Before I tell you about Fluffy, I'll tell you about the darned broken blind in the trailer that I'll have to hire Paul to replace. I've replaced most if not all of the blinds in the trailer because most are inserted in easy to handle brackets. Not the blinds on my front windows, though!
I hustled myself up to Home Depot yesterday and then back to the trailer to replace the broken blind. I thought it would take about 5 minutes tops to do it. Nope. I can't even figure out how to remove the old one so I called Paul and asked him if he'd do it for me. How pitiful it is to not be able to replace a blind myself. Until it's fixed, my trailer looks like trailer trash lives here!
Now for Fluffy. Fluffy's real name is Gabriel Iglesias and he's a stand up comedian. He's adorable, honest, and I hope his real personality is the same one he portrays on the stage. Yesterday I spent 3 hours watching his specials and laughing my butt off.
Like my first loved stand up comedian, Russell Peters, he seems to be surrounded by lifelong friends and that is probably what keeps him grounded. Unlike Peters, he also has a long time love and a much loved stepson.
I'm not a good T.V. watcher because I switch channels during commercials and end up missing some stuff. Last night I half watched a nasty murder documentary during Fluffy's performance and often couldn't handle the negativity any more, switching quickly back to my funny man.
Fluffy is more than worthy of anyone's T.V. time. He'll make you laugh and then you'll feel much better about the world.
When I was buying all that jewelry to sell, I never looked ahead to the day when I would run out of venues and have a ton of jewelry on my hands. Well, it may take me a few years but today we had our park yard sale and I sold about $150 of it so there is hope that one day it will all be gone. I really must stop myself from jumping whole hog into any new interests!
I'm not a natural sales person but I'm polite and people seem to respond to my selling technique. I even talked one lady out of buying one of the sterling rings to wear as a wedding ring because it would tarnish if worn constantly. I wouldn't like selling at all if it was my livelihood.
Then I took the remaining stuff (not jewelry) that didn't sell to the Salvation Army and had lunch at Arby's. There's a full tote box of stuff I'll play at selling on Ebay next winter but my buying at yard sales is pretty well over. There is a time and a season for everything and my season is changing.
I talked to Kim today, too, and she's getting along fine. Her surgery will be after I get home and she's agreed to come and stay with me for a while until she's recuperated. The surgeon will try to remove her thyroid through her neck if he can but will go through her chest if he has to do so. That will take longer for her to recuperate but she has to get rid of that damned thyroid! She's coming to Florida on the 23rd for a month, too, and she really deserves the vacation from all the stress she's been through lately. Tammy is planning to come down so the 3 girls (Kim, Shelley, and Tammy) can have a great holiday.
This is my evening to stay home and vegetate in front of the T.V. Sometimes we need to vegetate! Tomorrow I get my hair cut and buy a new blind for the front window. The cord on the old blind rotted through from the sunshine so it's hanging precariously and doesn't give me much privacy. It also makes my sweet little trailer look trashy so it has to be replaced pronto.
And that was my day.
We had a special coffee morning today for Sylvia because she's leaving soon. Gail leaves next week but will be back next year.
These are the ladies that make my winters in Florida so happy...they are all wonderful people that I hope return to Florida at least every winter I'm able to come here.
Sylvia and Mickey have sold their trailer and won't be returning and that breaks my heart but they have to do what is right for them. Sylvia and I have had 10 winters of great friendship and we'll do our best to continue that long distance for the rest of our lives.
One of the crappy things about aging is that most of us get flabby arms and can't or shouldn't wear sleeveless tops. I can go shopping feeling pretty darned good, try on a cute sleeveless dress or top and immediately remember just how old I am. Of course, I have lots of other bad body parts to remind me, too.
I don't mind getting older. I truly believe that my life experiences have made me a much nicer person than I used to be. If you don't learn something from life episodes, then you're brain dead.
I've mentioned before that I read somewhere that you can "choose" to be happy rather than sad, defeated, etc. and that little article has defined how I live my life. I choose to glean whatever is good and to deal with the bad in a way that some good comes from it.
Today the sun is shining on my sweet little Florida trailer and my friend, Sylvia, and I are going to drive to Tampa to have lunch with my precious Shelley. Tonight Sylvia and I will play "65" with a bunch of fun friends at the park. No, life is never perfect because there are problems lurking in the background of everyone's life but we can and will overcome.
Faye is arriving here on the 31st and we'll have a fun 10 days before heading home. Funny, but I'm getting sort of anxious to be back home...maybe just to hug my Kimmie and help see her through her present problems. But first things first...my last month in warm, sunny Florida!!!
The thoughts of starting a new phase in one's life has been heavy on my mind recently. I know how frightening it can be because there is so much of the unknown involved but if we can get beyond the fear we can gain hope that the future will be an even better place than it has been.
There are times in my past I never want to revisit and there were many times I accepted the status quo rather than move on and take my chances with something that might make me happier. Most of us are like that...we're too afraid of the unknown to try to better our lives. Often, when change is thrust upon us, it turns out to be the best thing that ever happened to us.
I don't like change and I've probably infected my children with the same aversion but I hope they are strong enough to work their way through adversity and make "lemonade out of lemons". One thing they'll always have is the love and support of their close family and I'm betting they already know that.
So, no matter what crap befalls them, they are blessed.
One of our ladies here in the park (85 years old) received a phone call this morning supposedly from her granddaughter. Both she and her husband said the girl sounded like their granddaughter who was back home in Ohio. The girl said she had been in a car accident, rear ending another car, and was being put in jail for the weekend unless someone paid $4,500 to her lawyer. She put her "lawyer" on the phone to explain it to the elderly couple.
They were to go out and buy $500 prepaid cards totaling the $4500 (he wouldn't accept a check or credit card number)and overnight them to him and he would ensure their granddaughter would not have to spend the weekend in jail.
