Okay, so I'm fucking old.

This post was inspired by Geeky Mom over at http://geekymom.blogspot.com/
She was asking about our first computers, firsts of a lot of technological things, which made me realize my age. I not only remember my first computer, a commodore, bought during mid 80s, but I remember my first color television, my first black and white television, and the first television that I ever saw. I remember coffee percolators being the big thing, now there are Mr. Coffees and more. I remember the first microwave, the first refrigerator with an ice maker, the first compact stereo, vinyl records, eight track tapes, little tapes, improved tapes, and finally I remember in the early 90s my children converting me from vinyl to those disk things. Yes, I still don’t remember what they are called. I remember Tab, before sugar substitutes, and I remember when children could buy and smoke cigarettes. I also remember drop, tuck, and roll. Which meant, drop to the floor, tuck your head down and your legs up and roll under the desk, just in case there was an atomic bomb dropped on us by the communists. I remember when man walked on the moon and how scandalous my grandmother thought the government was for playing such a trick on the people. She, like many, thought they were pictures taken out in the desert that no one could walk on the moon, they’d burn up, it was in the Bible, she thought. I remember Vietnam, and all the flag draped coffins that were unloaded from planes on the evening news, and the burning villages, and the wounded civilians and the wounded soldiers that plastered not just the television, but Life Magazine. I remember the first time Live from Saturday Night came on, I remember watching it and thinking I was going to burn in hell. I also remember the Beatles first time on the Ed. Sullivan show and how I loved them, I was only 9, a few weeks later my mom’s boyfriend raped me. I also remember both of the Kennedy’s assassination, ML King’s assassination, and I remember when women and children were property. I also remember Elvis, and I remember the decades of young and sexy Elvis, Older and chubbier Elvis, and not long before he died, I saw him and he was the unhealthy Elvis that today stays in my memory. Oh, so many memories, I think, my husband and I counted from my birth until now, there were something like fifteen presidential terms, starting with Ike and ending with, yes, these two terms of the bushwhacker. I remember it all, and while nostalgia is good, I don’t want to go backwards, I want to embrace the technology, the rights of women and children, the new music and the new medias, and I don’t want to have to ever think that I have to like something just because it was what the man of the house liked. I like corndogs dammit. Is that so bad?

happy birthday.

I just now noticed, I had a blog birthday. One year and six days ago, was my first blog. Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me!

Peanut butter and crackers.

My favorite food is peanut butter; I could live on it night and day. I think it comes from the days and days when I was a child and Mama and I ate peanut butter and crackers for our noon snack. The older children were in school and she was expecting my sister. So, after lunch and when it was almost nap time, she and I would sit on the sofa, watch the soap operas and eat commodity peanut butter and saltines. I don’t remember much if any conversation, mostly she would spread the peanut butter on the cracker and hand to me. Sometimes, we wouldn’t have crackers and she would dip a big spoon for me and one for her and we would sit and eat the peanut butter by itself. Before she died, we were all standing around her bed, I was a child. I remember knowing that she was going to die and feeling the need to tell her that I loved her and so I did, it was the first time that I ever said that to her and to my surprise she said she loved me too, and that was the only time I remember ever hearing her say those words. Then she began to slip into and out of consciousness and the last thing that I heard her say was peanut butter. I don’t know if she wanted peanut butter or was thinking about the days on the sofa, or if it was just a word, I will never know, but I like to think she was remembering our time on the sofa, eating peanut butter and saltines.

