Butt Shot

Lyle doesn't like it when I take naked pictures of Jackson, but goddamn he is the cutest little naked thing in the whole world and I can't help myself. I decided I could post it over here since no one could track this by searching for his name or anything. If they think they are getting a butt shot of mom, well their loss. You have to admit, of all the butts in all the world...

Purety Madryna

I am in Purety Madryna or something like that [ez note: I looked it up, it is Puerto Madryn, Argentina--the title of the post is linked to an itenerary of her cruise]. We went into town this morning and it was very fun.

When I left home, my back was in spasm. I could not move side to side or forward and back in any direction from the waist. I had wheenchairs at every airport. Once I was seated on the plane (I had window seats for both legs) I didn't have to move or get up for anyone. When the planes landed I had quite a bit of pain on the touchdown because of all the shaking.

After we arrived in Buenes Aires, Gene gave me some magic muscle relaxer pills. He gave me four of them and said they could be taken every 4 or 6 hours. I took one then.

The Hotel rooms were ready when we got there at about 11:am so we got a little rest before the city tour at 2:30. That took about 4 hours and when we got back to the hotel I took another pill. I could now move forward and back from the waist.

We (me and Wanda and Sara and Eda) booked a prepaid dinner from the hotel which was for a restaurant names Guardelitos. An authentic Argentinian restaurant. We got there about 7:45 and were too early they didn't start seating people until 8. They let us sit down tho and then came to the table at 8. We showed them the vouchers from the hotel and they didn't seem to know anything about it. Sara had brought the information letters that the hotel had given us describing what was included. It included an appetizer, salad, entree, desert and 1/2 bottle of wine. We couldn't make out the Spanish menu. Sara went and talked to the (I assume) manager and worked out a menu with him. She ordered burritos for our appetizer, garden salad, and beef for the entree. I was skeptical. Beef covers a lot of territory. It turned out to be some of the best steaks I had ever seen or eaten. At desert time I told them it was my birthday so my piece of desert came with a candle and everyone sang happy birthday to me. 8 other people from our group had gone there.

I took another one of Gene's pills before bed and I woke up completely cured. Now I just have normal back pain from walking etc., Boy this is a big ship and there is a lot of walking. I brought my cane with a seat and it has been very handy. I bring it every time I go off the ship. There are at least 4 other people here that have the same cane. I only get 10 free minutes so goodby.

I will try to use Rita's and Monica's 10 minutes another time

Ready

I am so ready I could sit the rest of the time at the airport gate. Anything not packed now will be done without. Passport, tickets, money those are the important things that I'm carrying with me.

I thought that I would leave some of the clothes I used in California right in their laundry bag and have them laundered on the ship but it turns out I am constitutionally incapable to packing dirty clothes. Fortunately, there is nothing in my constitutional makeup that will keep me from weating said clean clothes even tho they will not have been ironed.

I am carrying my Handy Seat Cane to take along on excursions. I don't have a book to read on the trip, everything I have here is hardcover. I may need to make a trip to the 25 cent used book store. Good thing I'm not at the airport gate.

whirlwind

My whirlwind home visit is well under way. I have gotten through my mail. Taken care of my bills and I think I have everything I need to file my taxes. I went out this morning and purchased the Tax Cut programs and am downloading updates now. It took longer to figure out and prepare the rebate forms (4 different rebates) than I plan to spend filing the taxes. I have watched 2/3 of my tapes and only have 8 hours to go. I was able to fast-forward several hours because I watched the shows with Adrienne.

I dozed about 15 minutes out of every hour yesterday. Even through the Super Bowl. I managed to miss all of the touchdowns except the last Eagles one. I didn't like any monkey commercials but I did like the clydesdales wanna-be's.

I have unpacked my California suitcase and brought (thrown) it down the basement and am well under way to packing my cruise suitcase.

Tomorrow is haircut and Windsor casino. Wednesday is laundry. Thursday is finish packing and Friday I leave at 11:30 am via Ken's Airport Shuttle arranged by Jan.

Under the B's

I needed B-15. The game was the checkmark. Three bottom Bs and the diagnal I-G and O. The prize was $3,000.00. Within about 8 numbers I was waiting. Only 2 Bs had been called. My chances were excellent. She called another number, and another. As long as she didn't call a B I was safe. She called another number and another. As more numbers were called my chances of winning by myself went down considerably. She called another number. Sure enough Ted units started to jingle. Another number, more Teds jingling. Another number. Finally a B. There were 8 winners. I wasn't one of them. Sigh.

Reality

I started watching a few new reality shows that I didn't hate. They are, Wickedly Perfect, Runway Project, The Will, and American Dream Derby.

The reality is that nobody promises to keep these shows on the air. After one episode of The Will (although it is listed in the TV Guide) there are no future episodes scheduled to air in my area, according to the Yahoo TV listings. It was replaced last night by a Cold Case episode.

Runway Project is on Bravo and they run it so often that I have lost track of the ones I have seen and the ones I have not seen. American Dream Derby is on the Games Show Channel and now there is another Apprentice starting.

I have been juggling my VCR programs all over the place but even if I record 8 hours on each VCR there is no way I can watch them all before I leave for the cruise and then re-juggle for the next 17 days after that.

Alas, I am going to have to let go of reality and settle for just taping the fiction of Coronation Street because that one is never repeated in re-runs.

Dirty Harry

Can you believe that dirty little prince. I am not of an ethnicity to be absolutely enraged but I am of a generation to be absolutely appalled and I can certainly understand the rage. When William abdicates those pictures of Harry with the swastika are going to come back and keep him from being king. Why are kids so stupid?

Happy Birthday Gretchen

First the sad news. Jacques (of Andree and..) passed away last Thursday. He has been sick for a very long time.

As Jeannette and I were leaving for the Casino Windsor today she mentioned that today was Elaine's birthday. No, I said, I thought she was born on Gretchen's -- Oh My God, this is Gretchen's birthday (Happy Birthday Gretchen) What a fine couple of mothers we are. God took care of my punishment for that.

Parallel Universe

My regular hygienist was out sick today and I had a substitute. It took a long time to get the nitrous oxide right. I don't feel like I am well under until I understand the secrets of the parallel universe. Once I get to that stage, things start to move quickly and the whole process seems to be done in no time.

I just talked to Steph. She was looking for scrapbooking help and I let her know that she really had the wrong Van Houten. I told her our senior scrapbooker was coming to town on the 22nd and she said she could pick you guys up from the airport. She can park in the employee lot and meet you at the gate (actually she said, at the plane in the jetway). Gretchen also mentioned coming down to see Kat et al and offered to go to the airport. I have let Rita know that she doesn't need to worry about driving down there in the dark on the 22nd and she was relieved.

My last layer of snow that I didn't shovel not only did not melt, it has turned to ice. aargh. But it will be warmer tomorrow.

snow again, naturally

Gretchen was here for a few minutes yesterday and she shoveled the first layer of snow. I did my layer before I went to bed. This morning all the schools were closed and I needed to shovel again. Laurie was due today but she rescheduled for tomorrow. Todays snow was really heavy and sticky. I had to hit the shovel against the ground to make it let go. The next layer is slight enough that I didn't shovel again and if the sun shines tomorrow it will disappear. I don't think there is supposed to be any more tonight. I hope not because my dentist appointment is very early (8:00 am) and I don't shovel that early.

Did anybody watch West Wing last night. I can't decide if they have replaced Stockard Channing with someone who is trying to imitate her voice or if she just had an extreme makeover.

Alone again naturally

Erika just lift after putting my house back together and installing my new printer (Jeannttte's old printer, she got one that scans and copies for xmas)

Lyle left more than an hour ago with Jackson and Erika is meeting them at Sandra's for lunch. Then she will continue home and Lyle and Son are staying another couple of days with Sandra. List is staying in town for two weeks and that should be a good distraction for Sandra so she is not expecting Dennis to walk in any minute. That may happen later.

The preacher at the funeral service was very good and didn't try to pretend that he had known Dennis personally but incorporated stories of Dennis' life that he gleaned from Audrey, Lyle, Lisa and Sandra. Unable to sleep one night Sandra sat at the computer and wrote a synopsis of their life together and he used a lot of that.

The luncheon was at a Marriott hotel in Ypsi. Lyle took over the job of flowers and Cornell took over the job of the luncheon so Sandra was able to exhale and just let things happen for a while.

Jackson delighted everyone and was in turn delighted by the other children at the luncheon. They were all able to run faster than him so sometimes he was only able to catch up when they were on their way back.

My house is going to be very quiet for a couple of weeks until Erika and Jackson come back for their trip to California. I will just sit in my chair and doze until that happens.

happy new year

Hope you all had a nice passage into the New Year. I slept through mine.

The wedding was very nice yesterday. Did any of you know there was a city in Michigan called Argentine. That's where the reception was. It is a suburb of Fowlerville. The newlyweds are moving to Fayetteville, North Carolina where husband is stationed. He has two more years to serve and is very sure that he will be deployed at least once more to the Middle East. His last tour of duty was in Pakistan.

When I got home there was a dinosaur towel hanging in my kitchen, but baby was already in bed. Rita and I just got back from the funeral home and Dennis' wake. Jackson was getting pretty tired and miserable and Erika was contemplating bringing him back here for a nap. I wish I was able to be more help in coping with him myself and I could have brought him back and kept him here for the rest of the evening. Another drawback of having your babies late in life. Grandmas are useless.

Mother and child just walked in so I guess he is going down for a nap. So far, he's not crazy about the idea.

Efficiency

I get more done before breakfast.....

I exchanged one of the pair of jeans at K Mart, I ordered the flowers for Dennis, I picked up a wedding card for tomorrow and I filled up my gas tank. Filling up the gas tank wasn't on my "things to do" list but when I went out of the complex the gas station I go to most often which has been at $1.69 for months was at $1.79. Then, a relatively new station at the corner of Ford and Wayne was (and I still don't understand this) at $2.45. No kidding, $2.45 Regular, $2.55 and $2.65 higher grades. So when I passed a station that was still at $1.65 I grabbed it.

