SWEET THANG

Many of you have asked about how Sweet Thang is recovering from his motorcycle mishap. Sorry it’s taken so long to reply; I haven’t given you a progress report because there hasn’t been much progress to write about.

So far it’s been 4 weeks, well almost 5, and things are pretty much the same. Sweet Thang is still wheelchair bound although he can manage the bed to wheelchair and back transfer on his own. A large bedsore has developed on one heel but it’s starting to heal up (that’s almost a pun!). He’s still in a lot of pain, one of the plates runs across his lower back and is attached to his tail bone, so he can only sit up for a few hours before the aching forces him back to bed. He’s taking a lot of pain meds; between the meds, inactivity and the aftereffects of the surgery he’s having a lot of problems with constipation which doesn’t make things any more comfortable.

The poor dear is going back to the Doctor on Thursday so maybe before too long he’ll get the go ahead for physical therapy to start; when he was in the hospital they said it would take between 6 and 8 weeks for the bones in his hip to heal enough to bear some of his weight. Although learning to walk again will involve more pain of a different sort, at least it'll be a step (another pun!) in the right direction and something to work toward. We have been told to expect between 3 to 6 months before he can actually walk once he starts trying to use the broken hip, so Sweet Thang still has a long way to go.

Speaking of weight, Sweet Thang has dropped a lot of pounds but not in a good way. You know how you can sometimes see suffering in a person’s face? That’s the way he looks now. His cheekbones are sharp looking, jutting out from his face like blades and beneath his eyes are bruised-colored dark hollows. This once amazingly strong man now has trouble doing his 3 times a week sessions with the Home Health person using only 5 pounds weights where before he could toss my ample ass around as if I were a 50 pound kid.

It hurts my heart to see Sweet Thang reduced to having to have his Mom wash his hair for him and to hear the weakness in his voice, but he’s doing his best to keep his spirits up. His birthday is June 5 and I’m trying to come up with some way to make the day special. My sister Teresa is making him a boob cake, which I hope will bring a smile to his face (it’ll the closest he’s been to having sex in a long time and it appears that it’s going to be even longer before we can remedy that situation!)

Once again, thanks for all the support. Both Sweet Thang and I appreciate it.

GOOD READ

Serial killer? Massive amounts of blood and gore and absolute evil? For those of you who are fans of the books "Silence of the Lambs" and "Red Dragon", you need to check out "Shadow Man" (click on the picture on the left to go to it's Amazon site). This first novel is the beginning of a new series by a promising author named Cody McFadyen and the story is so good that several of my coworkers are arguing over who gets dibs on reading it next.

The series stars a hard-luck female FBI agent named Smoky Barrett (with occasional flashbacks to her own brutal rape and the murder of her family at the hands of a different serial killer, a series of events that made her the tormented woman she is today) who heads the FBI's L.A. Violent Crimes Unit, and the antagonist in this debut effort is a serial killer known as "Jack Jr.," who believes he's a descendant of Jack the Ripper.

This book is chilling to say the least. WARNING: Not for the faint of heart: descriptions of Jack Junior’s despicable crimes are gruesome and occasionally even upsetting-BLOOD AND GORE GALORE! Combined with the simple manner in which the book is written (no fancy, unnecessary words) the result is a story which gets straight to the point, conjuring up graphic images in an instant. The details of the various crimes are explicit. Jack Jr. isn’t content merely to kill. He tortures, he rapes, he slices, he eviscerates, he leaves internal organs in plastic bags next to the body. It can make for uncomfortable but riveting reading.

I enjoyed this read so much that I immediately went on-line to check and see when McFadyen's next offering was coming out. Lucky me, I found out that "The Face of Death" just hit the shelves this month! I'll have to go out in search of it, because I just can't wait to see what mayhem hits Agent Barrett's life next!

I fully expect to see a movie based on "Shadow Man" to hit the big screen before long, it's that good. Wonder who they'd get to play the part of Agent Smoky Barrett?

FAMILY TRIP MEMORIES

Boy, this site brought back some great memories! For those of you who have an adventurous nature or who are wondering what to do this summer, check out the Roadside America website. It’s tagline reads "Guide to Uniquely Odd Tourist Attractions" and it's full of wonderful, kitschy & strange places and items from all over the USA. You can search by state or type of attraction and there's sure to be something for everyone.

I just spent hours surfing through it's pages and haven't seen everything yet. The site includes comments from folks who have "been there, done that", tips about what to skip or if a site is handicapped accessible and accommodations nearby in case you want to make an extended road trip. There are home videos or pictures of lots of the attractions and maps with instructions on how to reach anything that you might want to see.

I miss the days when Mom, Dad and the kids would load up in the family car and go see the sights. One of my fondest memories is Dad loading up Mom and all 5 of us girls (can't remember how old I was but it was young) and taking us south to see the Lightning Portrait of Henry Wells in Carrollton (Dad ran up on it while in South 'Bama on a deer hunting trip and just had to show it to us!).