The News

Okay, Mr. Zelda and I arrived at the outpatient surgery clinic right on time. Everything went well. There was a little boy about my Buttons’ age in the lobby, and he stole my heart. I think he knew that I liked watching him, so he performed just for me. I wanted to pick him up but knew that would seem strange. Anyway, when they took me back and I got undressed and on the table, they began the search for a vein. I tried to give them pointers as to where the good ones are, but finally the young girl said, “I don’t want to even try.” So she called the nurse that everyone called mom. A nurse around my age or a little older, I felt like I was in good hands. She searched and searched and I told her that while the procedures are dangerous and all of that, it’s the starting the IVs that stresses me the most. Well, her searching paid off, and she stuck me once, found the vein, and I was hooked up to the fluids and all was well. I tried to give her my children, and she said that was okay, and I said, please, take them, and she said, really no. Then I asked her to marry me, that way, I’d always have a nurse who could start IVs on me, she laughed and Mr. Zelda said where would I fit in, and I said, can you start an IV, and he sadly shook his head and I said, you can be replaced. HA!
Then, yes then, they took me back and I drank this awful stuff, they sprayed my throat with more awful stuff and put a thing in my mouth and then, yes, then they began administering the drugs. First the Valium and then something else and I began to drift off and just felt so good. When I awoke, which is always not fun, I asked if we could do it again, they laughed. But, the ulcers and the inflammation of my stomach lining, not good. There will have to be surgery or I will perforate. That sounds bad. They biopsied the areas, and gave me a medicine that will get rid of the pain, which I kept telling him I don’t have pain, I have nausea, and a little cramping, that’s all. He also said to avoid stress and alcohol. How do I do that? The alcohol, well that's no problem, but the stress, that's my middle name, Zelda Stress Something. So, now we are looking at another surgery over spring break. That really sucks. So, while the stomach problems will be gone, and the risk of a perforation will be gone too, I am not so sure how much of my stomach piece they will remove. He says only a small section, very small, and it shouldn’t mess with my digestion, or so he says. They will also take a small piece of my colon. So, while he says it doesn’t look like cancer, that it is all ulcers, caused probably from taking so many antibiotics over the last two years, the bad news is that these kinds of ulcers don’t respond to medicine or diet, they have to be cut out. Yikes! So that is where I am and what I am looking at. On the bright side, he thinks he can do all of this through laser and laparoscopic surgery, and I should be okay in six weeks, but can go back to school in a week. So, it all works out, right?

Okay, so I forgot to look.

Very funny thing happened. I woke up at 4:30, for the outpatient test, the one where they start an IV, give me Valium in that IV and then while I am asleep, the look inside my stomach and lungs. Not together. The stomach first, then another guy looks at the lungs. I was a little apprehensive, so I kept telling Mr. Zelda to hurry up, we were going to be late. So, we get to the outpatient clinic, and I take out my little piece of paper and look at the date and before Mr. Zelda could even find a nice chair, I said, “Uh, oh. Today isn’t the 23, is it?” So, we stopped at McDonald’s for coffee and breakfast, and drove back up the mountain. Well, I dropped him off at school. I told him to consider it a drive through, a good warm up for tomorrow morning. Now what did I learn? That Mr. Zelda needs to get up fifteen minutes earlier!

I get scoped, get valium, and maybe get answers

The sun is out and the snow is meltingL I really hate it but we can’t stay penned up in this house for ever. So today, I go back to school, and hopefully the ice on the roads will be all melted away. Tomorrow, the doctor is going to do one more test, he says it’s to find the exact locations of the ulcers that I have and see if he can determine if they will respond to non-invasive treatment. Something about staging them or something. He thinks, or so he says, that the ulcers are causing my stomach to rebel, so that when I drink or eat, instead of the food going to the area where the ulcers are located, the food tries to come back up, I haven’t noticed that, but he says that is why I am keeping pneumonia, that I am aspirating stomach contents. Gross! He says that once we get rid of the ulcers, well, my digestion will improve and the frequent pneumonia will subside. I asked him if it was acid reflux and he said, not in the sense we normally see that kind of thing. So, I’m thinking he really doesn’t know, and I wish he would just say, “I don’t know.” So, tomorrow morning, they are going to scope me. I’ve had that done numerous times, since I have had these ulcers for years. Anyway, they spray my throat with this local anesthetic, which gags me and taste real bitter, then, now this is the part that I like, they give me IV valium. Yep, it feels real good for about five minutes, and while I am not giving a big hoot about anything, they insert a tube into my stomach through my mouth and esophagus, and when that doctor is finished, another doctor will insert a tube into my lungs and look. It’s all quite sickening, but I’ve had these procedures done many times, it goes with the asthma and the ulcers. So, after these procedures the docs will confer and decide if they need to do surgery or if strong meds will help or just what. I’m going for the surgery. This pain is getting worse and I am not liking that the only real food that I can eat is pop tarts. Oh sure, I can eat others, but I pay for it at the end of the day, well more like when I go to bed. The doc did say that all caffeine drinks will have to go, well, I say, I can do that, I have cut down, and I am basically a water drinker, so I can do that. Anymore when I drink coffee, the pain gets to me anyway. So just when I think I have come into my own, I have to give up the one thing I love as much as I love cheese cake. Coffee. This all sucks. But on the bright side, if there is a bright side, once they fix the ulcers, I should be able to eat raw vegetables again. See, there’s a good thing. And I can eat fruit again, another good thing. There is always a good thing that comes out of bad. Fuck, I’m beginning to sound like Pollyanna.

Who are these men?