Ringing in the New Year

I thought I would update my blog from Erika's house but it turns out I have a hard time typing on her laptop, especially with little Jackson happy fingers wanting his turn.

I had a great Holliday with everybody around and then spending a few days at Erikas. Besides all the good Jackson time, we did get out to the Casino and went to see The Aviator yesterday.
I left early this morning to avoid all the rain and thundershowers that were predicted and I did avoid them. They were supposed to start here in Westland about noon but there's nothing yet.

I got home to three package deliveries inside my screen door. Even the one that said "Adult Signature Required". Not that I mind. It saved me a trip to Romulus to pick it up at the DHL depot. The first package (3 scripts) which had been sent "overnight" on the 22nd was delivered on the 28th according to their email notification. Express-scripts tried to charge me an $18.00 delivery charge but I called them this morning and they are taking it off. One of the packages (2 scripts) was delivered by USPS and in it one of the caps had broken and the pills were all over the bottom of the package. Only two capsules were actually broken but did it make a mess.

Our weather is on a roller coaster. We were below 0 last weekend and are expecting the 50s tomorrow.

Best Laid Plans

When I returned from shopping early this morning my plans were well laid. I planned not to leave the house until after Christmas. They predict 6 inches of snow tonight.

The purpose of my annual doctor visit is to refill prescriptions. I get my prescriptions by mail order and going to the doctor on 12/9 and then mailing the scripts in was cutting it pretty close. I had almost enough of my 4 maintenance meds to get through tomorrow (one of them ran out yesterday). I got a call from Express Scripts on the 14th saying they had received my order and were processing it. I figured no problem. Today I got a call from them saying that the prescriptions hadn't been filled out properly and they hadn't been able to verify everything with the doctor so they were sending out the 3 (of 6) that were ok and had to void the other 3 and were returning them to me. WHAT? WHICH 3? I had to give her a secret password before she would give me any further information.

She told me which ones, some of them didn't even have the name of the drug on them. I asked if I could get the doctor to call today could it be fixed. Well, she said, the ones that were voided would have to be rewritten. Couldn't they be called in, I asked. She didn't know but gave me the confirmation number to have the doctor ask for when he called in. I got in the car and drove to the doctor's office. I had no hope that my doctor would be in but its the office girls that do everything anyways.

They put me in touch with the girl (don't know if she was a nurse or not) that could help me, and she pulled my file and said that the pharmacy had faxed all 6 prescriptions back to the office and she personally had fixed them and faxed them back the same day, on the 14th. I asked if she would call them while I was there and tell me what they said. She was on the phone for a long time (I love her) and finally told me that all 6 prescriptions were being processed and I should receive them in 3 to 6 business days.

We have a lot of days coming up that are not business days, so she called Meijers for me and ordered a 14 day supply of the maintenance drugs. Then an hour long trip to Meijers (the street traffic, the parking lot traffic and the foot traffic in the store) and I'm all set for a couple of weeks.

The upshot is that there was a message from Express Scripts when I got home saying that this was a courtesy call to let me know that they had received my order on the 15th and it was being processed.

Aaargh

Frozen Mess

Remember when the temperature was 2? I had two 8/packs of plastic bottles and 2 12/packs of canned Diet Pepsi in my trunk. Now I have two 8/packs of frozen pepsi bottles and a big mess of frozen and broken cans all over the trunk. I couldn't figure out what the funny looking thing at the back of the trunk was. It looked like a small gas cap. It was the top of a pepsi can that had come clean off.

From this morning's shopping I left the chips and the crackers. At least they won't burst if they freeze.

Wayward Chocolate

Last night, in the spirit of not making too many trips, I brought three Hershey Kisses back to my chair with me as I came back from the kitchen. I like to unwrap them and line them up on my end table. then I bite off all of their peaks before I let each bottom half melt in my mouth.

Sounds good, right? Well, as I was unwrapping the third one, the chocolate morsel slipped off my lap. Just then the phone rang so I didn't follow its progress with my eyes. After conversing with Rita about her heat going off, and if the repair people didn't come out right away, of course, she should come to mine, I decided to go after the wayward chocolate (title bit).

I never found it.

I went out early this morning. The temperature was 2. I parked in the best space and had the store to myself.. No glittery top but KMart had twill pants on sale. I like their pants, they come in petite and all have pockets. I bought two pair in the spring (navy and white) and although they were comfortable when I tried them on, they fit better standing up than sitting around all day. The blue ones anyways. The white ones still have the tags on them. So I tried on a size bigger in black and beige. They were very baggy and dragged on the ground. So I ended up with two pair of Chic jeans (dark denim and black) that I like very much.

Then I went to Windsor Casino today and tomorrow. The bus arrived at the casino at about 2:00 and by 3:10 my money was all gone. All of my money and the $25.00 they gave me. I sat in the lobby for about 20 minutes contemplating how long the day was going to be without a TV or even a book.

Then I decided to act as tho it were tomorrow and I went to the bank machine and took out another $40.00. (I keep a canadian bank account for gambling purposes). Then I went and played downstairs and things started looking up. I was actually getting money back once in a while and almost holding my own.

The bad news is that downstairs the machines are still all coin and not ticket. So to avoid carrying so many coins I started playing quarters. I did OK on them and ended up at the poker machines. Tomorrow's money dwindled at a much slower pace and near the end of it, I hit 4 aces (which pays $40.00). I cashed in my coins and went back to the lobby for the last half hour to wait for the bus.

Now, I don't even have to leave the house tomorrow and I'm $5.00 ahead.

Baby its cold outside

I decided it was time that I bought a new glittery dressy top. The 14 day South American cruise has 4 or 5 formal nights and I haven't had anything new for years. Plus I am going to a wedding on January 1st for Nicole Beauregard (daughter of Paul who is son of John Robert) and I could wear it then. I went to Catherine's a couple days ago, armed with a 30% coupon and found nothing I liked. I planned to go to the Mall this morning (early before it got crowded) but like the title says, baby it was cold outside.

So I sat and dozed in my comfy chair and am now contemplating venturing out assuming most people are having dinner at this hour and it shouldn't be too crowded. Its still really cold and my shopping strategy is that I drive up to the store, and if there is no really close parking I move on to the next until I park really close or I come back home.

It would be a shame to venture out there just to drive around and come right back home. I'd better wait until tomorrow morning.

Finishing touches

Gretchen and Gordon just left here. She had a job interview and my guess is that now they are headed for a meeting before going back home. They put some finishing touches on my basement cleanup. Adrienne did the rough work while she was here. I haven't been down there to see how it looks yet but I did check that the lights are out. Something I failed to do before Adrienne left last week.

Gretchen said they broke down the boxes but left them stacked into two boxes pending my intended move. She also checked into old typewriters on ebay and all those advertised had been refurbished and none of us wants to bother getting a refurbisher.

As for the inexplicable crying. I remember periods of my life when crying was the most fun I had all day. It stops when its no fun anymore. Unfortunately that point comes for the bystander way before it does for the cryer.

New Dog in the Neighborhood

My next door neighbor, Carol, has a new dog. I haven't seen such a cute dog since Baily. He reminds me of Baily except his hair is short and curly. He's an all white, squirmy, little ball of fur. He reminds me of Cookie across the alley. I asked what kind he was and Carol said he is a special breed called Daisy (dog's name is Casey) bred for people with allergies. The breeder is in Grand Rapids and has a web site called daisydogs.com. Carol is going to be a very good mom.

The Holliday Park policy is no pets for new move-ins but if you had a pet and it dies you have a specific amount of time to replace it. I drove security Wednesday night with a lady that had only been here for 2 years and was getting a kitten. I had no plans to turn her in or anything but she continued with the explanation that she had been so depressed since her husband died last October that her doctor has written a prescription for a kitten and our board of directors is processing it. She is very excited and can't wait to get it. I'm happy to know there is a loophole for people who need it. I thought the no-pet policy was kind of harsh.

I'm Healthy

I had my annual doctor visit today and he said my tests were all excellent. I was able to answer no to all the questions about irregularities and allergies, they took bloodwork (those results in a few days) and an ekg and chest exray. I got to the exray place and it goes like this:

Are you having chest pains
No
Any caughing or congestion'
no
Do you smoke
no
Did you ever smoke
No
So why are you having the chest exray today
I figure its because I have Medicare

The facts that I can't stand more than 2 minutes, or walk more than 10 feet without sitting down, or the pain in my neck (which is almost all gone). Those are things that just happen.

So if my bloodwork is ok, he'll see me next year.

Haunted Pictures

One of the pictures on my picture totem must be haunted. This is the third day in a row that the thing has fallen down. I picked it up on Monday and yesterday Gretchen was here to set it back up. Today I picked it up, left it folded in thirds and leaned it up against the wall. I can see that one of the pictures has come loose from its frame but its between the folds and I don't know which one. This time, also, one of the hinges came apart and I picked up a couple of loose screws.

There is a carpet cleaning guy working next door and going back and forth to his truck and he is wearing only a t-shirt and shorts. It wasn't that warm when I went out this morning.

In case I forget, if anyone tries to use my Catch Phrase game and can't make it work, I have turned one of the batteries backwards because it kept going off by mistake.

Normality

Whatever that is, I am close to achieving it. From the time I dropped Adrienne at the airport, I didn't leave the house until yesterday afternoon. And I went to a Mall. As soon as I got home I crawled back into my chair and dozed the rest of the day. Now today, I've been up and out to the store and I even had breakfast. I fixed toast. That's the most complicated thing I've fixed for days.

The Flight of Time

We were having fun and time flew. The same airport that gave her to me two weeks ago swallowed her up again this morning. I thought I would come home and sleep for a week but so far not.