The story goes that as Wells peered out the garret window, a bolt of lightning struck nearby and permanently etched his terrified expression into the window pane and I swear we all saw the face! (OK, Donna and Tina, y'all back me up here!)

We stood on the lawn in front of that old courthouse forever; gaping up at the window in question, competing to see who could make out the most detail and arguing over if it was real or a fake.

I can still picture it in my mind; all of us kids peering up and shading our eyes with our hands, fussing among ourselves while Mom tried to make us behave. Dad (young, handsome, and still fit & trim at that time) just stood there laughing at his brood of women, proud of himself for coming up with something so unique; all the way down there we were accusing him of pulling our collective legs. Ghostly faces in windows, just how gullible did he think we were!

Dang these memories make me miss my parents more than ever. I only hope I'm helping the Grandmonster to create memories like this so that when I'm gone he'll look back and think of me with a smile, maybe even telling his kids a few stories of the wonderful things that he and his Nana did together.

Check out the site, it's a hoot and you just might find something local that will spike the desire to load up your family & friends and do a little traveling yourself! Then fill up the tank before going out on the road and make a few memories of your own.......

MEME

I found this while surfing blogs, don't remember where. Type in the day and month of your birthday in Wikipedia and then list 3 events that happened on that day, 2 other birthdays on that day and 1 death. Let's see now, November 16th.......

3 EVENTS:
*1384 - Jadwiga is crowned King of Poland, although she is a woman.
*1945 - Cold War: The United States Army secretly admits 88 German scientists & engineers to help in the production of rocket technology. (And thus build Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama aka The Alabama Space & Rocket Center {Space Camp site}. Who was Dr. Von Braun anyone?)
*1989 - Devastating tornado strikes Huntsville, Alabama. (This is just a few miles from where I live!)

2 BIRTHDAYS:
*1873 - W. C. Handy, American composer (d. 1958) (a local boy, dang lots of this stuff is from my area of the woods!)
*1907 - Burgess Meredith, American actor (d. 1997)

1 DEATH:
*1960 - Clark Gable, American actor (b. 1901)

I'm not gonna tag anyone, but y'all are welcome to play along if you want.

MY PALOOZA HEAD

Turn your speakers down if you don't want to hear the music! Or else hit the pause button at the bottom of the video, because the song "Jane Fonda" just seemed so fitting for a work-out palooza. I found this and couldn't resist, ain't it cute? Dang if that don't look just like me trying to stay on a treadmill. Do you reckon I could count this as exercise?


Create Your Own PaloozaHead - Visit Lollapalooza.com

SNOT & CARNIVORES

Y’all forgive me, I know I haven’t been around in almost a week but I swear I have one hum-dinger of an excuse besides for the obvious one of Sweet Thang being in rehab (he came home, well actually to his Mom’s house, today! 3 WEEKS IN THE HOSPITAL AND REHAB AND 6 MORE WEEKS UNTIL HE CAN TRY TO LEARN TO WALK AGAIN. ). I’ve been suffering, and I do mean really truly suffering, from one hell of a summer cold. Stop right here if you’re faint of heart or weak of stomach.

Wednesday a week ago I got this annoying tickle in the back of my throat and started having uncontrollable sneezing fits. "Aha", I thought, "my allergies are kicking up". Thursday night I started running a fever and semi-drowning in a flood of snot that insisted on oozing from the old snoz. "Dang, maybe it’s not allergies after all!"

By Friday I was simultaneously coughing up a lung, blowing snot bubbles and fighting the runs at both ends; "Hey, I may really be sick!" There’s nothing like sitting on the toilet, garbage can conveniently centered between your feet within easy upchucking distance, with nobody but the cats to listen to you moan and groan. Heck, did you know that when you have the crud very time you cough the muscle contractions in your body will force a stream of liquid poop out your butt while snot dribbles down your upper lip and you wind up scrubbing both ends with reams of toilet tissue?

Not to worry though, I’m almost fully recovered after over a week of being sick, a sack full of OTC meds and a truck load of tissue. I still have a lingering cough, stuffy snotty sinuses, my nose looks like it belongs on Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and both it and my bunghole are tender as hell; but the fever is gone and food stays down so I think I may live although there for a while I had my doubts.

It got so bad that I started having flashbacks (maybe it was a fever dream?) to all those news stories and horror movies about people kicking the bucket while home alone and their pet pussies munching on the corpse, eating the deceased owner’s face off before anyone found the body. I tried having a long talk with Rufus and Shitty Kitty about love and respect; how Junebugg ala tartar probably wasn't very tasty (and would most likely give them indigestion) and that it just wouldn’t be proper to strip the admittedly plump flesh from my tired old bones; but the feline duo kept looking at me with twin evil gleams in their little slitty-kitty eyes and licking their chops (I swear they even drooled a little!) so I kept the food bowl overflowing, you know, just in case.

The worst thing is I haven’t gotten to see Sweet Thang in over a week because I’m afraid he’d bust a stitch coughing if he caught the crud from me (plus I'd feel really guilty if I gave this deadly virus to anyone, especially him!). We’ve played phone tag every night and I’ve got my fingers crossed that I’m almost over being contagious. I’m working nights this weekend and hoping I’ll be totally well by Monday; I’m in bad need of a little sugar and I know he’s ready for some TLC that doesn’t involve a nurse or his Mom.