Okay, the blue jays are pissing me off. They keep running off the song birds from the food. I know that’s their nature and all, but dammit, they do not have to be so dammed greedy. In fact, they aren't just greedy but they are bold. If the food gets low, they look in my door. Yes, look in and turn their heads to the side and they scold me. They even fight the squirrel for the nuts. I don’t know, they remind me of others, others that are greedy and hard to get along with, and greedy, and try to take over all the stuff, and real greedy and want to have more and get richer. I think they are working for the CIA, I think they are part of the patriot act project, and they are emulating the actions of those men, you know the ones. Not the I didn’t have sex with that woman, no not him, but the one who said, something about this being the worse day of his life and the other one who thinks Africa is a nation. What are their names? Have I locked them out of my conscience for some reason or another? HMMM, maybe they are tip riders, you know, just on the tip of my tongue waiting for something to jar them free, something like a song, or a word, or a smell, or an event, or an action. Wait, wait, it’s coming to me, smoke, that’s it, they have something to do with smoke, and fire, yes fire. Oh wait loud noise and taking back things. I think they must have had something to do with death and with cheating and with raping something. Who are these men?

Audio, video, disco

The thing with Latin, well the problems with Latin are the clauses. Now, I get clauses in English, no problemo, but those subjunctive Si clauses and Cum clauses and all the others are so hard for me to identify. I look for the clues like Si, Ni, nisi, cum, or any of the others and if they are not right next to the subjunctives or in the case of the future more vivid the indicative, well I just don’t see it. Will I ever? I am in the last semester of the undergraduate, and while I was tutored and bypassed semesters one and two, I feel like I am every bit as up with the material as the other students, who have been in the classes from start to finish; yet, I’m no where near as good as I should be. I’m making A’s and B’s, but that’s not good enough, I need all A’s.

I am in graduate school and feel I should excel, simply because I am in graduate school. Next semester, I get to take graduate Latin courses, and I can’t afford to not know this stuff. I feel like I’m beating my head with a book, but I will get it. I know, it’s all about memorization, and I do that, and it’s all about learning the formulas for the clauses, and I do that too. It’s just so hard. I know, I’m being a great big ole titty baby. I can do this, I know I can. That little red engine that could has nothing on me. A little more blogging, a little house work, and it’s back to Catullus and his dirty little mind.

When all else fails, just say Fuck It.

Okay, I’m a little distressed at the policy of my school. I’m a comparative lit graduate student, and our department is only allowed two TA positions each year. That means that the head of our department has to pick from all fifteen of us the two students that will get the opportunity to teach Comp. I, then Comp II, and then someday World Lit. He told me that I am third on the list, which translates that no Comp I TA position for me this fall. The next year, yeah; but, he says that I might get a Latin TA spot. That was before I pissed him off, not meaning to piss him off, but I was under stress from my son’s being in intensive care, my husband having a broken knee with an unidentifiable lesion, and me having an ulcer the size of my thumb, which isn’t that big, but in the scheme of digestion, it hurts. So, I say, well it’s hard to understand this TA position thing. I mean, I read where we all would get a chance to teach Comp. that’s why I’m here, and I don’t understand why we can’t move into those spots and let the new students wait it out, he reminds me that he gets only two spots a year. Two spots. So, I say that financially I am hanging on and might not be back, and then because I’m really stressed, I say that it’s not really fair that three men decide the fate of so many students, especially when it comes to the female students and especially the non-traditional female students, who by the way have no voice and are discriminated against in almost every aspect of college life from undergraduate to the end of their PhD. Not so much the males as much as the females. I know, we got together and compared stories of professors and the administration. Anyway, my department head tells me that he will recommend me for a Latin position, but then he reminds me that he has all these other students who have been here longer, and I’m just going to have to be patient. I think I may have pissed him off and in graduate school that is the wrong thing to do. ON a brighter note, I am making better in my Latin class than the guy who made straight A’s last semester. He has not made over 60 on any of his quizzes, and I have made A’s, B’s, and one C. So, I’m grooving right along. Here’s my philosophy: I don’t give a shit, I’ll take my classes, get my grades, and when I’m at a point where I can, I’ll apply to another graduate school for my PhD. Yep, that’s what I’m going to do. No more of this putting me on the back burner for younger, cuter, students, who by the way, don’t come to class and when they come they put their work off and put their work off with the most lame excuses. Then they barely make their grades and are still getting to teach. Tell me where there is any justice in all of this! Fuck them, I say.