The elderly couple were frantic to help their granddaughter but had the sense to try to contact their son first before sending the money. He assured them that their granddaughter had indeed been in a car accident, rear ending another car, but was NOT in jail. The phone call had been a scam.
What is so frightening about this is that some of the information was correct and the fact that the elderly couple's cell phone number was known.
As we (our coffee morning visitors) listened to this story, another lady told us that she and her husband had received a phone call a while ago supposedly from the IRA telling them they had not paid enough money on their tax return and would be arrested if they didn't make an immediate payment of $1700. I don't remember how the caller wanted the money paid. This couple was very frightened at first but then realized that they have an accountant who does their taxes for them and the call had to be a scam. It was. This couple also had their credit card information stolen and used a couple of years ago after taking a cruise. The travel agency was the culprit. The same travel agency also was suspect in stealing credit card info on another friend who took the same cruise.
It worries me about how much personal information we hand out all the time...credit cards, passports, etc. Many of us have received those letters supposedly from friends asking for money because they were stuck in a foreign country. Our real friends had their e-mail addresses highjacked by criminals.
I know of one elderly lady who was cheated out of $800 by a scammer and it's shocking that she fell for it. These criminals come up with new scams every day and just constantly try them on us until they hit pay dirt. It's sickening. They prey on elderly or gullible people and manage to steal millions, maybe billions, of dollars every year. Nigeria is one of the prime locations where the scams originate.
When you think of the elderly couple today who thought their granddaughter called them, the scammer had to know of the accident and have the ability to find the grandparent's phone number. It will be interesting to find out who she gave that number to at the accident.
We must NEVER send cash to an emergency caller without contacting a few family members or friends to verify the emergency. It's terribly sad that scams work even occasionally and innocent people are hurt financially.
Never let a waitress or clerk walk away with your credit card when paying for a purchase. Be careful that you're signing for the right charges. If called by your bank, don't give them any personal information but end the call and phone your bank back yourself. Just be aware and think twice before giving any information or money to strangers.
I guess we always can find the silver lining to an awful day and yesterday mine was when 4 friends and I went to the game rooms. Normally I'm the big loser and my friends either win or lose just a bit but we have fun and that's why it's worth it.
Yesterday we climbed into the car (by the way, we're getting a little slower every year) and drove to game room #2 where I came out $20 richer. Then we hit game room #4 where I came out $1 richer. Then we had our $2 lunch at Wendys before going to game room #1. That's where we hit it big. Judy won over $200, Joann won almost $200, and I won $100. Shirley lost some of her money and so did Dee. The bad part was Dee flipping over in her chair and hitting her head on the concrete floor but she was okay, thank heavens. Those damn chairs are dangerous.
We went on to game room #5 and I lost $20 but ended the day over $100 to the good. We like to broadcast it when we win but never ask a gambler how much they lost. We tell each other, though.
I wish the rest of my day had been as happy.
To me, family is everything. It hurts to think that not all of my extended family feels the same way and that two of them have committed a terrible injustice against someone I love. It isn't the end of the world but it is the end of any relationship I'll ever have with them. Family should stick together and never cause undue grief to their own!
That said, it should never come as a surprise that all your family members feel the same way you do and that their characters might be of lesser quality. You just always hope that your bonds will remain permanent and that there won't be a deal breaker to sever the relationship. But it does happen.
A case in point is the weak relationship I have with my sister. In my eyes she committed a terrible injustice to me that was unforgivable. I'll always love her but I don't want to be around her if I can help it. Yesterday's injustice by the extended family members to my loved one went deeper than that. It caused both emotional and financial damage that can never be forgiven.
I wish no harm to these awful people but know that karma will take care of them. They're not nice people and that's already their punishment because they have to live with themselves.
My weekend was kind of uneventful, just the way I like it. Sylvia came over in the morning and got my tablet working with the internet, thank heavens. A very nice lady from India or Pakistan who worked for Verizon helped her through it, giggling at times over our confusion. Later in the afternoon, Dee called and asked if I'd like to go to the game rooms with her and escape the rainy day. I said yes! It took about 5 hours for me to lose $35 so it was worth it.
On Sunday, I did some shopping for incidentals and had lunch at Arby's. Then I spent most of the afternoon loading free games into the tablet. Amazon must have more than 100 free games available to us. About a half hour nap revived me enough to spend the rest of the evening playing those games.
All in all, a very quiet but productive weekend.
Note: Again I wonder why the size of my printing increases half way through????
I'm a people watcher so maybe I pick up on things a lot of others might ignore and one of my pet peeves are husbands who walk two steps ahead of their wives. My husband did this and it annoyed the life out of me. Maybe I was wrong but it always felt like a slap in the face. Right or wrong, that is how it felt.
My computer is at the front window of the trailer so I get to see lots of foot and vehicle traffic as I play my games or surf the web. Today there is church service at the clubhouse across the road and I've been occasionally watching the people traipsing in. The couples who capture my heart are the sweet seniors who walk along hand in hand. The couples who irk me are the ones where the husband is walking 2 steps ahead of his wife. Maybe I take it personally and the wives don't mind...but I don't understand the husband's mindset where he makes sure he's walking ahead of his wife. Is he the warrior on the alert for danger or is he asserting his position as head of the family? Whatever, it bugs me.
On the plus side, this behavior isn't the norm here. Most of the husbands are side by side companions to their wives and that gives me hope for our species. I really don't notice the "2 steps ahead" behavior with the younger generation but I'll be looking for it now that I think about it.
I've had many, many instances of my ESP at work in my lifetime but I don't trust it 100%. This time, it seems to be promising that everything will be all right.
I've had a personal worry lately and a few days ago a veil of peace seemed to settle over my shoulders letting me know that there's nothing to worry about and that all will turn out fine. I was unsure if it was just wishful thinking but that feeling of peace has taken hold and not wavered.
Sometimes we have to trust our intuition (or ESP) and mine is telling me strongly that all is well.
