Thursday, December 29, 2005

Unwelcome Guest

Like an invading army,
It enters the mind, finds the heart
And seeks refuge, convuluting
Itself and leaving behind its
Residue,
Causing worry and anguish
To fester
And bear fruit.

It refuses to be cast out,
Moreover it buries itself
Deeper and deeper
And hides amongst all
Emotions,
Creating a web, spiralling out of
Control,
Robbing one of their courage and common sense.

Fear...

Friday, December 23, 2005

My Two Cents Worth

As rough as this is at the moment being able to only barely use my right hand, I have to lay out my opinion on something that is eating me alive. Even though I'm not ready to begin regular postings again, I'm going to do this special one simply because I feel I have to.

There is so much cain being raised this year over the political correctness of how to wish one a Merry Christmas. Firstly, I'm probably the most politcally incorrect individual you'll ever meet, so if my rantings here bother you, big deal, I don't care if I did upset you because if what I have to say upsets you, things will be a lot worse on you later on down the road.

Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ and the bearing of gifts presented to Him upon his birth. Therefore, it is a holiday bearing His name and no one elses. It's a holiday that is celebrated around the entire world, which should clue you in as to why the holiday is celebrated to begin with.

Even though the holiday has been mutated over the years and become so miserably commercialized, it's still a holy holiday, and if you can't accept that, then don't celebrate it. If you don't believe in the birth of Jesus, then don't celebrate His birth. Let the day be just one of many others each year, but don't try and deny those who celebrate Jesus' birthday the right to do so.

Our nation has become so preoccupied with trying not to offend the minorities, the majority of us no longer stand much of a chance for anything. Our nation is slowly becoming a nation that the minorities want to become a "godless" nation.

We don't try and change the celebrations of other holy holidays around the world for other religions, but the self-righteous liberals who try and take everything out of context and to the extreme are doing their damndest to take the true meaning of December 25th away from us.

Even though we don't know the exact date of Jesus birth, we have set aside this one day a year to celebrate his birth, thus the beginning of Christianity as we know it. To take Christ out of Christmas is ludicrous, yet the minorities are trying to do just that. It's time the majority put their collective feet down and put an end to this nonsense.

I work in the public, and every year at this time when my customers leave my workstation, I wish them a Merry Christmas and probably 99 1/2 % of them do the same to me. If I wish someone happy holidays, it's meant as a shortened Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

However, we aren't allowed to see manger scenes on government land anymore, businesses have told their employees to change their greetings to customers to NOT reflect the name of Jesus! Funny how people seem to think this makes anything more correct!

I will continue to wish my customers a Merry Christmas for as long as I work my job because that is, after all, what we are all celebrating. If that offends anyone, GOOD! If it let's someone remember just exactly what Christmas is all about, then those two words did their job as it was intended.

Whether or not one chooses to believe in the holy birth of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the Living God, is entirely up to them. If they choose not to believe in it, then don't celebrate his birth and leave that for those of us who do believe. Think of the money and stress you'll save yourself.

Forget about the civil liberties of a few and let the joyous celebration of Christ's birth continue to be celebrated year after year until the day of judgement.

To all of you, believers and non-believers alike, I take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas, and hope that you remember just exactly is being celebrated on December 25th each year.

Thanks for reading and God Bless you all...

Sunday, December 18, 2005

one handed musings

as i sit here this sunday morning, my right hand wrapped in a large ace bandage, i'm trying to psych myself up for this afternoon's unveiling of my recently operation wound. my surgery went well, and after about 14 hours of medically induced numbness following surgery three days ago, i came to the realization on friday morning that my carpal tunnel pain had indeed vanished like a miracle. when this happened and i realized that for the first time in months that i wasn't in pain, tears welled up in my eyes and i gave thanks to the good lord for the success of the surgery, and i quickly found my wife and shared the good news with her.

i sit here at my keyboard typing with only my left hand, but at least i'm able to do that. i can't type upper case or capital letters, but at least i'm able to type.

tomorrow morning, monday december 19th, i attend my first physical therapy session, which is not something i'm looking forward to. four days after christmas i get my stitches out, and the following day, december 3oth, i have the same procedure done on my left hand. again, not something i'm looking forward to, but the end result if all goes as well as this first surgery has gone will make it all worth the pain and discomfort.

having this second surgery this soon is going to hamper me in a lot of ways, but it gets it done in the same calendar year which will save me lots of money since i've already met my deductible for this year. my mobility will be very limited, but again, the discomfort, pain and inconvenience will be worth it in the long run.

so, i leave you again for a short while, but rest assured, i'm coming back soon with more to write and more to share with you.

to ems, mea and shelle, thanks for your continued support and loyalty. without you three this venture would not be the same. ems, get busy and do more writing. mea, keep on with your entries and continue to amaze me with the work that you do on your site. and shelle, thanks for your friendship and get the fever and start a blog page of your own. you certainly have the talent for it.

and let me close with one more thing, which is, go colts....

peace.