WHY, OH WHY.......

*Why do we press harder on a remote control when we know the batteries are getting dead?
*Why do banks charge a fee on " insufficient funds " when they know there is not enough money?
*Why does someone believe you when you say there are four billion stars, but check when you say the paint is wet?
*Why doesn't glue stick to the bottle?
*Why do they use sterilized needles for death by lethal injection?
*Why doesn't Tarzan have a beard?
*Why does Superman stop bullets with his chest, but ducks when you throw a revolver at him?
*Why do Kamikaze pilots wear helmets?
*Whose idea was it to put an " S " in the word " lisp "?
*If people evolved from apes, why are there still apes?
*Why is it that no matter what colour bubble bath you use the bubbles are always white?
*Is there ever a day that mattresses are not on sale?
*Why do people constantly return to the refrigerator with hopes that something new to eat will have materialized?
*Why do people keep running over a string a dozen times with their vacuum cleaner, then reach down, pick it up, examine it, then put it down to give the vacuum one more chance?
*Why is it that no plastic bag will open from the end on your first try?
*How do those dead bugs get into those enclosed light fixtures?
*When we are in the supermarket and someone rams our ankle with a shopping cart then apologizes for doing so, why do we say, " It's all right? "
*Well, it isn't all right, so why don't we say, " That hurt, you idiot? "
*Why is it that whenever you attempt to catch something that's falling off the table you always manage to knock something else over?
*In winter why do we try to keep the house as warm as it was in summer when we complained about the heat?
*How come you never hear father-in-law jokes?

***And my FAVOURITE......The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four persons is suffering from some sort of mental illness. Think of your three best friends -- if they're okay, then it's you.

NUTS AND BOLTS

There’s nothing more heart wrenching than watching a big strong self-confident hunk of man-flesh reduced to being dependant on others.

Saturday Sweet Thang got out of his hospital bed for the first time in 9 days. He’s had lots of complications from the surgery and being on a morphine pump for days (his bowels shut completely down, I know--TooMuchInfo) and as a result he had to spend the whole time eating nothing but jello and chicken broth. So when a physical therapist, a nurse and me tried to help this #350 man stand up on his one good leg he was so weak that a cold sweat instantly popped out on his forehead and he trembled like a wobble-legged new-born colt. The fact that he can’t move his left leg or bend his left knee didn’t help a whole hell of a lot; he’s hanging onto the bed handrail and trying to drag himself over to the edge of the mattress while one of us attempts to lift his left leg and slide it over at the same rate the rest of his body is moving without making him scream in agony. He’s in constant pain and still has staples both front and back (from hipbone to hipbone and starting at his side and running around his backside) not counting all the hardware permanently embedded in his pelvis.

We finally get Sweet Thang in a wheelchair and then the therapist states “You’re a big strong fellow, when you get ready to get back in bed just go for it, I’m not coming back” and then he left! I was shocked and just a little pissed off by his attitude, but we managed to get it done so I guess those therapists have to be mean in order to make patients who are in pain do things themselves regardless of how much torture they endure while getting better. The nurse and I helped Sweet Thang out of bed by ourselves Sunday, so either he’s getting better at being an invalid or I’m learning how to help him do for himself, maybe a little of both.

I washed his hair and gave him a sponge bath; sounds kinky but don’t get your (or my) hopes up because there won’t be any hanky-panky for a good long while and it ain’t just because of his broken hip....... {GUYS, YOU MIGHT WANT TO SKIP THIS PART!}....... When Sweet Thang got thrown up on the gas tank of his Harley, it crushed his cojones! His scrotum is swollen so big that it won’t fit between his thighs and it’s a deep dark purple. Not just a little bruised but a solid, almost blue-black, purple. I swear to God his nut sac looks like a huge grape and it’s so enlarged that the nurse told me to prop it up on a folded towel so that some of the fluid can drain away. Of course all this makes it even more painful for Sweet Thang to struggle from the bed to the wheelchair and back.

Monday they moved Sweet Thang from the hospital to the rehab facility but he can only learn how to maneuver himself from bed to chair and back for now, he can’t do any actual rehab work until his bones reknit. He called and described how much better it was to be able to roll himself up and down the halls, but it didn’t take very long to wear the poor baby out and he was talking about a nap just as soon as he hung the phone up. Today will be his first day of actually working with the new therapist and I'm afraid he's gonna hurt more than he likes (not to say he's into pain but... Oh Hell, you know what I mean). They say he can go home, actually his parents’ home, on Friday and while I know he’ll be glad to get out of the hospital I’m afraid that he’ll go stir crazy before it’s over with. Hopefully he’ll be able to handle the bed to wheelchair transfers himself because I know it’ll be rough on his Dad to help, plus his Dad works part time and there’s no way his Mom can do much to help as she’s still recovering from colon surgery.

