Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Quiet on the Blog Front

I am at a loss for blog material. If blog is a real word, why isn’t the spellchecker aware of it? I guess somebody just made it up. Twitter is a real word and means “chatter”. Now that makes sense, but blog? What is that supposed to mean? Maybe it is a real word, I’m looking in a crossword dictionary and it isn’t in there.

I received a ballot in the mail today for a vote as to whether I approve a bond for a new high school to replace an old one. I most certainly do approve, and already filled it out. It had two boxes, one for approving, and one for not approving. They give very specific instructions on how to do it, as though they might not be smart enough to figure out what you mean unless you do it exactly as they say. You cannot put a check mark or an X in the box. You have to fill in the whole area with black ink. No other color will be acceptable. I had to look all over the place to find a pen with black ink. It seems that I always buy blue ink pens. Well, I gotter done. I hope they can figure out what I want.

My Grandson came by from school today wearing a face mask. I think it’s a social status thing in his case. We have not had any flu reported in this area yet. I just heard a DR report that the mask would do very little good anyway. He said the germs are so small it can go through the mask. I guess the mask could keep you from catching the common cold and other diseases. Maybe we should all start wearing them all the time. I hope you don’t think I’m serious.
Like I said it is a quiet blog day and this is the best I can do.

Monday, April 27, 2009

Medical Bill Goofs



Medical billing goofs. Am I the only one this happens to or do others have this problem. I am not even fully recovered from my knee surgery and have already received my first goofed up bill. I am fully covered by Medicare and supplement insurance, but for some reason they send me the balance of the bill after Medicare pays their share. I receive the bill and my blood pressure rises a few notches. I call them and remind them that I have supplement insurance. They look at my records and agree with me. They always tell me they will take care of it. Why are they not trained to do the billing correctly in the first place? It doesn’t happen every single time, but it has happened a few times. I guess I shouldn’t get my tail in a knot over it, but I’m not in a very good mood.


Friday, April 24, 2009

Too Much Idle Time


I recently bought something on ebay. I know you’re curious so I’ll tell you what it was.
It was a set of Laura Ingalls Wilder "Little House on the Prairie books". I am so much into my second childhood it’s unreal. I wanted to read those books again. I am on the fourth one and thoroughly enjoying the books. Here is another small example of my second childhood action. When I received the books I entered a positive feedback on the lady’s Ebay site. I waited a week or so and didn’t get a feedback from her so I wrote this to my seller. Word for word this is what I said, "Do you not leave feed back for your buyers?" She responded immediately, "You didn’t need to get so nasty about it, I’ve had a death in my family and I am the only child so all the burden has been on me and ebay has not been on the top of my priorities". I didn’t want to start World War Three so I dropped it at that point. I see she left me a positive feedback. She said I was a great ebayer. I didn’t ask her to lie about it, she knows I am a nasty person and not a great ebayer at all. Not much to write about around here. Till next time.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Happy Birthday Cora

Happy Birthday Cora
This is one of my six granddaughters. She has the gift of setting goals and reaching them. I am very proud of her. Her goal of becoming a mother is just around the corner. The adoption is ready to roll. Three Years Old

Tip Toeing thru the Bubbles on their wedding day.



Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Hospital Woes


Today I go back to the doctor for a stitch removal ceremony. I am not too eager about going anywhere. I was told not to drive yet, so I have to hitchhike. I guess it’ll be easier than walking all the way over there. I am just so glad I am out of the hospital. Do you know they have a torture machine that the enemy would love to get their hands on. It registers your oxygen level and heart rate. When your oxygen level drops below 90 or so, it has a red light that comes on and it starts beeping really loud. Beep Beep Beep Beep. With my sleep Apnea my oxygen level drops when I go to sleep. I guess it’s designed that way on purpose so you will wake up and breath. I called the nurse every time it came on. She would come in and fiddle with it. The nurse didn't tell me it was supposed to beep, she kept trying to fix it. So I am still not sure if it was supposed to beep or what. I finally told the nurse that I thought the Dr. had said I could have a sleeping pill. She came back in two seconds flat with that sleeping pill. If she can’t fix the machine maybe she can at least get me shut up. It worked because I didn’t hear any beeping the rest of the night.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

We Got That Over With

We got that taken care of. The lame leg has been fixed. It wasn’t exactly a walk in the park. I did not limp into the operating room and lime back home the same day. I spent a couple days in the hospital. It seems that sleep apnea and pain narcotics do not mix too well. At least in my case they don’t. It’s okay and everything is back on track.
Hospital, you’re going to get picked on a little here. I do not exaggerate or tell falsehoods. I think it was the first evening and I was served the evening meal. It was a salad with dressing on the side. I thought the dressing was something different a little different looking, but it was a little dark in the room and I was a under the influence of drugs so I dump a little on the salad and I thought, “ Lord, have mercy, this taste a lot like gravy.” I think they may have been a little rushed in the kitchen that night and put the gravy on the wrong tray. Anyway, I had a lot of fun explaining to everybody within hearing distance of how good the gravy salad was. Outside of that the food was fine and I had a wonderful room mate. Nurses are overworked and how they can keep on their smiley faces through it all is beyond me.
I am home now and everything will soon be back to normal. I will keep in touch.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Happy Birthday AJ


Happy Birthday AJ (Anthony). Born 19 years ago today. He is my oldest Great Grandson.
I am very proud of him, now that he has outgrown jumping on the bed and pulling the eyeballs off of my homemade teddy bear.
Have a Happy Birthday AJ. Sorry you have to work on your birthday.