The story goes that a lady was giving her daughter driving lessons in the evening and was harassed by a neighbor who drove too close to them. He was a teenaged boy who was known to be a bad ass. The daughter honked at him to move his car and he supposedly threatened to get a gun and kill her.
So what does the mother do??? Does she go home and call the police? No, she goes home and gets her teenaged son, arms them, and goes looking for the boy who threatened her. She finds him but doesn't accost him, just drives back home where he awaits her arrival.
He shoots and kills her and then her son futilely returns fire. The lady is dead from a stupid confrontation with a young man she knows is dangerous but had chosen to chase down anyway.
Now, if all those with guns had not had guns, none of this would have happened. There might have been a street fight if this lady had not called police but she'd still be alive. She'd also probably still be alive if she'd not made the stupid decision to get a gun and hunt him down.
When are Americans going to accept that the outrageous number of guns in the United States is by far the reason for so many needless deaths? I have good friends here who own guns and disagree with me but they are the good people who own them only for protection. Now, if they didn't feel threatened by so many criminals having guns, then maybe they wouldn't feel it necessary to have one themselves.
It's a circular problem that I don't see changing in my lifetime.
There are lots of guns in Canada, too, but the numbers are still low enough to keep gun deaths minor in comparison to other violent deaths. Human beings are inherently violent by nature and that violent part of us can be triggered by many things. We might lash out with words or punches but, if we have a gun, someone is going to be badly hurt or killed. The answer seems to be a simple one...fewer guns.
We all live and learn but I seem to be having a lot of embarrassing learning experiences lately and my only excuse for my ignorance is my ignorance.
I returned some skin cream to Macy's today because they either sent the wrong item or I mistakenly ordered the wrong item. No problem except the clerks screwed up the return and the reorder and I had to swipe my card 4 times. When I was asked to swipe the 4th time, I got upset wondering just how many jars of cream I'd end up paying for. Another customer, angry with the wait said she felt very sorry for me and my problem but railed at the clerks. I'm sure those clerks ended up with a headache by the time they finished with me.
I was calm but understandably worried about how many times I was asked to swipe my card...there was no problem with my card but with the clerks' knowledge of how to process the return and re-order. In the end, I told them seriously that I was being calm and quiet at the moment but if I ended up with multiple charges on my credit card I'd be back screaming for the store manager. I felt a little sorry for them but no customer should have to be dealt with in such an unprofessional manner.
Then off I went home, stopping at a Burger King for lunch. Simple? No. The young cashier yawned widely as she took my order only to make a mistake on the kind of sandwich and forgetting my ice cream cup altogether. I was already miffed about the jar of cream fiasco so I loudly told her she'd made the mistake because she kept yawning and not paying attention.
As I sat and ate my damned lunch, still feeling low because of all the silly problems I'd had today, the cashier came to my table and apologized. She said she works two jobs and had only finished the first one at 2:30 A.M. before having to come to work at Burger King a few hours later. I apologized to her and commended her for working 2 jobs, all the while feeling like a piece of crap. In my miserable little mind, I'd falsely assumed she'd been out partying all night and that's why she was so tired. She said she was doing the best she could just to get by.
There's a saying that we shouldn't be too quick to judge others because we don't know the burdens they're carrying. How true. I know this...and yet I let myself behave in a way I'm ashamed of now. Maybe this incident will stay as a reminder to me to make more of an effort to be a good person and not a bitch just because my day isn't going well.
I don't watch music awards or give a hoot who wins them but apparently Kanye West pulled another rude interruption at the last one. He seems to think he's some kind of elite messenger who has the right to interrupt someone's shining moment in order to tell the audience that someone else should have won the award. Is that colossal rudeness, or what?? Why isn't he banned from the awards??
I'm very disappointed in my granddaughter, Lisette, who has been holding a diatribe on Facebook defending this idiot because he is black and therefore shouldn't be held to the same standards of rudeness as the rest of us. She believes his message is authentic and therefore not rude. Crap!!
As the diatribe continues, one of her friends makes a rude and insulting attack on my daughter's (Lisette's mother) comments and Lisette doesn't haul off and lambaste her idiot friend!
It's important to know when to fight your view of injustice and when to defend your family. In my opinion, defending your family comes first!
Is it really a worse crime to murder innocent people because of their race, sexual orientation, or religion? Is the murder not just as heinous if none of these reasons are considered? I don't understand "hate crimes".
How is it a worse crime if a hateful gun toting man walks up to their victim and kills them because of their race, sexual orientation, or religion? What if the murderer just didn't like the way they walked or the color of their eyes? How is one crime worse than the other? What if the killer just hated women and chose an unfortunate stranger to kill? How can these crimes not be treated equally? I simply don't understand the reasoning.
If our criminal justice system wants to choose a true hate crime that should receive tougher treatment, try keeping pedophiles in prison for life. Execute the pedophiles who rape, torture, and then murder a little child. These are crimes that deserve the "hate crime" label and severe punishment more than those committed because of race, sexual orientation, and religion.
The wife of the man who shot to death three Muslim neighbors said it was not a religious hate crime but was done over a parking dispute. Now, which makes more sense? It's horrible no matter what the murderer's reasons were but he's been described as a very angry man. He hated religion and loved guns. Not a good scenario for anyone to have to live beside.
I'm not happy that he's been described as an atheist, as though his hatred of religion stems from this. From my experience as an agnostic, atheists don't hate religious people...they just can't identify with them. I know gun enthusiasts won't agree with me but, if this man had not owned a gun, he might have just taken his aggression out in a non-lethal way. I think he was spurred by pure hatred of anyone who didn't fit in with his narrow concept of what is correct and was a time bomb waiting to go off.