STupid Vice President sure ain't no hawk

The rabbits are like the grocery shoppers that see a little rain or a little snow and run to the store to buy out the shelves of bread and milk. Yep, that’s how the little rabbits are, except that the rabbits around here are brown and when it snows, they stick out like a sore thumb and they have forgotten about the hawk, see previous post, and the dogs, and the other predators. So, today, one ran across our parking lot, as fast as it could and it hopped up under my car, and the mean dog was trying so hard to get to it. So, I hated interfering, but I did, I yelled for the dog to go away and after I held my ground the dog relented and headed back to the other apartment building where he lives. I can’t say much for the coyotes that live across the street in the big field, but finally the rabbit did come out and went into the shrubs around my door. I put some greens and celery out for him and hopefully he will stay safe for another day.
Which brings me to the stupid vice president who has the audacity to hunt, at those hunting farms, and then shooting little quails that you know he doesn’t eat and then shoots his friend, and in all of that, the stupid VP only talks about me, it’s me, that feels so bad, it’s me that will be haunted the rest of my life, me, me, me. Not, how sad for the man he almost killed. On the chain of beings, he is lower than a snake, more closely to a carrion eater, like say a buzzard. Even buzzards have some scruples, their food comes from accidents not from having animals tamed and fed and then shot. Okay, take me back to the days before men though hunting made them men, when hunting was done to provide for the family both food and clothes and the hunting was done quick and little if any suffering was done. Not, like now, carrying a big gun makes a man feel, well, it could be an extension of their not so manliness. I don’t know, but I do know that Stupid Vice President, only carries a gun when it is to kill small animals or wound his friends, not to defend his country or other countries that are needing defending.

It's a good day for the hawks.

Yesterday evening, it began to sleet. For over an hour, we heard the sleet hitting the windows and the side of our little abode, then it changed from sleet to snow. I woke up at three and the snow was falling down so fast, and the ground was covered, I went downstairs and opened the door to feel the ice cold air and the tiny flakes of snow. It is still snowing but not as hard. The weatherman says we are going to have snow and ice all weekend. That makes me happy. It makes the hawks happy too. I saw one flying up and all of a sudden it came straight down and I thought it was going to collide with the ground and it snatched up a little furry rabbit. The hawk never touched the ground. It’s like watching eagles fish, they either go straight down or in at an angle and with their claws pick the fish out of the water and off they go, carrying their prey. I think I will spend the day writing about snow.

Heart DAy

Yesterday was Valentine Day. I am, without a doubt, the most unromantic person on this planet. My husband has learned that I don’t like getting flowers, they just die, plus who likes to carry around a huge bouquet of flowers. Isn’t that inconsiderate of the man to send you flowers and then you have to have them in your office all day long, and then you have to try and carry the damned things through the building and out to the car and then try and keep them from getting squished just so you can get them home, drag them in and stick them on a table. It’s rugged. I don’t want any more stuffed animals either. I mean how much thinking goes into buying one of those little bears holding a heart. What I want is cheap chocolate covered cherries. The ones that come in the little box and you get two rows of them. Not a big box, just enough for one a day for a week. Mr. Zelda has learned that I don’t like jewels, flowers (unless they are in a pot and can be planted), and I don’t want stuffed animals. It took a while, but he is finally trained. So, yesterday, I’m in the hospital with my son and Mr. Zelda calls and reminds me it’s valentine day and I say yep, and he says you got your candy, and I say okay, he says happy valentine day and I love you, and I say okay and the same to you. So, I hung up and watched my son, who is getting stronger every minute, flirt with the young nurses. He has his father’s charm; the nurses want to hang out in his room. They tell him he has pretty eyes. They fluff his pillow and rub his back. I smile. I know that he is on a floor where the patients are all old, and chronic, and unable to do much as for as independent care. Then they come into his room and it’s different. I get ready to leave and tell the nurse at the desk to call me if there is any change, no matter how insignificant it may seem. It’s right before they take him off the telemetry, I hear an alarm going off, and I look at the monitor as does the nurse, and it’s my son’s, and I say, Pretty blond just went into the room. The nurse laughs and says yep, we can tell every time any of the younger gals go in, his heart rate speeds up, his respirations increase, and we always hear laughter. I’m happy, his heart rate can go up and it not put him in heart failure. Yeah, it was, indeed, a good valentine day.