Sorry I haven’t posted much, but all my spare time has been spent at the hospital and I just haven’t had the opportunity or the energy to do much blogging. I’m ashamed that I haven’t visited all of my blog buddies and the few kind strangers who have commented and offered moral support for both myself and Sweet Thang. Please know that I love y’all and I appreciate what wonderful people the ‘net has brought into my life.

MAN OF STEEL

Sunday; over 6 hours of surgery, 1 plate, several screws and one pin later Sweet Thang has been sliced, diced and reassembled. Only the left side of his pelvis was broken, thank goodness. The doctor says that he’ll have to stay in a wheelchair for 6 to 8 weeks without putting ever putting his left foot on the floor (he’s so big that if he puts any weight on his left side the new hardware won’t support him until the bone grows back) and then undergo 3 to 6 months of physical therapy but the future looks pretty good. He has a good chance of a full recovery if he’ll just take it easy and let Mother Nature do her healing thing.

Ever since he woke up from anesthesia, he’s been talking about having hallucinations while he was under. Something about being in a war zone complete with battle cruisers. Sweet Thang is ex-navy so I guess that’s where the dreams came from. Today they took away his morphine pump and started him on oral pain meds. He kept telling them that they could take the med-pump but he needed to keep the button, kinda like a pacifier (I spent the weekend at the hospital and watched his thumb twitch on the button even when he was asleep). I got tickled because he would be talking and fall asleep in the middle of the sentence, doze for several minutes, and then wake up and finish what he was saying.

He’s still in a lot of pain, when they tried to put a bed pan under him he screamed. Thy still haven’t tried to get him up and I hope I’m not there when they do, hearing him scream if almost more than I can take. It’s hard enough to hear him moan while laying immobile; he still can’t stand for the head of his bed to be raised up and I know that it’s going to hurt like a bitch when they make him move but he can’t come home until he proves that he can do more than just lay in bed.

I’m afraid that recovery is gonna be a long hard road before it’s over. Thursday looks like his discharge date, he’s going to his parents’ home but they have health problems of their own. Last year his Dad had a stint put in and his Mom has had a stint and 2 colon surgeries in the last 6 months, but there’s no where else for him to go; I have to work and neither my home nor his are wheelchair accessible. He’ll have to leave the hospital in an ambulance, have a hospital bed with one of those grab bars to pull himself up and swing over to the wheelchair. The bed is supposed to be delivered tomorrow and arrangements have been made for a large wheelchair and a potty-chair. Home health care has been arranged to come 3 times a week to help bathe him (he can’t get in a tub or shower) and do whatever else needs doing. Thank goodness the girl who pulled out in front of him had insurance because the bills are going to be outrageous.

I’m afraid that Sweet Thang is in for more than just pain. His Mom is making it her mission in life to force him to lose a lot of weight while he’s helpless and she’s already made the statement that he can’t smoke at her house. They’re both hard-headed so it’s gonna be a battle of wills. I plan to go stay with him whenever I can so they can get out and have some free time. I wish I could do more but I have to make a living and they don’t give you family leave unless you’re married.

Thanks for all y’alls good wishes and prayers. I’ve told Sweet Thang about my cyber buddies and he’s thankful for all the support.

OUCH!

My eyes feel like they’ve been boiled in oil and I’m so tired I could sleep for a week. A young girl pulled out in front of Sweet Thang’s bike yesterday and I spent most of the night at Huntsville hospital waiting for the medical staff to decide what all was wrong with him, getting home at midnight and waking up at 3:30 this morning to come to back to work.

He’s got a fractured pelvis and is in a lot of pain. It could have been worse; the doctors say that his leather biker jacket saved a lot of hide and although he’s got 4 stitches under his chin where the helmet strap dug in, the helmet itself got scuffed up instead of him getting a cracked skull. They haven’t done surgery yet, something about letting the swelling go down so they can reposition the bones better. Last I heard was maybe this afternoon or tomorrow he’ll go under the knife. The poor Thang has got some kind of binding wrapped tightly around his hips to keep everything still and they’re dosing him with heavy duty pain killers which don’t seem to be helping much.

I went online and did a lot of research, seems that a pelvic fracture is the most painful bone injure you can have and all the remedies involve either pins and plates or some kind of external halo-type brace screwed into the sides of his hips. After all that Sweet Thang is in for months of rehab, most of the articles I read say anywhere from 3 to 6 months. It’s hard to tell because I don’t know how many fractures he has or where they’re located other than that all the damage is in his pelvis. I can tell already that it’s gonna be a long summer.

I was told that Sweet Thang is so big that it took 8 men to put him in the helicopter and that he’s so tall that he almost didn’t fit. He said that he remembers his feet hanging out the door as they took off. On top of all the physical therapy that he’s going to have to go through, he’s going to have to lose a lot of weight in order for his pelvis to support his weight.

Y’all all say a little prayer to whatever deity that you like and maybe light a candle for him, he’s in for a long and painful recovery.