Sylvia, who is a good religious lady, and I had a long discussion yesterday about religion. We are very good friends and understand that each has a different concept of "god" but we have respect for each other's right to our views. Again, I as an agnostic have more questions than sacred truths I uphold. Sylvia, trusting in her faith, doesn't have as many questions as I do. I don't hate religion or the religious. I just don't understand how they think and don't really care as long as they don't feel hatred for me and my questions.
We talked about an afterlife where all is peaceful and loving. We talked about what happens to the evil people in the world. Sylvia thinks there is a hell waiting for them but I think we become as innocent when we die as when we were born. We discussed why god doesn't interfere and stop evil and cruelty in the world. Sylvia believes we are on our own to make the best of it while I wonder why a god wouldn't stop it in it's tracks.
Sylvia and I have very different ideas about life and religion but that's only a facet of our characters. We think a lot alike on many subjects and I like her because she is honest and kind. I hope she thinks the same of me. Friends (and neighbors) don't have to have identical beliefs to get along.
My heart hurts for the loss of the three Muslims who were murdered so senselessly.
What a freeing feeling it is to get rid of unnecessary stuff. We tend to let it all creep in over many years because we might need it later...but too often later never comes and we're cramped with stuff we'll never use.
I took some bags of clothing I haven't worn in years and a load of actually good stuff to the Salvation Army. I first put it out in the yard so my neighbors could help themselves and they did take a lot which left me less to cart to the Salvation Army. I learned to be ruthless when in declutter mode while emptying my house so it wasn't too difficult to do the same with the trailer. And the Florida room does look much roomier!!
There is still some to go but the majority has been removed and I couldn't be happier about it.
I'm an avid people watcher and love to imagine what circumstances brought them to this moment. Today I was in Arbys and the customer in front of me was an obvious street person.. extremely dirty. He was buying one of the dollar burgers and I felt very sorry for him, enough that I almost offered to buy him a whole meal. But fear of gaining his unwanted attention held me back.
I watched as he sat at a table in the middle of the room...and wondered uncomfortably if someone like him had recently sat in the chair I was presently sitting in. He propped his feet up on a chair and, instead of eating what turned out to be just one of the many burgers and fries in front of him, spent most of his time scratching his head. It gave me the creeps, even as I tried to think what awful life experiences made him what he was. My mind switched from pity to repulsion, and then to dismay as he scratched away. He really was one of the filthiest people I had ever seen.
A family picked up their meals and their little girl rushed right over to sit at the table next to him, totally oblivious to him. Her family quickly redirected her to a table on the far side of the room. He remained a pariah amid all the "normal" people in the room.
As I left the restaurant, I was still warring with the emotions he'd made me feel. On one hand I felt tremendous pity for any human being who'd fallen so far and yet I still could never have made contact with him. I know that's a true failure on my part as a human being but it is what it is.
This is the one day of the week I have nothing planned and can get a few things organized. I was up around 6:15 and by 7:30 I'd reorganized the big drawer of the computer desk that I keep padded envelopes in. Granted, this took me about 3 minutes but it was a job that needed doing.
My plans for the rest of the day are to do laundry, pack up stuff for the Salvation Army, and dispose of much of the packaging material I use for Ebay because I'm mainly getting out of the Ebay business. I still have a few odd items I'll play around with from time to time, especially all that lace I brought down, but I'm done yard saleing to buy more product. I may end up with a roomy, neat trailer!
I have tons of lace that takes up very little room and needs only envelopes to mail so I do see a day when most of the clutter is gone from the trailer...probably when I decide to sell it, I bet. There won't be a day when all crafts and other interests of mine disappear, at least not until I'm senile or dead. One of the most wonderful things about being a senior is that your time is mainly your own and you can pursue any little interest that crosses your mind.
Being a widow, I don't have anyone to tell me I should stop developing new interests or spending money on them. I can go to the casino without having to face any disapproval, especially if I don't tell Cindy I went. She doesn't nag but she does get a stern look on her face when I talk about my gambling. I don't understand how my Kim hates shopping and my Cindy hates gambling. Shelley isn't much of a gambler, either. I gave birth to those girls!!
All of my girls are also gourmet cooks and they sure didn't get that from me, either. Of course, I'm nothing like my own mother other than we shared a liking for parties and dancing so I shouldn't be surprised when my children don't share my interests.
Back to my "getting things done day"...I'll be leaving lots of time for playing on the computer, talking to neighbors as I go back and forth to the laundry room, watching a bit of T.V., and probably eating lunch at Arbys. I might even work on the red, white, and blue frilly scarf I'm making for our U.S. Day door prizes.
Life is good!
I used Sensa for over a year, sprinkling most of the time, and lost about 25 lbs which I amazingly kept off. Even when I stopped using it, my new eating patterns remained so I continued losing 1, gaining 3/4 which was not so bad for someone like me.
About a week ago I noticed a huge increase in my evening appetite that worried me because I know how fast I can gain weight. This was the first time my appetite was out of control since I'd begun with Sensa and it was really strange because it seemed to happen overnight. My normal evening snack for the past year has been a yogurt cup and I really was quite satisfied with it until last week. All of a sudden I wanted more, much more, and I tried to appease the hunger with as healthy a choice as I could but I knew I was in trouble.
I told Sylvia, my Sensa partner, and she asked if it might have something to do with the cases of Diet Coke I'd recently stocked up on. Holy crap!! I thought back to when I'd bought the Diet Coke and when my increased hunger began and darned if they weren't connected.
I honestly don't keep Diet Coke in the house very often but every once in a while I feel a craving for it. I know there are no calories in the soda but I have learned that soda stretches your stomach and shouldn't be consumed if you're trying to lose weight. I knew this but assumed it wasn't too important. How much can your stomach expand, for heaven's sake?? Well, my experience in the past week was a huge eye opener for me. Going from feeling comfortable after eating a yogurt in the evening to feeling starved after eating one was a dramatic change in my nice new eating habits.
I had no Diet Coke yesterday and my evening snack was the usual yogurt cup after which I wasn't hungry at all.