A close call

My son has been sick. It started about three weeks ago when he had a sore throat. He didn’t go to the doctor, but after a few days, the sore throat symptoms disappeared. Then he moved in with me, and told me he just didn’t feel good, that he was tired all the time. We were at Wal-Mart and I outwalked him, and you must know that I have a broken back that has several disk that are full of scar tissue and no knee cartilage and over all am in terrible walking health, in fact, I have been told by the orthopedic surgeon to not walk. Anyway, he, my son, became sick with chest congestion and high fever and cough. He was given antibiotics and while the antibiotics helped with the fever, he was still coughing. For a week, he would have moments where he thought he was feeling better, but by Saturday, he was pretty sick, unable to hold anything on his stomach, and he was coughing up copious amounts of dark and often frothy phlegm. I told him that he was going to the doctor first thing Monday. Well, Sunday, I had a meeting with some of my peers from graduate school, and when I got home, my son was in a terrible condition. He looked gray, his feet and legs were swollen so much that they were like dough. I touched them, an indention stayed for five or six minutes afterwards. I took him to the hospital ER and when they told me he was going to wait, the mother bear in me kicked in and I told the reception person that my son was not breathing well enough to sit in the lobby and needed immediate attention or I was going to call an ambulance to pick him up at their hospital and have them take him to the other one across town. They took me serious when I began throwing what medical terms I know around and they immediately took him back. I was right, he was gravely ill. After all the tests the doctor, a young man of maybe 17, stayed with us, as well as they brought the crash cart to my son’s bedside and they were taking drugs out and giving them to him IV. He was, after many test, diagnosed as being in Congestive Heart Failure, hypertensive, an infection around the lining of his heart, pneumonia. They finally agreed the cause was the heart murmur that he had when he was a child, the one the doctors all said he would out grow. They were wrong. His murmur turned into a prolapsed mitral valve, which is a lower grade one, but the infection from his throat and his pneumonia was enough to cause the heart valve to become less functioning and the blood from his heart became harder and harder to get passed that valve until finally the blood just pooled. He wasn’t getting oxygenated blood and that caused his blood pressure to go up which made his heart worse which eventually made the infection spread to the compromised heart. Everything is better; he is off the critical and off the serious list and is now stable, in a room and off of the heart monitor. He might get to come home Friday. While he doesn’t have heart damage from the Congestive heart failure, he will have to take hypertensive meds and heart meds for the rest of his life. He will also have to live a different life, no fast food, no salt, no high fat stuff. He is only 28. The doctor said that while his being sick was a bad thing, it may well have saved his life. If he had not gotten sick, we would not know about his heart condition and while this condition can be a benign type of thing, it is one of the leading causes of death to athletes and my son plays basketball with his friends all the time. The doctor said my son could have just dropped dead, but now that they know about it, and are treating him, he should live to be a fussy old man. I am happy, not that he has this heart problem, but that he recovered. He might get to come home Friday. Yeah!

It snowed!

Yesterday morning, I was up at five and I noticed snow beginning to fall and it fell all day long, it was so beautiful. We had to run down the mountain to a thing with our friends and while it was only snowing a little as we left the mountain, on our way back, we began to see heavy snow fall. The roads were clear but the snow was falling fast. When we got out of the car and came inside, I left Mr. Zelda down stairs and my son was fast asleep, and I went up to the play room, the play room that we have fixed up for Buttons for when we get him and we will get him, and I opened the blinds and sat in the chair that he uses to stand in to watch the train pass, and I watched the snow and wished he were here watching it with me. His froggy is here and his donkey, those are the animals he sleeps with and the last time she came and got him, she didn’t even bother to take them. I haven’t seen him in over two weeks. Truthfully, I don’t even know where she is or who she is with, but the state social service is going to find her through her probation worker and through the welfare system. It won’t be long now, or so they keep telling me. What I want more than anything in this world is for her to be drug free and rational again, and for her to be a good mother. I love my grandchildren but I am 51 and don’t want to raise another child unless I have to, and it looks like, until she decides to give up the drugs and her drug friends, I am going to not only raise him but it looks like she may be pregnant again. The last time I talked to her, I warned her about doing drugs while she is pregnant, and how important it is to take her thyroid while she is pregnant and she told me to mind my own fucking business. I wonder if there is some point when a person who has done drugs for so long a time totally loses their ability to reason and if they do, I wonder if it can ever come back. I mean, if she stops doing drugs, can her brain ever recover? I don’t think so, I know a woman my age, who brags about her drug past of using Meth for years and how her children were raised by their father’s families. Three children, three different sets of grandparents and the two boys have ended up in prison for various crimes, one murdered a guy, the other was a car thief, the girl seems to have done well, but her grandparents were good stable people. My point, this woman still battles with drug abuse, and goes on binges where she does nothing but Meth. And then she tries to re-enter life again, trying to regain what she lost. I’m afraid that is how my daughter will be. I hope if she is pregnant, and she decides not to have an abortion, I hope she has enough sense to get a tubal ligation after this one is born. I hope she refrains from drugs while she is pregnant, but the way she is acting, I don’t think she will, and hopefully when she goes to trial over the stolen merchandise stuff being found in her possession, I hope they lock her up and that might make the baby she is carrying have a healthier environment, it might even get her in a drug rehab. I wish it would snow some more.

Starr's lies

Starr shows his true colors. While I am opposed to the death penalty, his blatant deceit should not be overlooked, especially in light of how he attacked President Clinton during the whole Whitewater, Sexgate trials. For a full story on how he lied, see below link http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11283911/from/RS.5/

He tried to hide his nerve.