I am catching up on tapes I'm up to Boston Legal from 11/21. And speaking of tapes, I had forgotten one of the hazards of a cleaning person is that the aerials on the non-cable TVs gets moved around in the cleaning process so when I tried to tape The Apprentice last night I got staticy stuff with no sound. Lucky for me, the Apprentice is repeated tonight at 10 on CNBC.

The drive to the airport this morning was achieved at half-speed since the roads were coated with a thin layer of ice. But the sun is shining now.

Stephanie fixed Lasagna for dinner last night. I ate Lasagna for the first time in my life and it was way better than I would have expected. She told me her ingredients and I was fine with them. I would still never order it out though. After dinner we had a good game of Trivial Pursuit (20th Century) and me and Steph were being soundly defeated by Adrienne and Arn until I started listening to Steph more and accepting her answers, then we caught up. We still lost tho. Arn and Steph on a team together would have been pretty near unbeatable.

BTW I caught a Wave yesterday at Motor City to the tune of $80.00.

St. Vincent de Who

I will never give anything to those people again. They picked through all the stuff and left a big pile of garbage on my front lawn. They took only the things that looked like new and were still in the boxes. It was already almost dark when we got home and the task of cleaning all that up looked overwhelming. I called Jeff first because he has a truck. He wasn't home so I called Kelly. He wasn't home so I called Arnie. Arnie came to the rescue. Adrienne put what she could into my car and took it up to Salvation Army. There were some pretty big things (bed frame, table leafs etc) left that she didn't think would fit in the car. She was hoping Arnie would have an idea how to transport them. Before she got back, I was in the kitchen and there was a knock on the door. It was Arnie. He said, "Its all loaded up, where am I taking it". What a guy. We love him.

Amazing Amazon Daughter

This amazing daughter of mine is slowly filling my living room with stuff from my basement. Three corners of my basement are empty. I'm not sure if we'll get to the fourth corner tonight or not. All the stuff is going out on my porch tonight (or early tomorrow) and St. Vincent De Paul said they would pick it all up tomorrow. Isn't that great.

Others have blogged about the wonderful time we had all last week and the fun continues. When we got home on Monday, the HP maintenance guy was just putting the finishing touches on my bathroom repairs. He had stopped the leak (the other guy must have loosened it instead of tightening it) so I have hot and cold running water in my upstairs sink again. I have a bright new toilet with no cracks. The bad news is that the tank is a little rounder and doesn't follow the same lines that were painted around the old tank.

We spent the day at Windsor today and it was lots of fun. Jeannette came with us and nobody made any money and I was the biggest loser. Tomorrow its Greektown (the bus leaves Westland at 9:30 AM) and then Rita is taking us out to Red Robin for dinner. St. Vincent dp will have removed all the stuff from my porch by that time. Thursday morning at 8:00 AM when Joe* (pronounced Laurie) gets here, Jeannette is picking us up and we are going to Motor City. She (J) must be home in time to pick up her grandchildren (Elain's kids) from school so that should get us home in time for Adrienne to get some packing done before we go to Stephie's for dinner. Adrienne has prepared a Cherry Pie Cake for desert at Steph's and the house smells wonderful right now.

Smeverages

OK, Steph and Arn drink Cherry Coke, Jeff and Dana drink Diet Mountain Dew. They each drank one. That's the last time I run out and buy a 12 pack of something and I don't want anybody to do that for me either. Sometimes water is a very cool drink. Other than packing up all the undrunk pop to bring to Gretchen's today, the Pizza Party was a great success. Kelly didn't show up but Erika's friend Anna did. Steph brought me a gift of an electronic Catch Phrase and we played that last night. Poor Anna was recouperating from surgery and we made her laugh too hard anyways. One of the funniest was, the word was test tube and the giver said "you can make babies in this" and Jeff said "the back seat of a Camero".

We never missed a beat in the game while Jackson crawled around at will choosing who he wanted to be near. Adrienne never missed a turn and managed to clean up the whole kitchen while we were playing. Its so easy to give parties with daughters around.

Unleaky leak

The previous chapter of this saga is in the Amazon Reader blog because somebody put these buttons too close to each other.

The good news is that Gretch and Gordon stopped by last night and he turned off the water intake valve that was leaking and my pan was dry this morning. Gordon called down from upstairs "which one" and I said "the one under the cold water faucet" so I'm assuming that's the one he turned off. While it did take care of the leaky problem, it is the hot water that doesn't come out and the cold water runs fine. Go figure.

Beverages

My pizza party Saturday night is still growing. I know the kids (Steph and Arn) don't drink diet pop, but do they still drink Mountain Dew? That's the regular pop I plan to pick up for them. I'm pretty sure Jeff drinks Mountain Dew also. I asked Steph to bring her 90s Trivial Pursuit game.

I just called maintenance to remind them about my leak in the upstairs bathroom and to let them know that there is now a water spot on the kitchen ceiling and a crack in the kitchen wall. I asked that someone at least come over and turn off the water at that sink. I tried last week to turn it off and I can't turn the knobs.

OMG a week

I just noticed that my own post was a week ago. It just seemed too mundane to keep saying, I'm waiting for this or that repair person. But I'm still waiting for a repair person. The water is leaking under my upstairs vanity and has been for a week. Its seeping under the carpeting in the hallway and starting to get squishy. I reported it to the maintenance department last Friday but its not a big priority with them. Every once in a while I think about the possible damage to the hardwood floor under the carpeting, possible mold damage to the carpeting, possible damage to the bathroom tiles at the puddle spot, but not my problem. Also, while Laurie was cleaning last week she mentioned that my upstairs toilet has a good size crack on the outside of the bowl. I told them about that last Friday also.

Rita is coming with me to dominos tomorrow afternoon. I think she will like it.

TV Guide still driving me crazy. I watched the debut of Biggest Loser (some of it anyways) and decided I didn't like it. Then I caught the second (or third) episode on USA last week and liked it. So I taped it this week. Tuesday night from 8 pm to 9 pm just like it said in the book. Then the tape cut off right in the middle of the weigh-in. Why are they trying to alienate us? I don't imagine any of you watched that and know a)which team won and b) who was voted off?

One of the things I am going to have to figure out is what to tape while Adrienne is here and we are out gallivanting. Keeping in mind that we only have choices of 7 program slots and 8 hours of tape in each of three rooms. (4 if I use Gretchen's room) Before Adrienne and I leave for Gretchen's house on Sunday we are going to have to do a spreadsheet on this.

Speaking of Gretchen's (and Sunday at Gretchen's is just a way-station to Monday at Kewadin), Caroline (y'all remember Caroline, Rita's traveling companion for years) has given me some of her unused food coupons for Kewadin. The significant part about that is that Caroline is not a giving person. She is of my Dad's generation and doesn't let go of things easily. So I think its very nice of us to give her this opportunity to be generous. I was very grateful to her and will express my extreme gratitude again when I tell her how happy we were to use them. Rita told me she will give me hers also and I already have about 30.00 worth. How on earth will we ever use all those food coupons, hmmm. I vote we let Gordon hold on to them.

I also have a coupon from Bay Mills that they may or may not honor since it won't be my birthday month.

After a West Branch Thanksgiving and an Indiana weekend, we get home on Monday and need another spreadsheet to work out when we can watch all those tapes. Because we have Windsor on Tuesday (everybody with influence remind Adrienne not to forget her birth certificate), Greektown on Wednesday and Motor City on Thursday.

So, I have to sit here in pure boredom for another whole week. Except for dominos tomorrow. Oh and Tuesday Jeannette and I are going to Windsor and it turns out a whole group of people from Holiday Park are going that day too.

TV and Joe

Ever since the cable came back on I have been unable to get channel 2, (fox). There are only a couple of things I care about on channel 2 so its no big loss, but I pay those people every month to get all those channels and I want them. I am waiting for the cable guy now. He is supposed to be here before noon.

In better news, I have a new Joe. Her name is Lauri and she is working her magic as I type. I don't know if she will want to come this early every time. That might be a problem for me getting out of her way, the library doesn't open until 10. Today, since I am waiting for the cable guy, I will stay here and see how she does anyways.

What kills me about this election is the information that the thing that brought out so many voters is the moral issues. I wish some newsmagazine would pick out a few of these people who say they are concerned about morals and do a hidden camera story about their personal morals. I think most of them would be revealed as hypocrites.

cable company

Regarding my cable problem

on reflection in my bed last night I wondered if a connection behind my TV might have come loose and should I check that before I call the cable company. Thinking about the size of the TV and the difficulty of getting behind it I had almost decided not to check it and just call the cable people and let them come out here and check it. Then I got a good night's sleep.

Then this morning; thinking about how much they might want to charge me to come out and check my connections I decided to try to pull out the TV and check them myself. Really not as difficult as I had thought. It turns out there is room to sort of swivel the TV without actually having to remove it from its cubby hole. But the connections were fine.

I did call the cable company this morning and waited 17 minutes for Tiffany to say "Well Ma'am we are experiencing difficulty in your area and we are working on it." Arghhh.

A Blustery day

They said on the news that Saturday was going to be a very windy day. I hardly took notice knowing that it had nothing to do with me. Then about 1:15 pm everything in my house shut down. When this happens I usually hold my breath for a minute hoping that it will go back on fast enough to retain the programs on all my electronic stuff. When it lasted more than 5 minutes I thought Oh Shucks. I had already reset the clock and VCR (including adjusting the recording programs) upstairs to reflect the new time and would now have to do it again. Once I got over that disappointment I picked up a new book.

When I started to get hungry I went through all the usual, I'll just have..... Everything I was just going to have required a burner, microwave, toaster or something. So I waited. Maybe the power would come back on before long. It started to get dark.

Rita, who did not lose power, brought over a fluorescent lantern that she had and offered to take anything from my freezer that might spoil. Like if I had Ice Cream or anything. She wanted to make sure that I knew that ice cream wouldn't last very long so if I had ice cream she would take it for me. I assured her that I had no ice cream and as long as I didn't open the freezer everything should be fine. When she came over I had been reading by the light of two candles on my side table. The lantern was a bit better. The instructions said it should last 6 hours. After 3 hours the light was dim enough that the candle power beat it out. So I went back to candles.