Sunday, December 11, 2005

A Brief Hiatus

To my faithful few, I'm going into my busiest week of the year, and it's shortened this year by the surgery I'm having this coming Thursday. Since the surgery involves my hand and wrist, I don't know exactly when I'll be back online to add to my site. Be assured, I'm coming back, I've just been busy this past week with holidays and preparations, and of course with my work. Hopefully the recovery will be quick and complete, and if you get a chance, any thoughts, blessings or prayers would be welcomed.

I thank all of you for your continued reading and support, and hopefully it won't be too long before I'm back at it again.

Hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and the happiest of New Year's, and I hope you hear back from me before the end of this year.

Peace and God bless.

Monday, December 05, 2005

What Is Happening To Me?

For those of you who don't know me, one of the most painful periods of my life was when my wonderful Mother lived the last few years of here life with Alzheimer's Disease. We hear people joke about this dreaded disease and make light of it, but for someone who has had to watch a loved one go thru it's debilitating process and have to suffer watching the pain and agony that goes along with it, it's nothing to joke or make light of. Mom passed away four and a half years ago, and it's in her memory that I am writing the following. This is not a reflection of her life or her own bout with the disease, but it is an overview of a typical lifestyle of someone who is afflicted with Alzheimer's. I write the following piece in loving memory of my mother, who I am sure would agree with me, there are some things worse than dying. Alzheimer's is one of them.

What Is Happening To Me?

I'm keeping my curtains shut now, not so much because I don't like the sun coming in anymore or that I'm trying to hide from the window peeper I know comes around each week. I keep them closed because I don't want to have get dressed and clean up each and everyday just in case company arrives. With the windows and drapes closed, I can look out the window, and if it's one of my good friends, I can always let them in. If it's one of my kids, they can let themselves in because they have a key.

I spend a lot of time lying in my bedroom now with the tv on, although most of the time I have the tv on for the noise it makes, because I seem to have trouble figuring out what is going on with the programs. They don't seem to make sense to me anymore, and everytime I try and change the channels with my remote, I can't seem to get the remote to work right anymore, the darned thing. It used to work fine, but I can't seem to remember which buttons I need to push to get the tv to even go where I want it to go. Sometimes the volume goes up when I'm trying to change channels, and sometimes the channels change when I'm trying to turn the tv up or down. I think I need a new remote because this one just doesn't work right.

I still take the two newspapers I've always taken, the local one because I can actually make some sense out of it, and the one from the state capitol I take because we always have taken it. I can look at the tv paper in it and find programs I like to watch, but I don't get much of a chance to watch them because I can't figure out the remote control. Have I told you about that remote control of mine?

My phone rings a lot, and it's always these nice people one the other end talking to me and telling me they want to send me things or have me join things, and when I tell them I better not, they tell me they already have my address and I have an account in good standing, even though I'm not sure what they mean by that. And don't you know, those nice people do keep sending me these nice gifts in the mail, books and magazines mostly, and I can't ever remember getting as many magazines as I'm getting now, but they surely must like an old lady like myself that takes the time to talk to them because they keep sending them to me. I don't really get a chance to read much of them, it interferes with my tv time and my newspapers that I like to read, and some of the words don't look like English to me. I can't understand a lot of what I'm trying to read, so I just lay them aside and I intend on throwing them out in the trash someday soon...my bed is getting kind of messy with all these papers and magazines lying about.

It seems like so many of my friends have either passed on or they don't come around anymore. I used to go with them each day for coffee and breakfast, but they got to talking about things I didn't seem to have any interest in, so I quit going. I have my coffee here at home in the morning, and for some reason, it seems my kitchen appliances don't work like they used to because I have a hard time cooking my meals or using my microwave. There's this nice restaurant just a few blocks away that delivers, and bless them, they call me each morning to see what I'd like to have for breakfast and then they check later in the afternoon and they take my order for supper. They ring the bell and come on back to my bedroom with my food, and I pay them and always give them a tip for being so nice. I never can eat all they bring, so I put it in the refridgerator with the intention of having it later, but since I can't work that microwave anymore, the food just kind of stacks up in there. When then trashmen come on Tuesdays, if I don't forget, I usually fill up a couple of bags with the uneaten food in it. Since I don't walk real well anymore, I just put it outside my garage door and they make the walk up from the street and take it for me. And because they're so nice, I always give them a nice tip at Christmas time for helping me out that way.

Some of the people that come see me tell me they were sons or daughters of old friends of mine that I haven't seen in years. They come in and spend time and talk to an old woman like me and they let me tell them stories that so many others don't want to hear, and after a while they get to telling me about their lives, and how they're struggling to make ends meet. I always thank God that I have a home that's paid for and while I don't have a lot of money, I can't help but give these people a little bit of cash or write them a check to help them out. They always seem grateful and they come back again a month or two later, it seems, and we do the same thing again.

I told you about people calling me, but when I try and call my friends and my family, I keep getting wrong numbers. Some of the people are so nice and they tell me that either I have the wrong number, which I know I don't, or they tell me that the person I'm calling died several years ago. I try and act surprised when they tell me that, but I know they're lying to me because I saw some of these people not long ago, or at least I don't think it was very long ago.