Monday, April 13, 2009

The Color of Pain


Only three days until knee surgery. This is what I look like after four months of constant pain. Maybe next week I will be improved. Chris has recovered from her ordeal with the tooth problem. She looked like this too. She didn’t get the bone infection. Thank goodness.
Not much to talk about. I am just awaiting my knee surgery. They called today to remind me of the appointment. I might forget a lot of things, but I’m not going to forget that one.
This will have to do until the next time.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Sorghum Molasses







My folks were living on a farm in Oklahoma. The year was 1932. There were four children at that time. My grandparents owned the farm, which my grandpa homesteaded by running a horse race. I’ll talk about that at another time. My parents lived on the backside of the farm and raised their own crops. They raised cotton, sorghum cane, and corn. They had turkeys, goats, cows and horses.

Everything was hard work. It was hard work to create something so wonderful as sorghum molasses. There was no running to the local Safeway and picking up a bottle of Mrs. Butter-Worth’s syrup, original, lite or otherwise. It just wasn’t done. Molasses are delicious on pancakes or cornbread and is a wonderful sweetener for cookies. To make the sorghum molasses takes a lot of time and hard work from the growing the cane to the entire process of cutting it and bringing it from the field. It was especially hard work for the horse, that had to walk in a small circle all day, to operate the press that was squeezing the syrup out of the cane.

The yellow colored syrup flowed over a large tray and was heated to a boiling point. I would explain it better, but I was very young and my memory has faded a little. I do remember that my little brother, who was only a toddler, was accidentally splashed with the boiling syrup. I remember the pathetic screams and all the scrambling my parents did to find some relief for him. It took hours to produce enough molasses to can in fruit jars. Enough had been preserved to last until the next year.

The turkeys were sold and Mom was able to buy a much needed winter coat. The cotton field was picked with help from the neighbors. The neighbors helped you and you helped the neighbors when help was needed. The cotton had been packed into a large four-wheeled trailer to be taken to town the following Monday morning. Sunday night the family went to church to fellowship with the neighbors. A good time was had by all, and when they came home and drove into the yard the first thing they noticed was the trailer of cotton was missing.

When they went inside they found that somebody had also stolen the sorghum molasses and Mom’s new coat. Think of all that work, just snatched away from them. It was a sad time. Thievery was not as rampant at that time as it is today. Everybody from miles around came to offer their condolences and offer their help.
Uncle Tom was so outraged, he offered to go gunning for the thief. He helped try to track down the trailer wheels, but they kept running into dead ends. It took years to forget the disappointment and hardship of the theft. It was talked about forever. That is why I remember most of this story. This story has a surprise ending.
Uncle Tom admitted years later that he was the thief, and he thought it highly amusing that he was over there guiding them away from the tracks instead of helping. There is just something about it. A thief or murderer cannot resist bragging about their crime.

Uncle Tom ended up being driven out of the State of Oklahoma by the county sheriff because of his bootlegging and whiskey making. I guess that is what he used the sorghum molasses for.
He left the state and moved to Colorado and never returned again. Uncle Tom was married to my mother’s sister.
A link to the making of Sorghum Molasses.


Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Tooth and Knee update

I just noticed one of the Ad's on the right is for Dr. Darrell Tew. He just happens to be one of the Dentist's that took care of Chris's tooth problem. She may have bone infection now. Those AD's are automatically entered by Ad Sense. I don't think they are normally from any business in this town. That is a coincidence or strange to say the least. Now isn't that just about the most exciting thing you've read all day.
I am only a week away from knee surgery. This is all for today.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

The Dental Problem



Remember the one with the tooth problem, which I wrote about a couple months ago. She has to pay with medical coupons. The clinic wouldn’t pull the infected tooth because it wasn’t an emergency. When it becomes infected it can’t be pulled until the infection has been eliminated. It was decided that only an oral surgeon can pull the tooth, but oral surgeons in this town will not accept the medical coupons because they will not began to cover the actual expense of the surgery. I think that is the reason.
So she has returned to hospital about four times as an emergency because the mouth was so infected. Received stronger antibiotics and it would tame it down for awhile and when it came back it would require another trip to emergency. Finally it became so infected she had to be hospitalized for five days. Oral surgeons pulled the tooth and now she is home recovering. Think how much that cost the Taxpayers in the State of Washington. If they had pulled it the first time she went to emergency it would have cost about a 10th of what it ended up costing. Not to mention the pain and suffering they could have saved.


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Friday, April 3, 2009

It's a Boy


My granddaughter "Cora" is 7 months pregnant. Not really, but she is getting a baby from Burundi, Africa in about two months. She gets to skip all that sick icky feeling, the tiredness and the big fat belly. Not only that but her baby will be out of the "sleep all day and cry all night stage". We hope! Well, if not, Jim will love to walk the floor with him. We are all so happy and excited about this. Adoption is a new experience for all of us. I don’t think they have settled on a name yet. My advice is not to name him something and then call him by his middle name. Right now we seem to refer to him as BB (Baby Burundi) I am quite sure that will not be his legal name. The excitement of this is no different than if she were giving birth to him. At least it is for me, and I’m sure the rest of the family feels the same way.