The asshole professor that I hate spoke to me yesterday in a very condescending way. My friend, who also hates him, and I were reading dirty poems to each other, trying to one up. Anyway, in walks Mr. I’d Rather Be At Harvard. He didn’t want to come over and say hi, but I think he realized we were discussing our contempt for him and so he felt obligated to face his enemies and with that shit-eating grin asked how we and ours are doing. I looked at him and said as well as any village idiot can be doing, and he says village idiot, and I say yeah, remember you said that any one who made a B in your class was a village idiot since even the A students were idiots because God knows all people from the South are totally idiots just because we live in the part of the country that tried to leave the USA. (I say this even though I am so against slavery, and he looks like and acts like all minorities especially women are beneath him.) He makes this frown like he doesn’t remember saying that in class, and my friend chimes in and says yep, I guess we were all pretty much village idiots in your eyes. He, the stupid professor, says he hates that we feel that way and walks away, my friend writes on a piece of paper that he, the professor, is socially retarded, and I say, no he is a Dick!

My point, professors of his idiocrisy should learn one thing about women my age, well there are many things he should learn but the main one is that we speak our mind. Don’t come over to me after you have not even read my paper, nor given me a fair chance at discussion in your class, or ever tried to hidethe fact you think I am too old to be at this university and not expect me to tell you what I think, because I will do that and more. Plus, I am 51, have no estrogen so your trying to use a cute little smile looks dumb not cute, and I don’t really need a job so if you rat me out and try and get me in trouble, no biggy. I am here to learn and expand my reading and writing experiences, not pave the way for a career, if it happens great but if not, I still have my nest egg. So there, Mr. Ass hole professor.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

WE are supposed to have snow. Yes, today it is suppose to snow about three inches. I am so hopeful. A little snow at the end of winter is better than no snow. Right? I have already checked for snow, and all I see is a little ice on the car, but the air feels like snow. It is very cold and bitter cold. I can wear my heavy non-animal skin coat and my non-animal skin gloves and a scarf too. Yep, all bundly, that’s how I like to dress. I should live in Alaska and when I get my PhD, that might be where I move to; although, I’m not so certain that I could ever get use to seeing whale blubber, but I suppose it isn’t any worse than seeing beef, pork, fish, or fowl. I wonder if they have plenty of fresh vegetables and fruit. But the bright side, lots of cold weather and snow and big bears and caribou and other things that are nice to see in their natural environment, but not to closely. That’s it, I’m going to Alaska.

I might like it.

Okay, I love Latin, and I can’t wait until next semester when I can actually take a graduate course in Latin. Yes, it will be fun. But, I am needing to start ancient Greek, but I am real fond of Indian literature, like from India. While I have read Rushdie, I want to read India literature in Hindi. I am thinking, would it be hard to learn? I might take a course in Hindi and see if it is something that I can learn. I mean, I know I won’t get it perfect for years, but hey, I can be in my 70s and translating Hindi texts. Right? I mean, from what my professor says, Hindi is the least studied literature, well by Americans or English speaking people outside of India, in the world. It’s something to consider. I’m not manic, really I’m not, just thinking.

Can I just say he hated women and was a dick?

So I did my presentation, which amounted to me reading a twelve page paper on Milton. I had as much of his biography as I could without sounding too boring, then I did his contemporary critics and up to date critics. I tried to cover as many schools of thought as I could without taking over twenty minutes. It was one of the worst presentations that I have ever done. I don’t like to read something, I want to teach the material in a fashion that will be interesting and engaging, but this professor, who, by the way, is really a good professor, wants us to get used to presenting papers, thus write the paper, conference style, and present it, in that same style. So, there you have it. Now, I have one more paper to write on Milton’s Paradise Lost and it is due Friday. I am frantic for what to do. I am using Kant’s philosophical views on enlightenment and trying to connect his views with Milton’s or show where Milton believed in enlightenment but not for all. I’m not sure. Anyway, it’s all about rush and get it done. The good news, Wed. we finish the last book of PL. I am so happy. Who would have thought there would actually be a writer that I truly despised so much?

Me, the dirty clothes, bathrooms, and Milton. Great Sunday

The laundry is almost done, just one load in washer and one in dryer. Yeah! Dishes all clean and put away and bathrooms neat and disinfected, the apartment is neat again. That’s what I do on Sundays.

I must say, Mr. Zelda has been exceptionally quiet. He has found a game to play and while I am still the gopher, he has learned to organize his wants. Get him juice and crackers instead of one at a time. That’s much better.