This afternoon I caved in and had 2 Diet Cokes so it will be interesting to see how my evening will turn out.
I was all ready to announce to my lady friends who go to the game rooms with me on Mondays that I was giving up gambling until our dollar got healthier. Well, Judy was the first to arrive and informed me that our dollar gained 2 cents on the American dollar making it only $1.29+ to purchase instead of $1.31+ and that was enough to make me decide to gamble next week, too. Two cents might not sound like much but it dropped it below that horrible 30 cent mark.
Then I had been thinking of staying home for the winter until I saw photos of their latest snowstorm and the thoughts of wading through thigh high snow were more than I could cope with. I'm going to remain a snowbird until I can't drive to escape the snow!
On the plus side for my game room day...I only lost half my money so I was a sort of winner. We had so many laughs, as we always do, and there's no putting a price on good times like this.
Things change and we either have to change and adapt with them or we end up feeling terribly resentful. My life this year will reflect quite a few changes and I'm ready to adapt.
My best friend here at the park, Sylvia, has sold her trailer and won't be coming back. I will miss her immeasurably because she's such a huge part of my Florida winter but I'll hopefully see her in the summer when I attend my family reunion in New Brunswick. It's not much but it's something.
I don't have many winters left in Florida and next winter will be lonelier without Sylvia. I have lots of friends here who, though they won't take Sylvia's place, will keep me from being too lonely. They are good people I don't want to lose, either.
And then there's the deep diving Canadian dollar to contend with. I just decided today that the best way to deal with that is to stop going to the game rooms on Mondays. That's $60 a week I'm saving for better things and it won't be a big loss not to be able to go gambling.
Life is always going to change for us as the years go by and that's a fact. Sometimes it gets better and sometimes it gets worse but usually it's a sideways change. One thing will replace another and life goes on.
Today is one of my quiet, stay-at-home days and I used it to do laundry, wash curtains, wash floors, and air out the mats. I'm content.
I've also decided to get out of the Ebay business. Sales are just getting slower and I'd like to rid my Florida room of shipping supplies. This will be my last winter of selling on Ebay which means that yard saleing must also come to an end. A lot of changes in one winter, wouldn't you say?
Well, there are a lot worse things in life so I'll just relax and enjoy what I have and not fret about what I'll lose.
I don't understand the savagery that Isis commits on anyone they choose. I picture these monsters as having brains riddled with poison and not being truly human any more. Beheading is an archaic form of punishment but Isis does it to their prisoners on a regular basis. It's beyond our understanding.
What happens to a man to make him capable of kidnapping young girls, using some of them as suicide bombers, beheading someone? Just how deep is this capability in our own souls? We see acts of savagery everyday in our world...sometimes in our own neighborhood...and wonder what brings a human being to commit such atrocities.
Isis seems to have attracted like minded individuals who become even more dangerous in the group.
And then there are the kind and responsible human beings who spend their lives taking care of others or fighting injustices. It almost makes me think we might be two species because that's easier than thinking we are all the same but just make different choices in our lives.
It worries me to think what lies beneath our surface.
Our annual park parade is always on a Friday, the same as our coffee morning so we had some interesting characters drop by for coffee. Then we were able to sit on the patio and watch the parade.
I thank my lucky stars that I've never been so down and out that I needed welfare but know of so many instances of abuse of welfare that it's often hard to accept that some people really do need it.
I was returning a top at Walmart today and the clerks were having a difficult time with a customer returning food items such as bread and some other things that I could see could be opened and then closed. The lady was well dressed and adamant that she'd paid cash for some of her items...she had a receipt. The confusion seemed to be that her receipt showed they'd been paid for with food stamps. I don't know how all this ended because I finished my transaction and left.
I did ask the clerk what happens to returned food items such as bread and she said they'd be thrown in the trash. Thank heavens! But, what a waste! Why take them back in the first place??
We don't have food stamps in Canada so I don't know anything about them other than they can be abused just as easily as money given to some welfare recipients. It's so sad to see welfare money given to people who shouldn't get it because there are many people who desperately need it and don't get enough. Welfare offices just don't have sufficient staff to determine who shouldn't get benefits. Our governments don't seem to realize that just one employee could save us more money than it costs to employ them.
I watched the clerks dealing with this particular lady today and saw the dislike on their faces. Working people deeply resent working 40 hours per week only to have some of their salary deducted and handed over to those who won't work. We see so much abuse of the system that it's often difficult to tell who is needy and who is greedy.
Was this lady abusing the system? Probably...but maybe not.
A 52 year old man worked 10 years night shift at a Mac's Milk in Hamilton. I just read that this man was robbed while working and handed over the money to the robber as he was supposed to do. As the drunken thief got to the door, he fell and the Mac's employee decided it was safe to hold him down until police arrived. He saved his employer quite a bit of money and was fired for his effort!
Why, you might ask? Well, he apparently signed a contract 10 years ago saying he would not attempt to intervene in any store robbery. Now, I agree he shouldn't have done so but only for his own safety, but to fire this man??? The owners of Mac's Milk should be ashamed of themselves. They had a darned good employee for 10 years and they tossed him out when he tried to save them money.
I hope they lose customers who understand the unfairness of Mac's Milk actions. I also hope the fired employee is hired immediately by someone who appreciates his integrity.
I'm a little sensitive to the topic of good employees having just had an uncomfortable incident at Walmart where the cashier could have been a bit more polite. We were left wondering how much training some of these service people get in showing plain courtesy to the paying public. I usually praise Walmart people but maybe it's time for every store to give their employees a crash course in courtesy.
Anyway, a polite employee will be instrumental in drawing customers back to their store. A surly employee will chase them away. Simple logic!
When I'm in Florida and the north is being bombarded by snowstorms, I feel so fortunate to be where I am. It's cool here, too, and the furnace was on last night but there's not a single snowflake on the ground. Also, the sun is shining brightly in a perfect blue sky!