UPDATE: Surgery's scheduled for tomorrow. His left pelvis is broken top and bottom, and it's gonna take plates and screws to fix it plus an incision all the way across his belly in order to get to the broken bones. His left hand is broken and they're checking out his left knee because it's turned blue and looks as if it might be broken or dislocated also (the doctor said it looks as if he hooked his leg over the handlebars on his flight off the bike). Don't know when I'll be updating again as I'll be at the hospital for a while.

RAIN DROPS KEEP FALLING ON MY HEAD

Why is it that every time I take a day’s vacation, bad shit happens?

Example: years ago I had a week of vacation and had plane tickets to go visit a long-term long-distance lover in Saint Petersburg Florida. The day before I was to board the plane Dad fell off the front porch, cracking his skull on the sidewalk, and my entire family wound up spending the week in Birmingham at the hospital praying that he’d be OK. Not saying that I begrudge the time with him or that missing a romantic week with one of the world’s best lovers (a whole ‘nother post in itself!) was more important than family but just as an example. I’ve had vacation plans canceled by Mother Nature, acts of God and disasters of various kinds both large and small.

I took this weekend off for Moulton’s 3rd annual Chicken & Egg Festival, the first summer to-do of the year. Sweet Thang and I were signed up for the Chicken Run (a motorcycle poker run) this morning and I had plans to take the Grandmonster to the shindig later. Some of my favorite local bands are playing this afternoon and I was looking forward to running up on relatives, friends, and old classmates that I only see once in a blue moon while listening to some great jams. What happens? Sweet Thang has to work and the heavens have opened with the worse storm of the year!

So we’re trapped in the house while liquid sunshine streams down the window panes and thunder keeps up a rolling drumbeat. Maybe Old Man Sun will poke his shiny bald head from behind the clouds later on and we’ll be able to go wade in the mud, hopefully catch a few of the bands and let the Grandmonster enjoy the kiddy games. Maybe even see the fireworks planned for tonight but it doesn’t look good; Mother Nature is putting on her own fireworks right now and the Weather Channel shows the entire Southeast under a severe thunderstorm and possible tornado watch.

If it stays dark and dreary, I guess we could always bake cookies.......

TITILICIOUS

OK all you penis-packing testosterone laden members of the blogsphere, you can stop reading right here; this is a girly post that doesn’t concern you. Consider yourself warned and read on at your own risk.

MISSION: To find the perfect undergarment to wear beneath racer-back shirts and tank tops.

Karen and I spent the day in Florence bra shopping. ALL DAY! With no results. Now you would think this would be a simple task considering almost every woman’s clothing store sells bras. Karen’s a normal size (I won’t embarrass her by posting her over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder size) but I’m a 36-F (sometimes even a 36-G. What can I say; my family was blessed in the boobage department). Sometimes I feel like I should have stared in the Woody Allen movie, "Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex" where the runaway boob ravages the country side!

I didn’t have high hopes for myself because they don’t make a wide variety of bras in my cup size that don’t have a 40 or above chest measurement, but I figured that fitting Karen would be a cinch. We hit Kohl’s, Sears, Parisians, Dillard’s, Victoria’s Secret and several places that I never heard of. I saw T-backs, bustiers, corsets, strapless, criss-cross, convertibles, body shapers, body stockings and a couple of things that I don’t know what you would call them but nothing worked. We found tons of stuff for flat-chested teeny boppers but nothing that suited Karen. Either the straps were too wide set on the shoulders or something else was wrong with them.

I didn’t find anything to even remotely fit me that had a T-back and didn’t look like something that ought to have the word “granny” on the label. Hell, most of the tiny things didn’t cover much more than my nipple! Don’t the underwear manufactures of the world understand that we well-endowed women like sexy lingerie too? I want to wear lace and pretty colors! I own dozens of tank tops and have a bitch of a time hiding bra straps. Forget racer or T-back tops, I can’t find anything remotely sexy to hold up the mounds of flesh hanging off my chest and going braless is totally out of the question! It was impossible when I was young and at the age of 51, after Father Time and gravity have had their way with my tired old body, it damn sure ain’t happening now.

What I don’t understand is now that women are getting breast implants faster than they get their teeth cleaned, why can’t you find something to fit a breast that’s bigger than an apple? How hard can it be to take a pretty bra and make it in a bigger size? I figure that if I lived in New York or Hollywood the shopping options would be different but even when I shopped on line I couldn’t find much more than what is around here.

Boobilicious Babes of the world unite! We should get up a lobby group to force the bra makers of the world to fit us with sexy undies! Give us lace! Give us colors and stripes and animal prints! Give us T-backs and strapless! We deserve, NAY, we demand equal lingerie rights!

FREE AT LAST

Happy Easter, Y'all. Hope everyone had a good day with friends and family, that you didn't OD on candy and that you found the prize egg at the egg hunt.

The outage is over and I finally have a few days off starting last Friday. I spent the first day doing my best impression of a coma, sleeping for for 16 solid hours cuddled up with the two cats, and spent the rest of the weekend with my ample ass parked on the couch watching movies and trash TV. Working weeks of 7 12's will really get to ya! Now it's catch-up time for all my long delayed chores, including filing those damned tax returns.