I realized that I was still hungry and settled for crackers with peanut butter. The peanut butter jar was low. Did you ever try to scrape the bottom (and sides) of a peanut butter jar by candlelight? Just can't do a good job.

You want to see something funny? Picture an old lady who needs two handrails to make it safely upstairs trying to go upstairs with two lit candles and an open can of Pepsi. I left one candle burning as a night light figuring that even if it burned out, when I woke up it would be daylight. I woke up when the candle got far enough to the bottom that it shattered the candle holder and the pieces fell onto the desk. There was no flame by that time so not to worry.

It was daylight when I woke up, but still no power. I gleaned another couple of crackers worth of peanut butter out of the jar before I threw it away. Rather than sit around powerless all day I decided to go to the casino and took the windsor bus trip.

When I got home about 8 pm. the power was back and had been since about 5. Long enough to heat up the house and cool off everything in the fridge. The freezer stuff is just fine.

Now my TV is all messed up. The channels are coming in fuzzy and then disappear alltogether. The cable ones are not coming in at all right now. They were fine when I first reset the channels. I don't think there is much I can do about it tonight, I'll call the cable people tomorrow.

Drugs have worn off

My root has been cannelled and all the numbness is gone. Seems like a trip to the dentist used to leave one unable to eat or feel your lips for hours and hours. Even with the nitrous and novacain I still can't help crying. This Endodontist was a new person and he was feeling bad. He asked me if my eyes always tear up and I said "only when I cry".

I heard a piece on NPR about our Proposal 2, regarding a constitutional ammendment banning same sex marriages. It seems Michigan already has a law banning same and the passage of this proposition will not change things considerably. Nobody mentioned that without the ammendmant the existing law would be subject to challange in the courts.

I have received my official letter from the membership committee. As of November 1st I am on the waiting list for transfer to 34721 Spring Valley.

Racing again

I just saw a promo for and met the contestants on Amazing Race 6. It starts a week from Tuesday on the 16th. There is the requisite old couple in their 60s, more than one modeling couple, a sister team and some party people.

My hard drive has been periodically squeaking lately. Anybody know what that means. Also every once in a while (like this morning) the computer is off when I get up. I don't turn it off at night.

I've got about one more hour before I have to leave for the dentist and root canal. Yuch.

Immagine me, a guru

There is actually someone that knows less about computers than I do. I am Jeannette's computer guru. We got her all installed with aol tonight and she is happy as a clam. She has never really had actual internet with her Juno, just email. She is very excited that the aol welcome screen shows you the current weather etc.

She was here when I was talking to Adrienne on IM and couldn't believe we were able to have a "real time" conversation. She is excited about that and has already tried it with me since I got home.

Now, if we could only find a way to incorporate her existing address list. I showed her how to use the aol help and its on her to-do list for tomorrow to ask aol how to do that.

Thinking family

You guys are the best at thinking red. We have the St. Louis/Boston world series and now St. Louis doesn't have to win anything any more. We want Boston all the way. In 4 please. If St. Louis wins one the Bostonians will get nervous.

I ran into Susie (Suchy's cleaning lady) this morning and told her I was still in the market if she knew anybody. I had already asked her but she didn't have time to add new clients. She said she is thinking of getting a helper and taking more jobs. I told her to keep me in mind.

I did my absentee ballot yesterday. I hadn't heard one word about it but we have a proposal on the ballot for same sex marriage. It says "This proposal would amend the state constitution to provide that "the union of one man and one woman in marriage shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose." Should this proposal be adopted?

I have zero trust in my fellow Michiganians to expect the correct outcome of this proposal.

Good Job, Keep Thinking Red

We did so good getting Boston the AL Pennant. Now we have to think red for the cardinals on the St. Louis uniforms.

Think Red

We all have to think Red for Boston tonight. I have always felt a little bit guilty since Detroit beat them out in 1968. Now they finally have another shot against many odds.

Baby Steps

I don't mean to steal Erika's thunder by posting this before she did but I am just so geeked. Jackson took two (count them - two) baby steps toward Lyle last night. He had been taking one a couple of times between the ottoman and chair and such, but he was examining the buttons on the DVD player last night and Lyle held out his arms and Jackson took two steps to him. It looked like he didn't even have to think about it.

I had such a great visit this weekend. Jackson is just wonderful. Look at me, I'm preaching to the choir.

We had Erika's movie thing at Sammy's house on Friday night. The movie we saw (Casa de los Babys) should only be seen for the purpose of having a discussion. If you see it on your own and have noone with which to share interpretations, there's just no point.

We went to the Casino and discovered that Harrah's has redecorated their lobby area and have added a 50s diner. We ate there on our way out and it was very good. So that will be our Indiana Casino of choice if we get to one while Adrienne is here.

I told Erika that Adrienne and I are driving down there with her (separate cars) the weekend after Thanksgiving so that if she and Lyle wanted to plan themselves an adult outing, Adrienne could handle the running around part of the babysitting and I can give the hugs.

transfer

I submitted my papers for transfer yesterday. After receiving all my quarterly investment statements I was armed with my financial information necessary to do that. The Unit I am requesting transfer to is Kitty-Korner from Rita and now all I have to do (assuming that my request is approved) is wait for the lady that lives there to move out or die.

Broken In

Finally broke in the dryer. For the first load I forgot a dryer sheet. First time in a long long time that has happened to me. This dryer has a cool down period before the buzzer goes off (oh, first time in a long long time for a buzzer too) so everything was nice and cool. I'm used to hot clothes. I just had to take out one nightgown and all the underwear came with it. If it had been dark out, I could have lit up the whole basement.

Toilet repair guy plunged and flushed. He didn't see any seeping water so I must have immagined it. The heck with them. What do I care if the floor gets ruined. One of the tiles behind the toilet is cracked to I don't think the seepage I noticed was the first time.

Today is Kelly's birthday. His email is kjsheedy@netzero.net

Wet and Dry

You teen people who don't post because nothing is going on in your lives just keep reading my blog and see how boring life can really be.

I lugged my laundry down (as far as the kitchen) this morning. I was going to use my new dryer for the first time. I have been feeling pretty good, leg-wise lately and figured I could do a few trips to the basement today. I am incredibly lazy and any misc. pain is a good excuse to put off most tasks. But today I get to be relatively pain free and still indulge my laziness.

I noticed last night that when I flush my upstairs toilet, the bowl fills up and then water seeps out onto the floor in the back. Not all the water, just some of it. So I called maintenance this morning and she is sending someone out, maybe even today. So, on the assumption that when they come they will have to turn the water off... and nobody wants the water to get shut off while they are doing laundry... See where I'm going?

The sacrifices I make.

Endurance and other TV

I have become a big fan of the Saturday morning kids show, Endurance 3. Its like a kids version of survivor except I think they are fed regularly and have sleeping quarters. They complete missions in teams of two (boy, girl) and the winners send two opposing teams to the Temple and only one team returns.

This week they picked their teammates and one poor girl had to team up with "girly boy", Marvin (or Melvin or something). He's way more "girly" than any of the girls and should provide some comic relief.

I don't mean to make fun of him, I'm sure his mother loves him and I would be very happy if he proves me wrong and wins the whole thing.

I liked the outcome of the Complex Malibu. Its not so much that I was hoping they would win, I just hoped nobody else would.

I also came across a show on TBS called The Mansion where a team of 8 or so are completing renovation challenges for prize money, and the foreman of each challenge has to distribute the money at their discretion in predetermined amounts. The last foreman kept all the money. She has some p-o'd teammates.

I'm Impressed

Finally some media political commentary that was actually helpful. Last night after the VP debate they showed a comment by Cheney saying that it was simply not true that he had ever accused Saddam Hussein of being responsible for 9/11. Then NBC cut to an interview on Meet the Press from 2003 where he said exactly that.

Then this morning on NPR they explained Cheney's comment that even though he was President of the Senate he had never met John Edwards until yesterday. They said that Cheney had met very few Democrats and that he mostly went to the senate to preside over the Republican luncheons.

Maybe I will start paying more attention to the media. Then again, maybe not. I managed to pick up these gems at my current level of attention.

In other news. The dryer saga continues. It seems that a delivery truck has damaged some shingles on our carport in Lot 12. Since I was the only one to have a delivery last Thursday (the damage was noticed on Friday) the consensus is that it was the Sears delivery truck at fault. I have called the delivery people and lodged the complaint but the problem is that no one saw it happen. The truck people said they would have someone contact me within 48 hours. When that didn't happen, I called them again and you'll never guess what. They had no record of my call. I gave them the name of the girl I talked to but that didn't help. Now I have a new name and they have another 48 hours to get back to me.

In health news. Last Saturday I determined that I would call the doctor on Monday about my neck pain. By Monday I no longer thought that was necessary. Today my neck and legs were in such good working order I even went shopping and I learned that my back pain is just waiting there in the wings for me to be able to walk far enough or stay on my feet long enough for it to engage. The good part about that is that when I sit down it goes away.

So life is good.

A Winters' Night

We just spent a great evening at Stephanie's. Rita came with me and we were the only ones there out of Steph's generation. They had about 10 friends over, most of whom were helping them cook and set up.

We had burgers and french fries and salad with all the trimmings for each. We had multiple choices of fruits and melons for desert and then in the middle of the Trivial Pursuit game she made some chocolate chip cookies. I was teamed with Bryant for the TP and we had the most pies when the game broke up.

She has a passable two bedroom apartment. It was very hard to find. The layout of the property reminds me of beach rentals and such. A low flat building with about 4 apartments in it built out behind the main house. It is enough in the country that they have horses next door.