I did follow the storm warnings on the news, though, and hoped my own family back home wouldn't be snowbound. Today, they're slamming New York's mayor for closing the city and highways because the snow storm didn't amount to as much as expected. Now, what if it had and the mayor hadn't closed the city and highways? What if people got stuck in their cars and died from exposure? He did the right thing no matter what anyone says.
Fresh snow can be beautiful to look at but I just don't like the cold that brings it. Two day old dirty snow piles are not beautiful, though, and they last longer than the snowstorm.
When I was a little girl, I made an igloo out of one of those piles of snow at the side of the road and was inside when it caved in. No-one knew where I was but I was lucky enough to dig myself out. Otherwise, there would be no Kim, Cindy, Shelley, Nick, Matt, Tyson, Kyle, Aeron, Lisette, Nicole, Jake, Nolan, or Nash....so far! It's interesting how the whole world can be changed by the loss of one person.
Little Patsy is still alive and kicking as of 8:15 A.M. this Wednesday morning.
The good news is that I'm meeting Shelley and Nicole for lunch. The bad news is that Shelley is bringing Winnie over for Nicole to puppysit. I have to assume she loves Nicole more than me. Sigh!
And my Matt phoned me this morning just to see how I was and to tell me his plans for driving down in March. I adore him! And I adore his Kelly, too, and hope this is a permanent relationship for them. Kelley is a teaching assistant and it's funny because we used to joke years ago that we'd like a teacher to "adopt" Matt when he grew up. Apparently our hopes and dreams have come true!
It's incomprehensible to me that our Canadian dollar has dropped so far from the U.S. dollar in the last year. I believe Canada is in better shape financially than the U.S. so why does it now cost (today) more than $1.27 to buy a U.S. dollar?? Canadians here in the park are leaving or planning to leave for good because this adds dramatically to our cost of being in the States and there comes a point when it's just not worth it to spend our winters here. Damn!
Pretty well all of us Canadians are on fixed income pensions so we can't roll with a 27% increase in lot rent, groceries, and entertainment. Granted, gas, clothes, and restaurant meals cost us less than in Canada so there is a trade off that we have to consider. Cold, snowy Canada versus warm, sunny Florida is a big consideration, too.
There really does come a time when it just doesn't pay for us to leave Canada and I'm fearful it will be that falling dollar that puts the cost out of range for most of us.
I don't know what I've been doing lately but, whatever it was, it kept me awfully busy. One good thing is that my cold is gone, gone, gone but the plugged ear isn't. Shelley took a look in my ear, told me there was no wax in there at all and said to use Claritin for a couple of weeks. I started it the other day and my ear is actually slowly unclogging. Wonder if that's a real word???
Yesterday our Red Hat ladies went to Sweet Tomatoes for a yummy lunch...we do this once a month. This morning our Swedish weaving ladies met and yakked along with working. Then Sylvia and I went out for lunch and a bit of shopping. I bought a new pair of shoes that I don't need but just love.
Tonight we're having a yummy potato bar at the clubhouse (my favorite meal there) and then a nice bunch of ladies will gather to play cards for the evening. I'm running out of clean clothes but I just have no time to do laundry until Sunday! See, busy, busy, busy!
It's such a different life here in Florida with lots of social activities that I don't get at home so I'll enjoy them as long as I can. Laundry can wait.
It seems like I'm more impressed by little incidences these days, ones I haven't experienced before. Today, I saw something that both tickled me and awed me.
I was driving back from taking a bunch of stuff to the Salvation Army and was stopped at a stoplight right next to a bus stop where a Hasidic Jew (I hope I wrote that correctly) sat waiting for the bus. All of a sudden he started waving his hands as though being attacked by a bee or wasp and just as suddenly he stopped and quickly pressed his hands together in prayer. I know nothing of the Jewish religion but I assume he was asking forgiveness for hurting one of god's creatures. He might also be giving thanks he wasn't stung. How precious.
This is one of the reasons I want to take a course in world religions because each one has their own unique and interesting rituals. After thinking how cute his actions were, I then thought how brainwashed he was. Then my thoughts slipped into how maybe I'm the one who is blind or brainwashed because I have no religion to fall back on.
Life is full of questions.
I got a late start with my Ebay selling this year because I didn't get to Florida until early December. Sales for me have been slow but this might be the first year I've had so much to sell... books and sewing trim. I'm seriously thinking of giving up yard saleing with the main reason being our dropping dollar and my limited Florida winters in the future. One more harmless passion coming to an end!!
Ebaying is something I could do without and not suffer withdrawal, though. As we age, we seem to drop activities along the way for different reasons and it helps if it's not an activity we live for. The hardest things to let go of are family and friends. Some pass away and some move away and there's nothing we can do about it...it's the circle of life.
When a child's best friend moves away or their favorite pet bites the dust, they are so obvious in their sorrow that it attracts comfort from everyone. When this happens to an adult, whose heart is just as broken, it's expected that the adult be stoic and not need consoling. But we do need understanding that our loss is taking a toll on us. Underneath, we are still wailing children.
I won't suffer any mental damage from the loss of Ebay, but I'm already hurting inside for future, more imminent losses that are far more important in my life. I've often thought how lonely life must be for the centenarians whose friends and family have passed on while they live on. I'm always harping on how the most important possessions anyone can have are family and good friends but I realize my own family doesn't need that reminder. They already understand that and live it. Our children and grandchildren, and even greatgrandchildren, are friends as well as relatives. This makes me sooooo happy!
The nastiness on the news has been getting me down lately and it helps to know how much love and caring there is in my own family. It helps to know that most people are good and kind and not full of hatred. It helps to have friends who have your back.
Good, I feel better now.