Now, after I give him lunch, I am going to work on my presentation that was due Friday, but my pc lost her memory and was unable to open the file. So, after everyone from Mr. Zelda to other techy co-workers of Mr. Zelda looked at my tower, it was established that the file indeed did not save, that something happened, a glitch. So, yesterday and today, I have been trying to re-write the paper/presentation.

One thing I know, I hate Milton. Yes, I hate to speak of the dead in such an unkind way, but really, his life was an extended metaphor, and his writing reflected his metaphoric life. Just about the only thing that I can even try to agree with him on is that he didn’t want the government to have so much control over what was written and what was read and for that, I give him credit. But what he thought about women. Can you imagine teaching your daughters to read in eight different languages but not teaching them to understand what they were reading, just so they can read to you because you are blind. Reading and not knowing what they are reading. His rationalization was, according to his daughters, that women should not even master one language let alone eight. What a sexist pig.

I thought this had been outlawed!

Just when I think man might become human, I find out that it might just be impossible. If you have a weak stomach don’t view the clips. http://www.hsus2.org/slideshow-seal-hunt/sealhunt.html or you can read the facts http://www.hsus.org/marine_mammals/protect_seals/

This came to me by way of the following blog site. http://whatdoiknow.typepad.com/

It's all about timing.

Mr. Zelda went to the ortho surgeon who says, “Yep, it’s broken, and yep, it needs surgery.” He said a lot of other things too, like he couldn’t understand how it broke. There was no fall, no accident, just a little slip. He also pointed out a huge growth of what he thought might be a calcium deposit just posterior to the break, which could be a bone tumor. He has Mr. Zelda wearing a very long impressive brace that has been wrapped with ace wrap, and he was told not to ever take it off, not matter what. And he says before he operates, he wants to investigate the cause of the break. I’m thinking, he’s thinking a form of bone cancer. I just can not think of any other reason why Mr. Zelda’s bone would break. The x-rays of both legs show bones that don’t look compromised from arthritis, or brittleness, or any thing like that, so he, the doctor, is going to investigate. In the mean while, Mr. Zelda is trying not to act all afraid, but I know he is, and the weight of the brace is killing him, plus he is going to try using crutches instead of a walker, which I warned him how sore his arms and writs would get. On top of all of that, and I do sympathize with Mr. Zelda and am worried about him too, but lifting his leg up and down and putting on his shoes, pants, socks, and wrapping the new brace that is never to be taken off no matter what with plastic for him to shower, is killing my back. I feel like a rat for complaining. So, this morning, he is asleep and I am being ever so quiet so that he doesn’t hear me and wake up because you would be surprised how many things that man wants in a matter of an hour’s time. Honey get me a glass of milk, honey get me my book, honey I’m hungry, honey are there cookies, I need my pillow fluffed, I need my foot scratched, I can’t see the TV, I see the TV too much, can you pull my pants legs down, no over my socks, no pull my socks up, then pull my pants legs down, my house shoes feel like they aren’t on. SCREAMMMMMING. Today, I’m going to the library and my son is going to Mr. Zelda sit. Yeah!

The world is just too noisy.

Okay,
I’m HOH, hard of hearing. I thought I was just HOH, but the truth is I am a fragment of sound away from being stone deaf. Well, yesterday between visiting the lawyer, seeing my daughter get arrested, and fighting drug addicts, I did manage to go pick up my hearing aides, the ones they said I should have been wearing since I was a kid. Okay, now I know what people mean when they say that I live on a busy street and when they ask how I can stand the noise. I could stand it because I never heard it, or rain, or the car engine, or feet walking, or shuffling papers, or running freezers, or computer fans, or keyboards clicking, or any of those sounds and many more. I really never knew what the people in my life’s voices really sounded like; I mean they all sounded so muffled, and now they sound so loud, even the professor writing on the chalk board sounds too loud.
Anyway, so I have the hearing aides, and I’m hearing all these sounds and they are loud and irritating and I am thinking maybe being HOH isn’t such a bad thing. In fact, today, I turned the stupid things off. Yes, I turned them off and when people talked to me, I read their lips, which is what I do, I read their lips. When I thought I was hearing, I was really reading lips. The doctor who had me tested said to give it time, that eventually I would get use to sounds. I wonder is sound all that is cracked up to be and can I really ever get use to hearing something that I have never heard before, well all at once that is.

When all else fails, you're still just fucked!!!