The address of the main house is 14170 Huron River Drive, Romulus, MI. Her new phone number is 734 229 0325.

Arn is still working at the hospital and she is working at the airport doing menial work on Northwest airplanes. She didn't seem to get a lot of hours, and she said they didn't pay much. But after the probationary time, if she gets on full time, the benefits are pretty great. Including, but not limited to, free flying advantages for family members (grandparents included).

We can be proud of our Steph. She picked a good husband and has very nice friends.

Necking for senior citizens

Spent the whole day watching tv, trying not to move my neck. Didn't pick up my book during commercials, put my crocheting (afghan for Elise) across the room so I wouldn't pick it up by accident, didn't come over to the computer, BORING. If any of you ever have to try this, let me give a little piece of information I certainly never thought of. When you start to nod off and your chin gets closer and closer to your chest, that is bending your neck and the twinge will wake you up.

As my reward, today I can look up and I can look down and I can look this way and I can look that way. I can't look behind me, but who really needs to do that anyways. I am ready to resume normal activity and see what happens. I have to be limber for my dentist appointment tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow evening I am going to Stephanie's new appartment . They are having family over for hot dogs etc. This makes me think that they have yard space suitable for barbequeing. The directions I have for getting there sound easy enough. I also got a call from Arn saying that Steph had to give up her cell phone, so the only way to reach them was thru Dana.

My dryer will be delivered between 1:00 and 3:00 this afternoon. It's very pretty. It's going to feel out of place in my basement, poor thing.

Keeping my powder dry

I did go back to Sears but this time I was armed with some model numbers and prices off the internet. I didn't see the salesman I talked to yesterday so already I felt reassured. There were two models on sale that I was interested in and I was glad that I could look at and compare them in person. The price differential was only $20.00 and I got the higher one. It had one extra knob on the top which to me was almost a deal killer (I like on and off) but the door opened down as opposed to sideways and I liked that part.

The dryer should be delivered and installed tomorrow. My salesman's name was Paul and he was my new best friend. Then as I was signing the credit card receipt he mentioned how glad he was that I came back after I had told him yesterday that I was going to shop around.

In other news, I have a huge pain in the neck. I think it might be from being caught in a draft at Kewadin but its lasting an awfully long time. There are many ordinary things that I am surprised I use my neck for. Like driving, typing on the computer, reading, and crocheting. I have been doing these things with impunity and last night I was beyond pain. It is much much better today and my plan is not to agrivate it. This will be my last trip to the computer today and I will spend the rest of the day watching tv without moving my head.

Comic dryers

Oh, my God. I will not tape Comics one more time. I just saw a promo for the show featuring the dog and I'm afraid that might contaminate my tape.

I went dryer shopping this morning. I went to Best Buy and the sales guy was busy so I just looked around and there were nothing but electric dryers so I left. I went to Sears and the sales guy devoted himself to me and I couldn't stand him, so I left. I will try Lowe's this afternoon if I can make myself go back out.

The Sears guy (when talking about delivery and installation which was way too much money to please me) asked did I have a shut off valve and copper pipes because if I didn't they would not install it. I asked, how would I know if I had that and he said "You can see can't you." That's pretty much where he lost me. If I end up going back to Sears I would want another sales person. I don't remember what the guy looked like and certainly didn't get his name or anything so I figure I will have to go for a female sales person.

I did go downstairs and saw the shut off valve and copper pipes. At least I saw copper and there were three shut off valves, one of which I'm pretty sure is for the outside water faucets so the other two must be washer and dryer, right?

Amish comics

Amish in the City is over. Everybody said goodbye, cry, cry, cry. One of the Amish kids took his GED while in the house and passed it with flying colors and has decided he wants to go to college. Of the five amish kids, that one wants to go to college, the other two boys want to move back to the country (they've had enough city life) but not to the Amish and the two girls want to pursue, nursing and other city options. None of them ruled out returning to the Amish some day, but just not yet.

I was getting pretty tired of the Last Comic Standing and adding Carrot Top was the last straw. With him and Jay London on the same show it has freed up a slot in my VCR programming.

Yeaa Chip, Boo Drew

I was hoping for the Cowboy on BB but, oh well. Gretchen had a good idea that the whole 13 member cast should have to get together now and watch all episodes of the show. They could make a whole new show about it. I would watch their collective reactions to each show every week.

The ending of the race had me crying copiously. I was so glad for Chip and Kim. They were a great racing couple. No whining among them and in the end it was Kim's shrewd assessment that got them ticketed on the best flights.

I still haven't seen anything on TV or in the Guide about a new Race starting soon.

Kewadin and dryers

Kewadin was great. How can so much fun be so tiring. I always have trouble sleeping before a trip of any kind so I didn't sleep more than a couple of hours on Sunday night. Monday night Jeannette and I were both wiped out by 10:00 back in our room and after setting the sleep timer, fell asleep during the poker reruns. (By the way, Yeaa Annie Duke) Shortly after my regular 4:45 bathroom break I was jarred by some really loud country music with intervals of commercials for products that could only be sold by the decible. If I turned on my right side, thus covering my good ear, the noise was somewhat muffled. For some reason, God found it amusing to put my good ear on my bad side so that wasn't a long term solution. I thought about calling the desk, or pounding on the wall but I didn't want to disturb Jeannette who seemed to be sleeping through it. After a really long time it stopped. The silence was golden. I was rudely awakened by the same stuff at 5:50 and at about 6:15 I went out in the hall and knocked on the door of the offending neighbor. I knocked a couple of times and pounded a couple of times. No answer. When I got back into the room, I figured Jeannette had been disturbed by this time and I called the front desk and asked if there was any way they could get the people in room 501 to turn down their radio. The answer was, "We can try."

Then for the next 15 minutes or so we could hear the sound of their phone ringing as well as all the radio sounds. By this time we decided to be up, and at 7:00 we called the friends we came with (Jim and Eileen) and made arrangements to go to breakfast and start the day.

So back home in my own little bed, I had a great night's sleep and felt wonderful this morning. I have taken care of 3 things on my to-do list and as soon as I finish this post the productive part of my day is over.

As for the dryer, Jan Suchy told me the most knowledgeable person on the maintenance staff about appliances was Ross. So I called him this morning and described my problem. He didn't think he would have proper access to needed parts and suggested an appliance repair place he was familiar with. I called them. It seems the words "pilot light" is what threw everybody. I guess gas dryers don't have pilot lights any more and haven't had for some years now. The guy asked me how old it was (its about 25 years old) and suggested that I should be in the market for a new one. So that's where I am.

Surviving dryers

Vanauatu has a lot of tribal rites that I can live without. That part was pretty stupid for as much as they hyped it. At the first tribal council they said it was like day 3? Does that mean that they all survived without any drinking water for 3 days? And they never mentioned any of that. I would rather have seen a lot more of their day-to-day stuff than "rites of passage".

Thank you, Marty for the diagnosis on my dryer. I haven't tested it out yet. But I have learned that there are folk here that hire the maintenance people on their own time to do odd jobs and when I get back from Kewadin on Wednesday I'm going to give that a try.

Monica has gone back to Treasure Island hoping that the hurricane season is over for Florida. She said that Debbie has severe structural damage to her house (in Deltona) and they are living in a hotel until the end of September.

I am content with the last two standing on BB. Again, would rather have had more footage of the jury house than more speeches about "why you think the HOH should choose you". Those speeches are just so repetitive and useless. But maybe they are keeping the good stuff for people who pay for it on the internet.

Mirna and Shmirna were on Mad TV last night. Anybody catch them?

Moms and fossil

Credit where due - way to go Fossilman.

Those trading moms - That stuff has got to be scripted. And the writers are very silly. Why would they put a 2 year old husband and a 3 year old teenager on the same show? Those ladies were actually glad to be home.

I have often had a pretty low opinion of the people with whom we share this planet, but this is pretty sad. The mothers-in-law seem to make out the best in these things, money-wise and dignity-wise so if any of you are ready to apply for the show, let me know and I'll be glad to move in for the duration.

Diane is still the dumbest thing on BB, but I'd still rather see her win than Drew.

Chip and Kim look pretty good for AR, but I'm really sorry Colin & Co. didn't get eliminated. Their revenge could be a factor.

Watched some of the new season shows. Everwood is OK. Vegas made me really not care and LAX is right up there with Vegas. If anything else opens up for Mondays I'll be happy to give it a try.

dryers and electricity

Kelly just stopped over to look at my dryer. It stopped heating in the middle of my first load yesterday. I had everything hanging around the basement on hangers to dry. He brought all those upstairs for me before he left too. He got the pilot light lit but it wouldn't stay on. So now I don't know whether to call a repairperson or just look for a new one. This one is pretty old. I moved it from Navy and I don't remember how long I had it there. In any event, now that my clothes are clean and I don't need no stinken dryer, I have a while to make that decision. This week I won't just throw the flyers from Lowes and Best Buy out without looking at them.

College Football - Credit where due, good job Notre Dame. Also, I got to see Ohio State get their game winning field goal with 2 seconds on the clock. I want to know why Western Michigan didn't get a basket attached to their goal posts like the guys that beat them 63 to 0. And the South Carolia team; are they serious. With those black shirts and pants at best it looks like they are playing in wetsuits and at worst, with the black helmet too, they look like aliens running around on the field.

It would seem that Russion tennis is no longer just a pretty face. At least not just one pretty face. Nobody even mentioned Anna K this week.

I lost electricity twice yesterday. Just long enough apart that I had made my way through the kitchen and living room resetting everything. Upstairs never gets reset until bedtime. I always wait a while to make sure its going to stay on. I was in the middle of resetting the programs on my living room VCR when it went out again. I couldn't believe it. Lucky for them, I make a list of what I want to tape upstairs, downstairs and kitchen when the new TV Guide comes out so I still had that list to work from. I don't think I will ever throw out those lists again.

BB - best case scenario. Nikomis wins the veto and throws Diane's butt off.

