stories. I hope you enjoy it a second time around :)

My 12 yr old son is very special to me. Special in many ways. He's the only male in my immediate family. For some reason my Father and his siblings could only sire females. We had an immediate bond the moment I got to spend time with him, which was about a week after he was born. I was diagnosed with a very serious genetic heart disease when I was 38 wks pregnant with him. I spent 14 days prior to delivering on the cardiac floor. After a well orchestrated delivery he went to the NICU and I went to the cardiac ICU. I was heavily sedated for two days, I don't remember even seeing him until day 4 after his birth. Another reason he's very special to me is because of his sense of humor. He has a very dry wit and doesn't 'try' to be funny. He's about to turn 13, born on Halloween...maybe that adds to his appeal? In the last 9 months or so he's become acutely aware of his genitals. I'm sure it happened long before I noticed, but more recently he's become very brazen about inspecting his 'package'. (See previous post about men and their penis') About a month ago he came in my bedroom as my husband and I lie reading and watching tv. He came to ask me a question but I couldn't concentrate on his question because as he stood there 3 ft. away he had his hand down his pants playing with the boys. I stopped him mid-sentence and said, "Jacob, if you don't leave that 'thing' alone your eyes are gonna cross and stay that way!" He looks at me, dead serious and says, "Aw, Momma you don't have to worry about that, usually when I do this I have my eyes closed!" I damn near popped a vein.

I always wanted an Easy-Bake oven when I was a little girl. I can't remember a time when I didn't want one. I'd watch those commercials where the girl with the perfect pig-tails would push that plastic stick in the slot and pull out the tiny pan of brownies. I begged and pleaded. I never got one. My Mother told me she thought they were a fire hazard. A frickin fire hazard? You cook with a 60 watt light bulb for crying out loud.

Money was always tight in our household, just like every other middle class American family. But I know beyond a shadow of a doubt we could have afforded an Easy Bake Oven. Did she honestly think I'd burn the house down? When the fire potential excuse wore thin as an arguement she'd tell me how expensive the cake mixes and such were. Now that was true. But I know had I ever been given the chance I would have rationed my mixes.

As soon as my daughter was old enough I bought her an Easy Bake Oven. Sadly she didn't really like it. But I did. At 25 I baked every one of those little mixes and loved every minute of it. Unfortunately the desserts left a lot to be desired in the taste department. While the Easy Bake Oven wasn't what I thought it would be, it was pretty cool. I could still appreciate the concept as an adult.

I could never let the desire for that toy go. As an adult it seems far easier to let go of certain things. Is this true because over the course of a lifetime we become accustomed to deprivation? I wonder if I'd never had a daughter, would I have purchased an Easy Bake Oven as a mid-life crisis toy?

I was IM'ing with Altricial (her link's over there <----, yes I'm too lazy to manually insert it because Netscape doesn't offer the one button luxuries) and as usual she asked how I was. I thought for a minute. As the perennial 'class clown' I wanted a clever comeback to mask my saddness. I told her I was 'emotionally bankrupt.' I sat here and looked at that phrase, 'emotionally bankrupt.' That may be one of my best ever. Ok, it's probably not an original, but painfully accurate as to how I feel. I detest self-pity and because of that I'll stop right here and just list some of my random thoughts on the last week and what's been going on in my life...>
MONDAY--July 4th isn't as fun as it was when I was a kid.

TUESDAY--Anyone under 30 should not be able to purchase fireworks. My middle step-son blew up one of our commodes with an 'underwater' firework. "Boys will be boys" is wearing thin for this woman.

WEDNESDAY--I didn't go to work, I didn't go Tuesday either because of the Doctor's appointment with my Mother. My very last nerve was severed and I simply couldn't pull it together.

THURSDAY--Ongoing conflicts with my husband. I'm ashamed to even air my dirty laundry again.

FRIDAY--The marital issues continue. I'm wondering if this whole marriage is some well orchestrated scene from 'Jeckyl and Hyde'...and I can't be sure of who's who. Jose Cuervo is a friend of mine.

SAVING GRACES:
As crazy as I think Elton John is now, I love to hear him sing. He could sing 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (my all time most hated song) and I'd still love it.

I'm beginning to wonder if I am "the marrying kind"

No matter what happens I can escape, all I have to do is close my eyes and imagine.

I am excited about God again. I won't being going all Jesus freak on you but I'll be happy to tell anyone that wants to know about it how I feel.

I don't know if I've ever been happy in my life, but I haven't been miserable either. Not a bad trade-off.

I'm exactly where I am because of choices that I have made. NO excuses.

Nobody is going to stop world-wide terroism in Iraq.