In the words of the law, emergency isn’t immediately and immediately isn’t this minute. So, the attorney gives me good advice, takes my case, but tells me the sooner I have physical custody the better. Well duh. And that the quickest that a judge will see us is next week, that's immediately. So here is what happened, my daughter got arrested for petty theft and stealing electricity. Yep, the electricity was cut off and one of her low life friends turned it back on, and so the electric company contacted me and when they told me the electricity was off and I owed 300 dollars, I said, no it isn’t off, and they said we cut it off and I said, but it’s on, my daughter lives in my house and she has electricity. They are going to arrest her, have her arrested. My attorney says great, go there and when they arrest her, take the baby. Before the cops take her away, she gives the baby to one of her drug addicted friends. A lowlife who has spent four different times in prison on drug charges. I call my attorney who says that they can not keep me from the baby to just go get him. I go to these people’s house, with my huge son and I tell them I am taking the baby and if they have a gun, they best go get it because that is the only way I am not taking my grandson. The guy stood up, the husband of the woman my daughter gave her son to, stood up and looked at my son and sat right back down and we took the baby. Great, too easy. My attorney is prepared to get a judge give me emergency temporary custody, but, the jail is full and no other jail will take her, so they turn her loose, let her go, give her walking papers with a court date. We know she has been released but we take the baby with us up here, hoping that she can’t get anyone to drive her up here, but were we wrong. At 8:00, just before putting the baby to bed, she shows up with the police and takes the baby and tells me she is going to have prosecuted for kidnapping. I laugh. I call my attorney he says not to worry, she has been arrested and will have to go to court and will be found guilty. With that said, he tells me then we have to wait for a week or two at the most.
So, we’re sitting and talking, my son and I, and my son says he thinks my daughter has not done drugs in a day or two, I say why, he says did you look at her, and I say no, he says, mom, I think she is pregnant! (When she gets pregnant, and she is coming down off of drugs, she goes crazy, irritable, can't sleep, or sleeps all the time) I say what, he says she is wearing her fat clothes, which are not fat clothes at all but are size 9. I say, fat clothes and I think about it and I think he is right. Which is a double edged sword, on the one hand she won’t be on drugs for nine months, but once the baby is born, guess what, that’s another baby for me to fight her over, to worry over, and to hope that she can stay clean while she is pregnant, and on and on. Because even if she goes nine months without Meth, as soon as the baby is born, the day the baby is born, her friends will bring her a dose of Meth, they did it before, and she will be cranked in the hospital and when she goes home. Did I tell you that my life sucks?
Oh, and I have a presentation due today and for some reason, and I don’t know why, but my pc isn’t seeing my paper, my memory stick doesn’t remember my paper, and as far as I can tell, I’m fucked. Yep, fucked.

It's going to get really ugly

I have an appointment with a lawyer, one who thinks without a doubt that he can get me emergency custody of my grandson. The bridge is now officially burned, my daughter will hate me for sure and things can never be mended. Her drug use is out of control; my son is not living with her any longer, so the baby has to be removed. If I don’t get him today, I am calling social service and have them get him. I’m relieved that I am taking this step forward, that I am doing something to save my grandson. In the past, I have waited, I have not wanted to alienate my daughter, mostly because I still love her, but also if I don’t get the baby, she can keep him from me forever, she can go out of state and criminals in other states may not be as tame as the ones around here and that would put the baby at even greater risk. So there is and was a fine line that I had to consider, but now, I just can’t do it any longer. I have a presentation due, and the stress of not knowing what is going on with my grandson, or who is watching him, or if he is being cared for is killing me. I can’t think or work or smile or anything. I am dying inside. I have to rescue him. The sad thing is, my daughter loves her sons, she really does, and when I take this baby from her it’s going to kill her. It will, but I can’t let her destroy Buttons’ life. I just can’t. He deserves to be clean and fed and held and read to and played with and taken to the movies, to the park, to the museums, to the zoos, and all she does is take him to her druggy friends house where they smoke pot, do crank, and let him wonder around and play all alone. It’s a sad day when I have to pick between the most important people in my life, my daughter’s happiness or my grandson’s safety. When I was pregnant with my son and my daughter wasn’t even a year old, I had these nightmares that I was crossing over the Arkansas River and the bridge broke and I was in the water and my baby girl and the other baby, the one still inside of me, were both crying for me to rescue them, I could only save one, and I had to decide. I couldn’t decide, I couldn’t save either one because I loved them both so much. Well, I feel like by taking my grandson, I am going to push my daughter over the edge and may lose her for ever, not just metaphorically lose her but truly lose her. While the decision is easy, of course I will fight to save my grandson, it is still a very painful decision. For any mother who has a daughter and that daughter was at one time so close and so loving and then to lose her to drugs and watch her slowly kill herself, well it’s probably one of the worse things that can happen. But today, I am going to save Buttons. If the judge will listen to my son and me, and if the judge will see that Buttons is worth saving, how can he not see this? Today is going to be the worst day of my life. The battle has begun.