No Joe

Well, Joe was scheduled to clean today and I haven't heard from him. I'm afraid our relationship is over. I have been getting the hint that he was moving on to bigger and better things for several months now. So I am back in the market again. The Suchy's like their lady so I am planning to ask them for her number.

I was interviewed via phone for the local newspaper yesterday. They are covering the issue of handicapped parking at the Westland Library and I am on record over there as having complained about it. There must have been a lot of us complaining because the City is actually contemplating change.

First they took out Agasi and Roddick and now Davenport and Capriati are gone. Is there no end. Where do I complain about that?

the Real World of slambonis

The hurricane Francis has reached New York and its raining in Flushing Meadows. That is giving the commentators plenty of time to exhaust the controversy from last nights Serina, Jennifer match. I haven't heard whether there has been a conclusion to the question about the chair umpire as to "was she blind," (bad line call -- the linesperson called the ball in) or "was she stupid" (bad score keeping). Either way, Pat McEnroe said she most definitely will never umpire another singles match. Why the lady would still be working in tennis is a mystery to me. I would be interested in knowing whether these officials, linespeople and umpires are paid professionals or just volunteers.

The rain delay has also given me an opportunity to channel surf with a much farther reaching surfboard. I discovered the Daily Show at 10:00 AM and West Wing at 11. I watched something on E yesterday about past episodes of Real World that piqued my interest and lucky me, the new season of Real World, Philadelphia started last night. I was there. Its no Amish in the City, but it could be a filler while I tape the stuff I really like.

As I go back and forth to the U. S. Open I see they are using something to dry off the tennis court that they are calling Slambonis and look like the Ice Zambonis but seem to work like a riding hair dryer.

Tom Cruise can still run and Ken still rules

Usually the cordless phone in my bedroom lives in its cradle. But, when I'm expecting a call and don't want to wake my guests (like this weekend) I keep it right next to the bed. After the weekend had passed it forgot to jump back into its cradle. So when Elise called me a 9:00 am Monday morning, while I had one foot in the shower and one foot out, I got back to the bedroom , picked it up and just had time to hear and say hello before the phone died. So I went into Gretchen's room where there is a land-line phone to call her back. That's one of the things that got unplugged when Jackson was roaming. While I was looking for the end of the plug the phone rang again and the answering machine in the kitchen picked up. I considered coming downstairs and calling her back, but once I come downstairs of a day, I rarely go back up. That would mean forgoing the shower. While considering all this I found the end of the phone cord and plugged it back in just as it rang again. Elise is very persistent. So we made our plans and my day started.

In our young married days, the Van Houtens and the Sylvesters did a lot of socializing and they have lived in the same house this whole time. There is no excuse for how lost I got going over there. I stopped two little boys on bikes and asked about her street, Madison and they had never heard of it. I knew I was in the right neighborhood. There was a tow truck and driver at the next corner and I asked them. They never heard of it either. The tow truck operator was nice enough to let me use his cell phone and I had to call Elise for directions. Of course it was easy once I remembered the one little turn I had missed.

We had a nice leisurly breakfast at Rex's. A nice family restaurant right on the corner of Michigan and Wayne Rd. (which reminds me, I forgot to have my leftover french toast and ham this morning)((yes, I did remember to bring it home)). Elise and Larry have recently returned from a trip to Montreal and a visit with Les MaTantes so she had news and pictures. The three remaining active MaTantes are Julia (84) Frieda (86) and Monique (88). The inactive MaTante is Marie-Claire (80) who is paralized and in a nursing home.

Conversation turned to games and they mentioned dominos. I said I had some and would be happy to teach them to play. So we decided to call Jeannette and invite her to a game after the movie. Elise drives a top-end Cadillac with all the bells and whistles including GPS. What a wonderful and fun thing. And, boy, do I ever have two sisters that need that.

We went to see Collateral, that's how I know that Tom can still run. Don't let the grey hair fool you. It was very good. Way too much background music while people just looked at each other that I would have cut out but maybe there are folk who like that stuff.

We picked up Jeannette after the movie and played dominos in the enclosed-porch type screen room that the Sylvesters had build onto the side of their garage. A very cool place in every sense of the word.

So, now, I just watched last nights Jeopardy and Ken still rules.

Mel's here and Jackson loves her

Mel is here and Jackson is very excited to see her. He wants very much to show her two teeth before she leaves. He was heartbroken that the second tooth didn't come out last night. He was trying so hard to push it out he was just inconsolable.

It was a pretty good visit all around. Both Jackson and Mel did nighttime very well. Mel got to play with her "babies" in the water. Bryan (5) even swam some. I just saw a little piece of it so I don't know how good he really was. Joshua is a cutie and fell in love with my right leg. He's at the "kiss the baby" stage (15 mos) but Jackson bobbed up and down a lot and I was afraid one of them would get hurt. But everyone survived. We had about 16 people up at the pool and one of the lifeguards heard thunder and everyone had to get out. The kids played on the green for a while then it started to rain lightly. We pretty much gave up and Gretchen and her crowd came home and changed to go up to Chucky Cheese. Jackson was napping so me and Erika and Rita sat under the tree till he woke up.

While the rest of the crowd was at CCs is when Jackson tried so hard to push that tooth out. Poor baby was miserable till we got the Tylenol. Then he was happy and playful when everybody came home. All the foreigners drove home last night and it was just family here overnight. We rousted everybody to go out to breakfast this morning. After breakfast the Gerth clan went to see his family and Jackson gave his tooth another try. Poor baby again. Its so hard when you know they are in pain and can't help them. Erika packed him up and got him in the car right after his dose of tylenol and hopefully he will sleep on the way home.

Now I'm all alone again and will probably need a nap before long. I'm supposed to go out with Elise and Larry tomorrow. I would like to go see Papparazzi but I don't know what they have already seen.

Too Much Too Fast

I just watched the Renovate my life with the Biggins family. Good Lord. Who in that family is going to take care of that house. Are they nuts? I would be very interested in a follow up show on them in a year. Also, how does this impact the money she won on the other show?

Saturday plans: I will pick up Mel whenever she calls, Erika and Jackson will be here sometime mid-morning. Stephanie and Arn and Dana are coming about 3:30 and Steph is bringing pop she has leftover from the festivities. I'm not sure yet what to expect from the West Branch contingent

Aches and Wasps

The last part of August was not kind to me. I have decided to blame the weather that all my parts that knew how to ache were aching for many days. For about 6 nights I didn't get any sleep without a pain pill and a sleeping pill. Then Jackson came to visit. I haven't taken either pill since Friday night and so I was able to participate in much of Jackson's nocturnal play time Saturday night. Very good therapy for any ailment. Sunday night, which started about 7:30 and much of the day Monday (in bed when I was in bed and on my chair when I was "up") I slept like a ...... Grandma.

Now, I'm well rested, joints all back to normal and ready and eager to enjoy the U.S. Open. However, I'm afraid that the "bad spell" has kept me from bringing my game up to speed to participate in the doubles. Sorry Mary, we'll have to take this year off.

I have acquired this huge ant hill about a foot from my front porch on the edge of the sidewalk. I just found out that it is a "digger wasp" nest. The good news is that they lay only one egg per nest so only one wasp will come out of it. The bad news is they are about 3" long and they fly. The other good news is that if you don't bother them, they won't bother you. They picked the right place because I will certainly not bother them. I called maintenance about it and the company that sprays for such things will be out one day next week and I am on their list.

Steph's wedding and Hold Em

Our whole party was a few minutes late. I am so sorry Steph. We didn't leave home early enough to account for traffic etc. I thought it would take less time than it did to get there. I still would have missed the Chapel if Gretchen hadn't turned left in to it off Telegraph Road. We (me and Kat) still missed the turn and had to go farther down to do the U turn thing. Poor Dana was strolling Telegraph Road looking for us and brought me my Grandmother's corsage and hustled us inside.

The chapel was tiny so there wasn't a very long walk down for the wedding party. Arn emerged first looking great. No turban bandage on his head or anything. Then cute girls in cute dresses blah, blah. Then it was Steph and Jeff. The first of many Kleenex moments for me. Steph looked gorgeous in her dress. She and Arn had matching hair dye and I actually liked it. (a very yellow blond) It looked good on both of them. After a few pictures at the end of the wedding the important people went to a park to take more pictures. I had a bad walking and standing day so we decided to go directly to the hall and wait there.

The hall was decorated beautifully. All those little details that Steph was obsessing about the last couple of months turned out great. The candy bars, the candles, the balloons, the beta fish, she even had little cards with bells on them for people to ring when they wanted the newlyweds to kiss. The toasting wine and little plastic glasses. The fish were a navy blue color and the fishbowls all had blue, white and black stones at the bottom and were placed on a blue placemat and surrounded by white-wrapped mints. I'm sure I'm forgetting some of the details but it was just great.

The food was some of the best I've ever had at a catered event. The DJ did a great job. All the usual, introducing the bridal party etc. garter throw and bouquet throw. They even got Kathy and Megan to go up and try to catch the bouquet and Kelly to go up to try to catch the garter. I'm not going to pretend to you that any of them tried very hard.

When we got home, Jackson was playing in the living room and played with us till his mean mom made him take his bath and go to bed. He knows how to deal with mean moms. Let me tell you, he was the baby from Elm street all night. He was delightful and playing between 1:30 and 4:30 and after a pick-me-up nap he was back up and ready to play at about 7. The delightful part is how he exacts his revenge. He knows you gotta love him.

Not knowing what else to do with him without waking up the whole household Erika and I took him over to Rita's house where Kathy had spent the night and Kat took over with him while Erika was able to catch a little pick-me-up of her own. Rita slept right through most of it.

So, the Hold Em, we played for about an hour. Me, Erika, Gretchen and Gordon. We each started with a roll of pennies and we started with a 4 cent blind. It was lots of fun and is totally doable. Gretchen knew more of the finer points than I did so now we really know what we're doing. Not quite ready for TV tho.