What I don't want my kids to know, I'm really having trouble getting around now, and a couple of times I've taken a fall. I've always worried about falling and breaking a hip, but so far, my falls haven't been all that bad.

six months later:

I don't like this place I'm staying at. It's not that it isn't nice and kept real clean, and they try and make some really nice meals, but I don't understand why I'm having to stay here. I remember falling at home early one morning, and I remember sitting in my chair for hours before someone from the restaurant called and when I didn't get to the phone, they called my kids and they drove over and found me in this chair, and I couldn't get up and walk, so they took me to the hospital, and after going to a place called a nursing home and them having me exercise, I got to where I could walk with this darned walker. After I got to walking again, my son took me to this place he called assisted living, but I really think I'm staying in a motel in Madison now and I can't understand why my husband hasn't come to pick me up or at least stay with me.

I've tried calling him at home and I keep getting my son instead. My son, he's such a joker with me, always has been, but when I tell him I'm trying to get ahold of his dad and find out why he's mad at me and won't come and pick me up at this motel, he tells me my husband died almost twenty-one years ago, and I don't think that's funny. He's so insistent about it, and then he gets mad at me, I guess cause I don't go along with the joke, but he tells me I'm not in a hotel in Madison that I'm still in Rushville in something called assisted living. It's funny, too, this furniture in this two room hotel suite looks like my furniture from home, and the bed not only looks like my bed, it feels just like my bed, so I don't have much trouble sleeping at night, at least the nights that white cat doesn't come in and climb in the bed with me and sleeps with me until morning. Then, when the nice lady comes in to get me up and tells me I need to get ready for breakfast in the dining room, the cat is always gone.

I tell this nice lady, and there's another one two, although I don't ever see them both the same day, I tell her I really don't want to go down to the dining room for breakfast, because I don't like sitting down there with all these old people. Some of them are nice, but there's this one old man down there that flirts with me, and if my husband ever found out, then I know he'd never come and take me home, because he would be so jealous.

I can usually eat breakfast at my own kitchen table, the lady brings me in a nice home cooked breakfast and coffee, but I don't eat much of it, because sometimes it looks like there's bugs in the food and roaches in the coffee. They bring me a drink that tastes like milkshake, and as long as I drink it quick, nothing ever seems to be in it. And these nice ladies help me take my medicines each day, which is something I had quit doing when I was still at home. I quit going to the doctor because I never got to feeling better so I just quit taking his medicine he was giving me to, even the drops the eye doctor told me I had to put in my eyes because of something called glaucoma. Well, these nice people give me all these pills and they put the drops in my eyes, but I think something has happened to my left eye, because I can't see anything out of it anymore. I guess that means I've gone blind in one eye and I sure hope it wasn't that medicine that did it because now that they're giving it to me, I'm so afraid I might go blind in my other eye, too.

My kids come and see me almost everyday, and I can't figure out how they can afford the drive down here each day. My son comes to see me in the morning before he goes to work and my daughter comes up after she gets off work. Those kids are driving a lot of miles to see me but they won't take me home where I need to be. They keep telling me I am home, but I know better. One of these days my husband will quit being mad at me and he'll come and pick me up and take me home with him. I just wish he would hurry up and I so wish he'd call me, I miss him so much.

I tried to call my mom the other night. This nice voice came on an answering machine and it was one of my daughters friends. She called me back last night and told me that my mom had died almost 40 years ago, and since she was a friend of my daughter's, well, I just let her go ahead and tell me her lie and I quit trying to call Mom, because I know one day soon she's coming with my husband to see me here.

I got all dressed up last Saturday night, because my brother was supposed to come up and have supper with me. One of the ladies told me he wasn't going to be able to make it, but I sat in the nice recreation area next to the dining room and waited for him, because I just knew he'd make it. After he didn't make it, I thought maybe he might have gone to the wrong hotel room, so I went looking for him. I found a man in his room that wasn't my brother, and he let me in to call 911. After the police got here and I told them what was going on, someone who runs this hotel that I hadn't seen before butted her nose in and told them that I was having memory problems and that my records showed that my brothers were all dead. She wasn't very nice to me, but the policemen were and walked me back to my suite and told me just to go ahead and get ready for bed and maybe he'd come and see me some other time soon, he had probably just forgotten.

Then there are times, and there aren't many of them, but there I times I swear, I think maybe I really am in Rushville in a place called assisted living, and I once in a while almost believe my kids when they tell me my husband is dead as are my brothers. But just about the time I start to actually believe maybe some of this is true, then I realize that if any of that had really happened, I'd remember it.

And I don't remember any of that happening. And those thoughts I have, why, they're probably dreams I'm having. Dreams can seem so real sometime.

And things could be worse, I could be sick and I could be losing my mind, but I'm not. And I'm staying in a really nice hotel with such nice people looking after me and making me wonderful meals. But I so wish my husband would come visit me.

I want to go home where I'm safe.