Since I've been lazy I really don't have anything else to post about, so I'm going to catch up on some of my favorite blogs.

STILL ALIVE

I'm still here, alive and kicking but we're working a cold mill shut down and by the time I get home I'm too pooped to post.

For those of you who don't work in a mill, a cold shutdown is where there is no electricity, no water and no bathroom; so I'm wandering around in the dark with a flashlight and waiting until I can't wait anymore before venturing into the dreaded port-a-potty. You ain't lived until you share a urine soaked upright coffin with several thousand construction workers. There's nothing like trying to get your pants down in a 4 foot square space while trying not to drop your hard-hat, radio or tools down the hole into the blue lagoon below.

When it's all over and done I'll do a proper post. I might get a day off a week from Friday................

MEOWS & BOW-WOWS

These are some of the wonderful pet emails my friends and family have sent to me.

"Excerpts from a Dog's Diary"
8:00 am - Dog food! My favorite thing!
9:30 am - A car ride! My favorite thing!
9:40 am - A walk in the park! My favorite thing!
10:30am - Got rubbed and petted! My favorite thing!
12:00pm - Lunch! My favorite thing!
1:00 pm - Played in the yard! My favorite thing!
3:00 pm - Wagged my tail! My favorite thing!
5:00 pm - Milk bones! My favorite thing!
7:00 pm - Got to play ball! My favorite thing!
8:00 pm - Wow! Watched TV with the people! My favorite thing!
11:00 pm - Sleeping on the bed! My favorite thing!

"Excerpts from a Cat's Diary"

Day 983 of my captivity. My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while the other inmates and I are fed hash or some sort of dry nuggets. Although I make my contempt for the rations perfectly clear, I nevertheless must eat something in order to keep up my strength. The only thing that keeps me going is my dream of escape.

In an attempt to disgust them, I once again vomit on the carpet. Today I decapitated a mouse and dropped its headless body at their feet. I had hoped this would strike fear into their hearts, since it clearly demonstrates what I am capable of. However, they merely made condescending comments about what a "good little hunter" I am. Bastards!

There was some sort of assembly of their accomplices tonight. I was placed in solitary confinement for the duration of the event. However, I could hear the noises and smell the food. I overheard that my confinement was due to the power of "allergies." I must learn what this means, and how to use it to my advantage.

Today I was almost successful in an attempt to assassinate one of my tormentors by weaving around his feet as he was walking. I must try this again tomorrow -- but at the top of the stairs. I am convinced that the other prisoners here are flunkies and snitches. The dog receives special privileges. He is regularly released - and seems to be more than willing to return. He is obviously retarded. The bird has got to be an informant. I observe him communicate with the guards regularly. I am certain that he reports my every move. My captors have arranged protective custody for him in an elevated cell, so he is safe. For now...

TO: GOD FROM: THE DOG
Dear God: Why do humans smell the flowers, but seldom, if ever, smell one another?
Dear God: When we go to heaven, can we sit on your couch? Or is it still the same old story?
Dear God: Why are there cars named after the jaguar, the cougar, the mustang, the colt, the stingray and the rabbit, but not ONE named for a dog? How often do you see a cougar riding around? We dogs love a nice ride!! Would it be so hard to rename the "Chrysler Eagle" the "Chrysler Beagle"?
Dear God: If a dog barks his head off in the forest and no human hears him, is he still a bad dog?
Dear God: We dogs can understand human verbal instructions, hand signals, whistles, horns, clickers, beepers, scent ID's, electromagnetic energy fields, and frisbee flight paths. What do humans understand?
Dear God: More meatballs, less spaghetti, please.
Dear God: Are there mailmen in Heaven? If there are, will I have to apologize?
Dear God: Let me give you a list of just some of the things I must remember, to be a good dog.

1. I will not eat the cats' food before they eat it or after they throw it up.
2. I will not roll on dead seagulls, fish, crabs, etc. just because I like the way they smell.
3. I will not munch on "leftovers" in the kitty litter box,although they are
tasty.
4. The diaper pail is not a cookie jar.
5. The sofa is not a 'face towel'. Neither are Mom and Dad's laps.
6. The garbage collector is not stealing our stuff.
7. My head does not belong in the refrigerator.
8. I will not bite the officer’s hand when he reaches in for Mom's driver's license and registration.
9. I will not play tug-of-war with Dad's underwear when he's on the toilet.
10. Sticking my nose into someone's crotch is an unacceptable way of saying
"hello".
11. I don't need to suddenly stand straight up when I'm under the coffee table.
12. I must shake the rainwater out of my fur before entering the house –
not after.
13. I will not throw up in the car.
14. I will not come in from the outside and immediately drag my butt.
15. I will not sit in the middle of the living room and lick my crotch when we have company.
16. The cat is not a 'squeaky toy' so when I play with him and makes that
noise, it's usually not a good thing.

And, finally, my last question...
Dear God: When I get to Heaven may I have my testicles back?