I just heard about this rather ludicrous idea but I'm not laughing. A lot of ludicrous ideas become fact. The gist of it seems to be that, if a Canadian snowbird spends part of the winter in the U.S. (as we do), they will have to submit and pay income tax to the United States for that period of time as well as pay their regular Canadian income tax. Sounds crazy? I know of someone that actually happened to but he's an American living in Canada.
He didn't have a problem until H&R Block gave him poor advice. All of his income comes from the States and that's where he pays his income tax. H&R Block was doing his wife's Canadian income tax return and told him he should fill one out to receive some of our benefits. He did...and the next thing he knew, Canada Revenue charged him over $7,000 income tax on his U.S. pension money. He's been fighting for many years to get it back but every government employee he talks to tells him a different story.
So I can see the U.S. shitting on us snowbirds!!
If this all comes to fruition, Canadians will stop spending their winters in the southern states and Florida, especially, will become a desert wasteland with millions of service people out of work, home foreclosures up the ying yang, and the small core of permanent RV park residents with no-where to live.
On the other hand, Canadian snowbirds will either freeze to death or find a more hospitable winter home...maybe Mexico. Not me, though. I'll just stay home and spend most of the week playing at the senior center and making new friends.
Why do all good and fun things have to be ruined by a greedy beaurocrat who doesn't understand the ramifications of his/her stupid idea?
The human body is really an amazing thing...it almost makes me think there might be a creator. I rarely get sick but this cold I caught has been wicked and there were times I wondered if my poor old body was capable of overcoming it. Just a few days ago, I hit bottom and even wondered if I should head home but, by staying home and resting, I've gotten it 95% beat. My tummy muscles are thankful, too. I'm still waiting to see if I can have the antibiotic prescription filled without seeing the quack doctor first and I will use the prescription if I get it. I want to knock this bug out for good! But today I feel pretty darned healthy and that's a blessing.
I've been couchbound and watching a lot of T.V. which included newscasts of unbearable cruelty in this world. At times, it became too much for me and I had to turn it off. It's scary to see the horrors of what some human beings are capable of. But then we also see the good side...the best that we can be...and that gives me hope.
I'm always most horrified by cruelty against children, those too tender and too helpless to fend for themselves. This week, a father threw his 5 year old daughter into a river where she drowned and I cringed at the senselessness of it. A police officer tried in vain to save the little girl and I know he'll be haunted by his inability to do so. The father's inhumane act makes no sense at all but the police officer's frantic attempt to save the child is what most of us would do and that's where our saving grace comes from. We were created to help, not hurt, one another. The savage among us are aberrations and not normal.
There were the terrorist killings in France that were so upsetting but then, an amazing a beautiful thing happened. The people, not only the French, gathered together and marched by the thousands in unity against terrorism. Good Muslims joined in with them and denounced the small, murderous terrorists who use the Muslim religion as their excuse for their actions. It was a beautiful example of good against evil and so easy to see how outnumbered the evil doers are.
Well, I found out my prescription is ready for pick-up so I'm on my way out into the world, hoping only to meet up with the good in it.
How much I hate being this far from home and from my own doctor. I was so sick yesterday, coughing until I threw up, that I was almost ready to head back to Canada. If I'd been well enough to drive, that is! I've been sick for 5 weeks with this bronchitis but had begun to feel better for a while. On Friday, I knew it was coming back, though. Why do we usually get sick on a weekend???
I called my insurance company this morning to get permission to either see the quack doctor again or to hope he'd just renew the antibiotic prescription. So far, the insurance company has been very nice and easy to deal with. I called the Walmart pharmacy to renew the prescription and they said it would take 24 hours. I'm glad I'm feeling better today.
Dee just dropped in to give me some apples...I think they're the delicious ones she brings down from New York! Joann has been doing some running around for me and Sylvia offered to do my laundry (I'm doing it myself). There are always lots of good people here to look out for you when you're under the weather.
My stomach is so darned sore from coughing...I wonder if this is how your stomach feels when you're doing crunches? It would have to be after about a thousand crunches, though. It hurts!!
Well, I've got to go over to the laundryroom and put my laundry in the dryer. I want to get this all done before the big rainstorm hits us. I don't like tight schedules!
It's strange to feel as though you haven't got a cold (I do believe mine has ended) but I'm still coughing a month after it all began. I was at Burger King today and half the people in there were coughing so it's kind of an epidemic at least here in Florida. When I cough, it starts like a tickle in my throat and doesn't affect my chest at all but still sounds awful. I've kind of narrowed it down to a sinus drip that causes the tickle but I've never had a cough that lasted this long before. Of course, I have my usual "silly" throat that closes every now and then (for the last 25 years) and causes me to cough so I don't know if that's all part of the problem or not. I guess I'll just wait it out and hope it ends soon.
Yesterday I finally used my Neti Pot, using plain warm water, and it hurt like hell! I don't think it hurt when I last used it about 5 years ago but it did yesterday so I'm not using it again.
We're such fragile creatures. We try to rule the world but a little old cold germ can render us helpless pretty darned fast. I remember how my husband would turn into a big, whiny baby when he got sick. Me, I've got no-one to whine to so I blog my whines. Sorry.
CBC has put 2 of their executives on a leave of absence, probably over their failure to protect female employees who were sexually harassed by Jian Gomeshi. We can take this as an action forced on them by public outcry or by the "right" upper management finally getting the message that women shouldn't have to put up with sexual harassment anywhere, especially in the workplace.
There always has been and always will be sexual harassment of females by more powerful and abusive males, but I see a definite lessening of acceptance by both females and males. I have to attribute this to a generation of stronger minded women who won't put up with it and are not afraid to speak out. I saw it and experienced it many times in my lifetime but kept silent out of embarrassment. Today's women have more guts and I admire them for it. Only in bringing abuse out of the closet and into the light can changes be made and they are being made. This will make life safer and healthier for each following generation of females. I say "females" and not women because it's also female children who can suffer the same abuse from males who have no conscience or self-discipline.