Now I'm all alone again till next Saturday when Mel gets here. Hopefully the weather will be a nice as they say its going to be and a big group will come down from west branch to swim and frolic. All are invited. If the pool becomes not an option weather-wise Gretchen has other ideas for entertaining the troops.

Texas Hold Em

After dominos today we were all talking about how much we liked watching the 2004 World Series of Poker. We talked about starting a Texas Hold Em game up at the clubhouse. Lynn and Nicki Walker said they had played it as a family. I want to do that next time we're together. That would be Sunday if the weather is too bad for the pool we could totally do that. Everybody has to start with the same amount of money and when your money is gone you're out. I have several rolls of pennies. We could start with a 6 cent blind and build it up every time someone goes out. Who's in?

Kleenex moment

When the Israeli sailing person got his gold medal and a whole group in the audience sang the Israeli National Anthem it was rivaled only by the moment when the Greek girl that won the 400m race got hers and the whole stadium sang the Greek National Anthem. Those were kleenex moments for me.

Australians and horses

Racing horses, OK. Jumping horses, OK. But dancing horses. That's not a sport that's a circus act. I couldn't believe I was watching a horse dance to George Gershwin tunes. It was just sad.

Then the triathalon. The Australian girl did a tremendous job. She was leading all the way then at the last 30 seconds she was passed by the Austrian girl who got the gold medal and the Australian had to settle for silver. But, gee, the gold medalist was Australian, she was just on the Austrian team because she couldn't get on the Australian team. What??

That's like when Miss Taiwan won the Miss Universe contest only it turns out that Miss Taiwan was born and raised in Las Angeles.

Citizens of the world unite.

Nothing exciting

The olympics are pretty lame tonight. Anything of interest was already shown this afternoon. So I have been going back and forth among the Little League World Series and other shows that I am already taping. I saw Adria ask Drew to promise to use the Veto if he won it. Was she not there when she heard him promise to Jase that he would not use it? Its really stupid to ask a promise from someone you know breaks them.

I'm also watching some WSOP. Since I go back and forth most of the time or I'm reading and only look up when they are actually playing a hand I never did hear an explanation for the Big Blind and the Small Blind. Every once in a while I hear them say "He's playing from the small blind so he may as well call."

I looks like next week they are really going to do the daddys on the mommie show. They are running two shows back to back next Tuesday. I'll have more comments after I watch my tapes.

Surrogate posting

I have talked with Steph and she keeps getting hit with one thing after another. She has given me permission to pass on the information I have gleaned from her. First of all Arn had an industrial accident today at the hospital where they both work. He hit his head on something hard (I think it was a fire extinguisher) in the performance of his janitorial duties. His injuries required 7 staples in his head. Notwithstanding the other obvious drawbacks of a head injury the best case scenario has him getting married with a head full of metal.

It also seems they have found a place to stay. I'm not sure of the stage its in, bidding, acceptance, closing? It is a 4 year old condo in Taylor in the 70/80K range with new appliances, furnace and other important stuff. I think Jeff has deemed it acceptable. (Jeff is our Dennis)

My own drab news is that I'm glad that Chili has a couple of gold medals but wish it could have been in another sport.

Guides for the TV

If TV Guide wanted to do something good for its readers at Olympics time it could have put in a couple of extra pages to give us a legend of the three letter abreviations of countries. I never did figure out PRK. I would also like a legend of those little picture indicators of events. Like the picnic table signs on highways.

Before I forget

Did any of you know that Josh was on the Regis show on Tuesday? I didn't think so. Rita averted me that he was going to be on and then called during the show to say it was going to be after the next commercial. Well, they didn't get him on until 9:56 and he only had time to berate the casting people because he fooled them so heartily; he being an aspiring actor and all. They wouldn't have cast him if they knew that he lived in LA, so he went back home to IL to the auditions. They asked about Holly but he didn't have time to answer. They are having him back on tomorrow morning if anyone cares. I kept forgetting to tell you.

Who would have thought that the g word would invoke a firewall?

Tapes

Got a late start watching my tapes because I played poker till the wee hours. Of my $20.00 start I got down to 0 and found out how they play the charity part. You are still dealt into every game and can bet when its your turn but you just don't have to put any money in. I don't know if there is a rule about no raising but even when I had a good hand I felt it was just wrong to raise when I wasn't putting anything at stake. I won the last two games of the night and recouped $11.15 on the evening. Still cheaper than bingo. No TEDs tho.

The Mommy's were supposed to be Daddy's this week but instead they are re-running the first pair of Mommys (Mommies?) Free's up a little of my time.

I'm glad A didn't have any takers in her little ally shopping trip. The person who survives elimination will not be beholden to her or her group.

I'm glad to see schmeerna out of the race. I would like to believe its not because of her size. They were pretty nasty pieces of work in any case. Watching them all eat the eggs I remembered who would have been my perfect racing partner. Wouldn't Bill have been awsome at that stuff. And he could have pushed my wheelchair, or carried me around in necessary. This game came along too late.

I got the Bravo channel in time to see Roddik win his match against Tommy Haas. Boy it was a cliffhanger though.

TV, uniforms and tenors

The cable people said they would be out between 8 am and noon to switch my service. They showed up at 11:56. Can't complain, but not happy.

Every day I tape Coronation Street at 3: PM and Jeopardy at 7:30 PM in the kitchen. Then on Saturday, I pull that tape and watch the week's worth of shows. On the last C. St. show, during the last 10 minutes they run this message line. They are taking a 2 week hiatus for the Olympics (OK) and then another 2 week hiatus for the World Cup Hockey Tournament (OK) and by the way this is their last broadcast in this time slot. After Hiatus they will be broadcasting at 7:30pm. (hello, can't they tell that I am taping Jeopardy at 7:30)? They stay awake nights trying to make my life miserable.

If the beach volleyball girls have to wear those sports bikinis, shouldn't the guys be wearing Speedo's? Nobody wants to get sand in their stuff, but equal opportunity and all that.

The 4 x 200 freestyle relay was a great race. Our best guy (Phelps) swam the first leg and their best guy (Thorpe) swam the anchor leg. Vandenhoogenboogen-fee-fi-foogen wasn't in this one.

Do we have a dictionary definition for repechage? (even the spell check didn't recognize it)

Lost Blog

I created a post called the three tenors and it never came up and I can't view it from my dashboard page but the title does show up on my edit page and it will come up so that I can edit it but when I hit publish when it was created it said web page not responding. Last time I got that message, I hit publish again the next time I had it up under the edit page and first thing I knew it showed up 3 times on the page (then I deleted two of them). So I'm not going to hit publish again and just wait it out to see if this one publishes before the three tenors one.

All of you who were able to follow this and know what I'm talking about, raise your hands.

The Three Tenors

CBC just ran the 200m mens freestyle for the gold. The three swimmers were in it. They sure enough came in 1 2 3 . For the sake of you who are going to watch it later I won't say which is which. I will say that we won the gold in the men's and women's 100m backstroke.

At the risk of hogging the blogging I am going to post at will. I used to think it wasn't fair of me to keep jumping in when some of you guys were so far behind.

Another card group has asked me to sit in tomorrow night. It seems I will be playing poker at Pat Pike's house. She asked me if I had plenty of change and mentioned that it was $20.00 buy in. I'm not sure if that means they play with chips or real coins. Oh well, I'll see tomorrow night.

More from Florida

Jeannette came over last night. She bought me a very attractive Pulsar watch as an appreciation gift. The only bad thing about it was it has a clasp and not an expansion bracelet. But it will be my "dress-up" watch, so y'all remind me when we get dressed for Stephi's wedding to wear my dress-up watch.

Anyways, she mention that her kids had called Marc to see how he fared during the storm. I knew he had moved from St. Petersburg and when I looked in my address book, his new address is in Port Charlotte. It turns out the storm came very close to his place but no damage.

I'm glad the storm veered south and didn't hit Longboat Key. If we had sustained damage at Four Winds I don't doubt there would have been an assessment on all the time share owners.

Big Brother Charlie

I like A as head of household and hope she and Natalie make it to the end. Other than them I am ambivalent. I like everybody who is still there. But I'm figuring the veto will be used and Karen is the next to go.

Elise called me to let me know that JoAnne (Daytona Beach) weathered Charlie with her biggest loss being a large awning. The trailor park across the street where Vonna and Tony used to live lost several roofs tho. Debbie and her family are living with JoAnne now and the reason they decided to wait out the storm at home rather than go to an authorized shelter was that the shelter wouldn't let them bring the pet rabbit.

I haven't heard any more about Monica. It looks like she might have been better off staying at home since Charlie veered south. She and Rita usually talk on Sundays so maybe we'll get some news today.

Kelly is coming over this afternoon for some help on his final speech. His topic is to convince that senior citizens should be subject to mandatory testing to renew driver's licenses.

Go Team

I am enjoying the olympic games very much. NBC is saving all the big ticket races to run in prime time but CBC is showing them when they happen. So even though I saw Phelps win his first gold medal at about 2:00 pm this afternoon I was still holding my breath when NBC showed it just now. I'm such a sucker. They said they are going to show the 400m freestyle after this next commercial and I can't wait to see if Thorpe wins it again.

I have been able to go back and forth with the Little League World Series game between Rhode Island and Connecticut too.

Remember when you started to feel old when the professional athletes were all younger than you? Well those Little League players are all younger than Adam.

That's my "feel good" message for today.

Bye bye Josh and Hot Water

I was so impressed with the young man that replaced my faucets etc. That is until I went to shower this morning. I usually turn on the hot water faucet in the sink to draw up the hot water so I don't have to lean into the tub to check when it gets hot. When its hot in the sink it is hot in the tub too. Well, it never got hot in the sink. (It did in the tub tho, whew)

So I called maintenance and let them know and said I wouldn't be home most of the afternoon and they should just come in. Sure enough when I got back from Dominos a little while ago I was locked out of my house. No senior moment for me. This has happened to me before and before I left for Dominos I remembered to bring a house key. Always thinking.