TALENTS

I’ve always envied those artsy-crafty sort of talented folks. You know the ones; people who have an inner vision that translates everyday objects into works of art that please the eye and soothes the soul with beauty. My sisters Donna and Teresa are such individuals.

Donna paints wonderful landscapes, carves miniature cabins (sometimes entire villages) out of found limbs & wood chips and made all the decorations for her daughter’s wedding out of cast-off wicker baskets and dollar store finds gussied up to rival anything you could find in those high $$$ stores. Teresa does the same kinda home-made magic with garden art made from flea market treasures and old furniture reborn after she does her thing with some discount paint and fabric. Both can also take a bit of cloth and sew up everything from new curtains to Halloween costumes without a pattern. In fact almost every member of my family is crafty in one fashion or another.

{{{Sigh}}} Me, I don’t have that inner eye; I’m more mechanically inclined. I look at those cute garden sculptures (like the rooster with a yard rake for a tail) made out of nuts and bolts & cast-off sheet metal and think “I can do that!” But........ No matter how long I ponder or how much I move various bits around, I can’t look at a pile of raw materials and see how to cobble together something new and wonderful. I can copy anything or follow instructions as well as anyone alive. I have the skills; I can weld, sew, carpenter and fabricate with the best of ‘em. I just lack the imagination to come up with an original design, dang it all.

Now in the kitchen I can concoct wonderful dishes out of almost nothing. I slice and dice with the best, almost never follow a recipe and usually get raves from anyone sitting at my table even if they don't know for sure what the hell it is that they're eating. I can take various types of machinery apart and put it back together with a minimum of spare parts left over. I can paint houses, install minor electrical items, operate anything with 4 wheels, am an old pro at using power tools (I even own quite a few!) design landscapes and run a power plant control room but......... I lack that wonderful talent for developing splendor out of nothing.

I guess all of us can’t be artists; someone has to do the drudge work of keeping everything running while the gifted ones give us something to look forward to at the end of the day. I just wish I had been born with a smidgen of some kind of artistic ability. I would love to be able sing on key, to paint something that doesn't look like a 1st grader did it with finger paints, to draw more than a straight line (and only then by using a ruler), to have the ability to take scrap parts and construct something that makes bystanders go “AH!” but it’ll never happen.

At least I was born with the talent to recognize the beauty that others create. Without bragging, I do have an ear for good music and a discerning eye for art. I have my parents (especially Mom) to thank for my good taste. That puts me miles above some others that I’ll not name, who wouldn’t recognize beauty if it bit them on the butt and have no idea that Elvis painted on black velvet does not qualify as fine art.

What about you? What talents can you claim as your very own?

I'VE WON ME AN AWARD!

Well, Bless my little old Southern Belle heart, I've been named for a blog award! Cyber Outlaw has kindly nominated me for a blogging award/meme thingy doo-hickey called the Thinking Blogger Award! I'd kiss him right smack on the lips if he was in the room with me now, but instead I'll just have to play along and hope he knows how much I appreciate the favor. Cyber, honey, you've made my day!

Now my turn to bestow this award onto other deserving bloggers! First here are the rules:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make
you think.
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.
3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote, here is a silver version and a gold version .

HERE'S MY FIVE NOMINEES (in no particular order):

1. Life Droppings. I hope y'all don't think this is nepotism because it ain't. My sister Donna writes some of the funniest true-life stories that you'll ever read. I swear, she'll make you pee your panties with some of the stuff she comes up with. True, she hasn't written much in a while because she's had a bad patch of luck, but all you have to do is go and read To Boob or Not to Boob, The Missing Doll Pecker or A City Slicker Goes Frog Gigging (this is one of my favorites!) to see what a wonderful writer she is when life is a little less hectic. Hopefully, this award will spur her into writing again.

2. I Wasn't Always Like This. Kimmie's warped sense of humor and her off-the-wall posts will make you spew soda out your nose as she writes about the adventures of a family with 10 kids, her hubby Jeff and her one-of-a-kind Dad. I promise that you'll stay to read her archives. She's always good for a giggle and some of her posts will make you go "HMMM".

3. The Pissed Kitty Cometh. Pisser is an animal loving Texan transplanted to sunny California. Her take on the movie industry, dealing with street people sleeping (or worse) in her doorway and trying to live a normal life among "the beautiful people" is a hoot.

4. My Blonde Moment. Hannah is a young British lass who lives with her best mate and a male flat mate in Blonde Towers and is dating a Minor Celebrity. Ah, to be young again! All the angst and none of the mess. I have to admit I mostly lurk at her site but I do so enjoy getting those voyeuristic thrills!

5. Lolly Gaggin. Pam bills herself as "a jack of all trades and mistress of none. Old enough to know better, but still young enough to wanna try everything at least once. Except skydiving". She and Ziggy prove that you're never too old to be in love, that sex gets even hotter with age and women do indeed get better with time. A woman of wit and wisdom, her blog is addicting and I try to visit as often as I can.