Saying this, it's also important to remember that abusive males are in the minority and our world is full of decent men and boys who have respect for themselves and for others. They are the role models for future generations.
I just heard someone say that age 0-50 is for learning and 50+ is for living. It struck a chord in my heart that, yes, I've done a whole lot more living in the years after I turned 50. Of course, you never stop learning but it's in your senior years that maybe, just maybe, you've learned how to enjoy the life you've been graced with. It's not so much a matter of knowing you have a limited time left to enjoy but more an appreciation that you get to enjoy it at all.
If I remember correctly (it's been a long time), we spend those early and middle years being sort of self centered. We're building a life and worrying that we aren't keeping up. Maybe it's the "building" that makes the difference between the rough early and middle years and the hopeful serenity of our later years when we usually aren't "building" anything any more. We've stepped aside from the hustle and bustle and are simply living. I, for one, love this time of life.
There's a website I get occasional updates from, one where I sent in a letter about what I experienced when Dennis passed away. It amazes me how many people experience the same phenomena as I did and each one I read about reinforces my belief that there is some sort of life after death. There is so little publicity about these experiences and that's something I don't understand. It doesn't disparage religion and it gives us old folk hope for another future.
Today I head off to the game rooms with a car full of fun friends. When I have to stay back in Canada during the winter, my plans are to spend most days at the senior center where I can make new friends and enjoy whatever activities that interest me. We don't have to retire to boredom in our old age but we do get to create a new lifestyle.
The secret to a happy old age is to expand your interests and be as sociable as you're able to be.
My granddaughter posted a comment on Facebook that got me thinking. A stranger on the street said hello to her and she took it as harassment. Now, I don't know the specifics of this encounter but I remember an incident in my own past that somewhat mirrors this one. I, an Ontarian, was visiting a small town in New Brunswick for the first time. As I was walking alone down the main street, a man passed by and said hello to me. Again, being from a large city in Ontario where this is uncommon, I felt as though he was trying to pick me up and didn't respond. Over time, I learned that not every hello from a stranger is harassment. Sometimes it's just a little ray of friendly sunshine in an otherwise cold and lonely world.
My granddaughter is a pretty young lady who often is legitimately harassed when she's out walking and that may have made her more sensitive to a stranger speaking to her. But every young lady should be able to differentiate between true harassment and a simple, friendly hello.
Sometimes that friendly hello from a stranger might be the only kindness a person hears all day.
There's something comforting about routine. We might not realize that our lives generally follow a routine until something happens to disrupt it. I seem to thrive on routine as long as it's full of variations so I don't get bored but when I got sick the day I got to my Florida park, my whole life turned upside down.
I don't have an exciting life but it is full of the things I enjoy doing and part of my routine is lots of social interaction at my Florida park. I had little of that while I was sick so it was really nice to get back into my normal routine as soon as I was well. Last Friday we started back with morning coffee time on the patio and more people showed up than I expected. It's still early in the season and I haven't held coffee time while I was sick so I just hoped most of the ladies here would know it was back on. I guess a dozen ladies came over and we had a great time chatting away. I think the world of every one of these ladies and feel so fortunate that they enjoy our coffee mornings, too.
Poor Charlotte had a terrible fall which left her with a bruised and swollen lip so she didn't come over until the very end. She was embarrassed about how she looked but I reminded her how I'd marched around last winter with a red splotchy face from the chemical peel. If people don't like the way we look, tough you-know-whatty! People who really care about us accept us as we are.
Debbie has arranged a great deal on a 7 night/8 day cruise so Sylvia and I are considering going. She's not completely sure yet but I'll only go if she does. Neither one of us had thought about another cruise but this is a terrific deal for $500 so I hope we get to go.
On a nasty note...we went to the clubhouse yesterday for the HOA meeting and an incident occurred that was pretty awful. One of the residents stood up in front of everyone and angrily complained about the supposed actions of the HOA president. It was a personal problem between them that should never have been discussed in public like that and made me want to run out of the clubhouse. I can't stand arguments at all any more and just want to flee when something like this happens. None of the people I hang out with are argumentative, thank heavens, or I wouldn't come back to the park every winter.
Anyway, today I get my hair cut, tomorrow I go to the game rooms, and Tuesday begins card/Bingo nights right through Friday. Friday and Saturday we have our park yard sale so my little world is full at least for the next week. Life is good when you allow it to be.
Back in the early days of my yard saleing, I was too embarrassed to bargain with the sellers but, by forcing myself, I became one of the best dickerers you can find. I'm a bargain guru! I've never been embarrassed to ask for a senior's price or if the drinks are free for seniors, either. Those big companies have more money to waste on us old people than they'll ever miss.
Today, Sylvia and I went to a really nice restaurant that has "all you can eat" soup and salad on their menu and that's what we had. The sweet little waitress we had asked if we'd like a second bowl of soup but we were full....but I asked if we could have a second bowl full to take home. Why not, eh?? Of course, said our sweet little waitress so we now had dinner for this evening. We seniors know how to save money!
I have to admit that this was not a new idea for me because a couple of years ago, a whole bunch of us seniors (Red Hatters) went to an Olive Garden for lunch and many had their soup and salad for lunch. I overheard one of our ladies ask if she could take a bowl of soup home and the waitress brought her one. I, loving anything free, asked for one also and got one, too. Every time I do something like this and feel no embarrassment doing so, I think of how horrified Kim would be if she was with me. I don't know about Cindy and Shelley but sometimes Kim embarrasses too easily.
If it's free and I like it, I'll take it.
Having been born in 1940, I never really looked forward to a day I'd be alive in 2015...but here I am, happy, fairly healthy, and spending the winter in Florida with lots of fun friends. You just never know how your life will turn out.
I'm glad to see a new year. Last year had it's ups and downs but it was mainly a pretty good year and I'm expecting the same from 2015. Life is often what you make it and I intend to make my new year as good as possible.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