Thank God I live in a place where I can say exactly what is on my mind. I can expose myself in most any kind of verbal and written expression I see fit. I must take into consideration that by doing so I set myself up for criticism and ridicule. That's cool. I don't picture myself as any kind of orator extrodinaire or literary genius. I respect any opinion, be it good or bad. The only thing I ask is that we all remember that 'what's good for the goose is good for the gander.'

I sincerely hope that the coming week is good for you and me. I pray for world peace but recognize that it's not a probability and in turn pray for the strength to overcome the obstacles that lie in our way.

A close friend of mine is getting married next month. She and I divorced within months of each other, our parents were friends when we were small, so I guess it's fair to say we've been life-long friends.

My friend is running herself ragged trying to put together her 'casual', low-key ceremony. She and her fiance' decided they'd like to be married here at the church where I am a member and work. The future groom's mother is a member here as well. She came in the office last week with her future mother-in-law to meet the new Pastor and check a few things in the sanctuary. The new Pastor told her he'd be happy to marry them, but he does take the ceremony seriously and would require about 3 short 'counseling' sessions with them prior to the wedding date. This is a very common practice, some Pastors can do all they have to do in one sitting, others(especially young enthusiastic ones like our new guy) want to get to know the couple as much as possible.

My girlfriend has no problem with this, her fiance' on the other hand has a big problem with it. She called me last night at home asking if I could talk to him and reassure him this is common practice, which I did. He maintains that he never consulted with the minister who married he and his first wife. And that he has been to college himself, he's not an idiot who needs a minister or anyone else to tell him how to manage his new marriage. Ok, whatever. I gently reinforced the point that it's standard practice and it's probably even more prevelant these days with the divorce rate as high as it is. For good measure I did throw in the fact that some ministers won't even marry a couple of two divorced people. None of this seemed to do much good. Bottom line--I've known this guy all my life too. I think he's a jerk and can't possibly understand why she'd want to marry him.

Am I the only one that thinks his attitude toward some informal counseling before remarrying kind of sucks? What do you think?

I've been worried sick for the last year about my Mother and her declining health. I'd even gotten to the point where I was convinced that the bulk of her problem was psychosomatic. I don't know whether to be overjoyed or deeply saddened to now know the real truth behind her problems.

Almost 4 years ago my Mother was hospitalized locally for what was believed to be pneumonia, while in the hosptial she developed atrial fibrillation. A-Fib is the most common type of heart arrythmia. I have suffered with chronic A-Fib for much of the last 11 years. It's a pretty crappy way of life, but I've been relatively lucky and tolerate it better than most.

After 3 days in the local hospital my Mother was transfered to a larger hospital in a town near Knoxville. Her cardiologist performed a special type of sonogram where a probe is inserted down your throat to view your heart--I've had a number of these transesophageal echocardiograms, and they're not fun--to see if there's a possible blod clot. My Mother had a huge clot in the bottom chambers of her heart, this totally ruled out an electrical cardioversion--had a boatload of these things done too, it's basically a controled version of "Paddles...CLEAR" that you might see on ER--most commonly used to convert A-Fib patients.

After discovering the blood clot her Dr. told me he was going to begin Amiodarone therapy immediately. I protested. I'd been given this drug in an attempt to correct my A-Fib years earlier, with no luck. I was still taking the medication when the heads of cardiology at Duke University examined me. They pulled me off the drug telling me the side effects would kill me much quicker than the heart disease would. I told my Mother's Dr. my experience with the medicine and asked about possible alternatives. He told me that vast improvements had been made with the drug and he felt very comfortable with this treatment. I was very wary of this decision but what could I do? The doctors in N.C. had been so adamant about the danger of this drug I have been uneasy about her taking it ever since.

It was that uneasy feeling that prompted me to start researching the drug last night. It's consumed me ever since. I am shocked to know that thousands of Dr.'s are prescribing this poison to people daily. I alerted my sister to the information I'd found, she did her own detective work, and now we're both convinced, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this medicine is killing our Mother right in front of our eyes. While Amiodarone is very effective in treating many people, thousands die each year because of it. We are taking her the information we've found tomorrow and plan to have to beg her to seek a second opinion and alternative treatment(s). She trusts her cardiologist completely, and became very defensive of him to me two days ago when I suggested that since he's not been able to find out why she's so sick she might consider a second opinion. We both dread and fear what kind of reaction we'll recieve. But we have no choice. Because of the fact that she is our handicapped sister's primary support her health directly affects us both, we have to do this.

If you have a few free minutes please take a look at http://www.freep.com/news/hea... . I am happy to know that this drug's side effects is more than likely what's wrong with my Mother, but I am mad as hell after reading this link.