There you go folks, 5 nominees. I recommend that you check out all the folks on my blogroll, but these will do for a start. Enjoy.

SHE'S ALIVE!

Yes children, I'm still here. I bet with my lack of recent posts you wondered if I had suffered from Blogger death. What with long work hours (and no Internet while I'm slaving away in the land of paper mills) and all the ho-hum housework after I stagger home I haven't even checked my email in a while. Real life sucks sometimes.

Here in sunny 'Bama spring has sprung, the temps are in the 70s and yard work is calling my name. Today the grandmonster and I have cleaned up the lawn, creating a massive brush pile of fallen limbs in the process. I still have one limb that's too big to move, time to break out the chainsaw (the sucker is so big I can't even drag it with the riding mower!). I've even planted a sycamore tree on my new property, well Sweet Thang did the digging and sister Donna was in charge of making sure I got it standing straight.

We also have 3 new puppies running around, dang I'm dog-poor! The babies are all black with white markings and cute as heck. I can't get my hands on them to see if they're hes or shes yet but it won't be long before they're underfoot and I'll probably trip over one of them and break my leg or something.

Donna's had a hard time of it lately, shortly after her daughter Wendi's wedding Donna's husband (who already has had 2 stints placed in the past) had another episode with his heart. This time it was a blood clot in the bottom of his heart and chronic heart disease. Luckily they could do drug therapy and didn't have to slice and dice him. The docs say he can live a long and productive life if he takes care of himself, but we all know that he's never gonna quit smoking or eating anything that he wants.

I guess that's it for now. Maybe I'll have something more entertaining to tell before long.

NO NET

I guess it had to happen; they’ve cut off all internet access at the mill. OK, I exaggerate. You CAN get on the net after you close down your computer and log back on with your personal name and password. That way the powers-that-be at the home office in Memphis can tell that exactly who you are, precisely what non-work-related sites you visit and how long you stay on line. Plus when you’re online you can’t see any of the stuff that you need to do your job.

So now not only am I trapped sitting on my butt for 12 hours with no breaks or an opportunity to get up and stretch, I don’t have the ability to flex my poor work-addled brain or distress even a little. You can really tell that they worry about our mental and physical health, can’t you.

It wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t spend 80% of my waking hours on the job. It’s tough enough that we don’t have time for family and friends, now we can’t even read the paper or check the weather. What little off-time I have seems to be taken up by house work, bill paying and sleep.

Too bad I have to work for a living, I’m too old to find a Sugar Daddy and too young (and not rich enough) to retire. If ya’ll don’t hear from me for a while, you know where I’ll be.

EXTRA: Here's a picture of Donna's daughter, Wendi, from her wedding last Saturday. Ain't she pretty!

WEEKEND UPDATE

I’ve decided that I’ll probably live.

For awhile I had my doubts. Anytime someone’s breathing sounds like a rusty hacksaw trying to slice through cast iron there’s something seriously wrong, and that bad metaphor describes me trying to suck some O2 into my poor aching body for the last couple of weeks. My carp-like gasping for air would have made a great sound track for a horror movie; I could have sound-dubbed for a monster lurking in the dark or an obscene phone caller.

I spent the entire weekend rolled up in a quilt and napping. I think the only time I got up was to go to the bathroom, to hunt for more tissue, to swallow more drugs, to refill a never ending glass of green tea and to attend my niece’s wedding.

The wedding was the typical mad rush; complete with pre-wedding jitters and a comedy of errors.

First, almost everyone was late getting to the church. That morning the bride-to-be, at her grandmother’s rural home and already dressed in her wedding gown, locked her keys in her car WITH THE MOTOR RUNNING. They had to call a locksmith from town to come and get the door open; then poor Wendi drove, quote “900 MPH”, to the church. I wish I could remember how she told the story; the way she described her skirts bellowing up over her head and how she was driving with one had on the wheel and the other one holding her dress down was hilarious. Several people saw her but their description was “A red streak flying down the road with a bunch of white material blocking the window.”

Then the flowers weren’t what Wendi ordered, the cake wasn’t cooperating at all, several family members didn’t get to see the ceremony because they were still prepping for the reception and the in-laws-to-be made several rude and crude remarks about how their son was “marrying down” but it all worked out.

Wendi was a beautiful, glowing bride; she and Scott had a wonderful ceremony that went off without a hitch. The reception was great with a big crowd and lots of tasty food (including the lop-sided cake, several folks thought it was supposed to be one of those modern designs!).

I spent most of the wedding fending of relatives. As soon as they’d move in for a hug I’d do the hands-up fending-off motion, explaining that I was sick and didn’t want to contaminate anyone else (which also got me out of kitchen duty). I left right after the reception started to go back home and curl up with my quilt and tissues again but from all reports everything else went well.

Although not completely well, this morning I feel 100% better than I did. I’m sorry I didn’t post any over the weekend. Hell I did good to watch TV and the only time I set foot out of the house was to go to the wedding, but I believe I’m on the mend now and hopefully I’ll soon be back to my ranting raving blogging ways. Did ya’ll miss me?