And ding-dong, Josh is gone. John won the last comic. pretty good night last night.

Bonnie and Charlie

In case any of you are wondering about your Aunt Monica who now lives directly on the west coast of Florida; she battened down her hatches and took herself and her new SUV over to Kim's place for the rest of the week.

Lots of flights from DTW have been delayed or cancelled. Spirit says there will be no flights to Ft. Meyers until Saturday and flights to Tampa have been delayed indefinitely.

No drops to drink

My water has been shut off since 10:30 this morning. That means this very nice young man has been working on my sinks since then. When I called in about my stuffy toilet I told them that the faucets in both bathrooms were hard to shut off. With my knobby arthritic right thumb I couldn't push the faucet hard enough to get the water to stop dripping.

So in comes this young man. First he determined that I needed new faucets and went out to get them. While he worked on the downstairs bathroom he asked me to empty the vanity upstairs because he was going to have to get under the sink.

Talk about a trip down memory lane. I used to clean my own toilet. I have really old stuff in their to prove it. The bottom of so many cleaning supply bottles. My shower massage. I never knew it was there. They must have put it in there when they installed the new tub and shower. I have about 3 things that need to go back in there when the guy is done and 2 of them are packages of toilet paper.

So anyways, he finished downstairs and went up. I went out to Kmart for a while and when I got back his truck was gone. I saw he had left his clipboard and some tools behind so figured he'd be back. He came back allright, with a new sink. I'm getting the royal treatment today.

Whew Drew

I am not good with suspense. I had to fast forward to the veto meeting. Just taking off my glasses was not cutting it. Megan you're lucky your mom made you wait till you got home to watch the tape because I would have been sitting in your lap biting my nails.

We are really slaves to what they are willing to show us. This new theme that Karen is crazy came out of the blue for me.

Yeaa for the moms in the race. Too bad for the brothers. Watching him walk I could feel his pain. Its a good thing we missed the audition because I don't have that kind of fortitude. Maybe next year.

The guy nobody likes got eliminated from King of the Jungle last night too.

Rude mommy went from "If I piss anybody off, oh well." right to "I feel so unwelcome." Duh

I haven't watched the second half of the comics yet but I'm sure they're funny.

OK Steph, times in

We've been cutting you some slack because with a new job and wedding plans we know you're busy but we need to know that you're ok. So I'll make it easy for you, just cut and paste this sentence into your blog.

Hi, I'm alive and well and busy as anything and I love you all like crazy. Love Stephi

We're easy to please.

Older yet and Pepsi

Another piece of old age is upon me. Two days in a row I have dropped a plate. The first time was a clean plate as I was removing it from the cupboard I dropped it and it bounced on the counter, into the sink and back on the counter on the other side of the sink. I don't know what kind of english I gave it but if I had to reproduce that shot for $100.00 I probably couldn't do it. The next one was in the living room. A plate that I had used for toast. Since I realize that I won't get vacuumed but once a month or less, I always hold my plate up to my chest while eating toast. Lots of crumbs. Then, as I stood up I dropped the plate. It bounced flat once, and just as I was thinking "How lucky am I, no crumbs spilled" it bounced up on its rim (twice) and rolled around the living room in that ever decreasing spiral thing before landing upside down. I can't actually see the crumbs on the floor but since the plate was clean, I know they are there.

The pepsi part: There is a grocery store opening on Venoy at Palmer and they have pepsi 5 for $10.00. The 24 oz 6 pack. I took advantage of this since I am going to have Gretchen & Gordon here this evening to get it out of my car.

As part of their promotional opening the store also gave me a free bag of groceries that included store brand crackers, cookies, cans of corn and green beans, mac & cheese and barbeque sauce. I thought that was a pretty nice gesture.

I am looking forward to a pepsi ad on my site.

Windsor and liars by omission

Me and Jeannette went on the bus to Casino Windsor today and a good time was had by all. They have put in some of the same new machines we saw at Little River. My canadian gambling purse has 8 extra 5 dollar bills in it now.

Back to the lying TV Guide, they published an Olympic programming guide and never mentioned Channel 9. Its like Canada is not going to cover any of the Olympics. The nighttime grid says olympic games under Channel 9 but since they don't list daytime programming anymore there's no way to see whan canada is going to cover during the days. What a gyp.

Agassi and Nikomis

Agassi won in Cincinnati and Nikomis is a very good hoh. Jeannette is feeling like getting out so we are going to Windsor this afternoon.

I think the elimination on BB is the best plan I ever saw and hope it all plays out correctly. If you travellers haven't watched your tapes yet you're going to love it.

the disappearance and lying liars

I posted a comment on Mel's blog last night and this morning sure enough there was a little garbage can next to it. I clicked on it. I got a screen that said (in essence) "Who the heck are you and why are you trying to mess with this comment?". I told them who I was and the next screen I got said (again in essence) "Why don't to post on your own darn blog?". It looked just like my own posting screen so I typed all this out and tried to post it. (this is the second time I've typed it) (first time on that last phrase) So when I clicked publish post the site went and hid and wouldn't respond.

As to the lying liars. If anyone out there has a TV Guide, brand name or generic that says that the Last Comic Standing results of voting show was going to be longer than the 1/2 hour that I taped, please raise your hand.

Little Garbage Cans

I have been noticing for some time that whenever I comment on someone's blog a little garbage can appears at the bottom of my comment. I wondered a little bit about that but not much. Today I noticed that on my blog's comments there was a little garbage can under everyone's comments. I wondered a little bit more than before. I wondered enough to click on one of them. I don't even remember which one. To my horror I got the message that the comment had been deleted. I don't know which one I deleted because I don't get immediate feedback. It always takes a few hours before I see my own posts or comments. Whoever it was, I am sincerely sorry.

No wait, I thought of a better explanation. I don't know why it disappeared. It was just gone.

Amish on Greyfield

I forgot to tell you that on the way home from Mt. Pleasant, the driver took 23 to 96 and then at the 275 junction he stayed straight on 5. That turned into Grand River at about 10 Mile. Who knew? Then he took Grand River all the way to Southfield. When we got to 7 Mile I thought I would be able to look down Greyfield to see that it was like now. Well, the Monument place is still there and that's the only clue I had to where Greyfield even was. The road is all torn up on the north bound side and you couldn't even tell there was a street there. But what a horrendous drive down Grand River. Even Vernor Highway has fared better than that.

The Amish part. Amish in the City is getting very interesting. The kids went to their first horse race, their first concert and their first church service that wasn't Amish. I'm talking about the Amish kids, I think most of the City kids had experienced all of that before.

I went to Greektown this morning to use that $10.00 coupon. Emptying my gambling purse was just a byproduct. I went to the casino, to the post office and got my haircut and was home by 9:10 and ready for a nap.

Tape O Rama

I wouldn't even sign on line today until after I had watched all my tapes. I put all my game comments on Adrienne's blog.

In other news Kelly came over here yesterday looking for help in writing his 4 minute speech for his speech class. I think the class is today. His topic was to convince people that the new Michigan tax increase on cigarettes is just wrong. I don't agree with him, but I can get behind anything. He had a sort of outline of his thoughts in about 10 sentences and we managed to turn that into a couple of pages. I had him read it all back to me and timed him. This gave me a chance to see which phrases he stumbled over and we went back and changed them more to his own words.

He was supposed to include quotes (he had one) and statistics. We tried to go online to state of mich.gov but all their information was about the last tax increase in 1999. I offered to make some up but he has that "I'd rather not get caught" streak. Not a bad thing to have.

I'm hoping that he will let me know how it all came out. btw his email address is KJSheedy@netzero.net.

Racing Amazingly

I just heard a TV ad that this Sunday, August 8th at 1:00 PM in front of Penny's at the Westland Mall there will be tryouts/auditions for the next Amazing Race. Who's in?

Important Witty Stuff

Home again. All the way home I thought about stuff to put in my blog. Important, witty stuff. But now I have caught up with everyone esle's blogs (yeaaa Adam) and my stuff doesn't seem very important any more.

The Money Part
First of all. I had 13 five dollar bills in my gambling purse. I had $66.00 in my wallet (not counting the back-up travellers check). Within the first hour of gambling I hit $100.00 on a nickle machine called "King of the Grill". (I love that game) I put that $100.00 in the wallet. So, play, play, play, win, lose, cash in, win, lose this is what goes on. 2nd day, I have only 3 five dollar bills in my gambling purse so I take some out of the wallet a couple of times to trade in for five dollar bills (I gamble in small increments) Play, play, play, lose, lose, lose. Have I ever mentioned how much I don't like Soaring Eagle. We were supposed to leave for home at 4:30. About 3:30 I was down to my last 2 fives and decided that was enough. I went to find a comfortable seat in the bar to wait out the time. On the way to the bar I noticed a ticket in my pocket for $15.00 and cashed it in. While sitting in the bar I took inventory of the money. I now had 5 five dollar bills in my gambling purse and a count in my wallet yielded $106.00. If you do the math you'll know that it can't be more even than that. That's the way, unh, hunh, unh hunh I like it.

Its 5 AM do you know where your children are?

The one I'm in charge of is upstairs still sleeping. About 3:30 she moved into Gretchen's room so I was able to get up without disturbing her. I don't know what kind of disturbance moved her into Gretchen's room, I don't think I slept all night. So it couldn't possibly have been any noise I was making.

What a great party we had. (Mighta been the whiskey). The karaoke went well. Erika did me proud of course. Even Gene Suchy got up and sang My Way. (Except he sang it Frank's way)

We stayed at Greektown about 3 hours. We left when it started to get really crowded at about 3 pm. So we got home in time to have something to eat and catch a little nap before the party.

I only have to drive up to Dearborn at 5:30. Then I should be able to sleep on the road the rest of the day.