Your chuckle for the day

If you are a youngin you may not relate to this but it had me wanting to share because it is too good not to. Send it on to your parent's or anyone you think would appreciate the humor. http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-walt-babyboomers-blurb,0,1036393.blurb

two photos

Hello all.....I may regret this. In the event that you know us in real life, please tell me so I can make sure I never include you in any of my "I hate this person" posts. It would be embarrassing. Anyway....the following photos are of S2--the one that thinks he is not at all good looking. Obviously he is stupid. He has no girlfriend because he is afraid he will get shot down if he asks someone out...you know, because he is so unattractive and all.

The second photo is of me, BigD, S1, S2, S3 and really old aunty. I could fill the whole internet with hilarious stories at old aunty's expense but since it is considered cruel to laugh at people, I will not do that today. Tomorrow, maybe. Trust me when I say that dementia can be fun. She still has a quick wit and knows she can't remember and even laughs at herself. OH, and for those of you that thing BigD looks old because of his white hair, he got that white hair when he was 29. Coincidentally a mere 2 years after we married. Everything is always MY fault.

Please note that I am the woman in the photo that is hiding behind everyone because I have gotten so damn fat. I have a story about that too but I will save that for another day too because the oven timer just buzzed and I have to take the cookies out.

Ugly? A matter of opinion

My family is so very cruel. Every morning when I plug in the tree there is something missing. MY ORNAMENT. For years, I have lived through a chorus of "that is the ugliest thing I have ever seen", "are you going to scrub the pot with that after dinner" "I hope the lights melt that damn thing" and on and on and on.

Each morning MY ORNAMENT is missing. I have to search to find it. Sometimes it is buried deep within the tree. One time I found it in a sauce pot in the cupboard. It has survived being thrown over me, monkey in the middle style. This is the ornament that some day, when my ashes are glistening on a white sandy beach somewhere, my little snot heads will talk about and I bet will actually argue about who gets to keep moms ornament.

I have had it for as long as I remember. I have no idea who gave it to me or maybe even made it for me, but my little pot scrubbing Santa, in all its plastic goodness has hung on every tree I ever remember and will continue to do so. Ugly is a matter of opinion and my opinion is the only one that counts :) Anyone else have an ugly on their tree?

This little girl

She had such a confusing childhood. Nothing unlike many children have, but she didn't understand so many things. At a very early age she learned how to not make noise because it might make her father mad. When he was mad he was very mean. She thought it was all her fault because she didn't know what else could possibly make someone so angry. She tried so hard to be quiet, not leave toys laying around, and she tried to be invisible.

She learned to escape into her little fantasy world in her head. It was just like a television show. You know...the one where the family all sits at dinner, laughing, and the kids tell the parents how swell they are. The one where the father calmly explains why he said "no" to a particular request. The one where the father never hit the mother or the mother was never lying on the kitchen floor with blood around her. The television shows that were an escape from that was happening in her house, not daily, but too often. Ozzie and Harriett, The Cleaver Family..they were all what she wished for.

She was so confused but relieved when her father told her that he was moving out. He blamed her mother, saying she was a bad mother. This was very confusing because she seemed like a really good mother. In fact her mother was the one that always protected her.

There were words swirling that a 6 year old didn't understand. Divorce. Alcoholic. Safety. There was whispering. Nobody in her town had parents that were divorced. She was the only one and everyone was whispering about it which made her want that fantasy life even more. She had no idea that the reason people were whispering is that they were worried for her...she was too young to understand all of it. All she knew is that people were looking and talking about her and it was embarrassing.

That Christmas she asked Santa for a doll. This was a special doll that actually moved when you wound up the special wheel on her back. He told her that if she was very good, she would get the doll. She was certain it wouldn't be there because she must have been very bad. Her father had moved to a different house, her mother was nervous, the police stopped by to say hi but she knew that police arrested bad people and took them away and she was sure she had been bad for all of this to happen.

When I found this picture I had planned on telling all of you that this Santa was actually our mailman that dressed up on Christmas Eve and for $10 he would make a stop at your house, pose for a few pix and be on the way to his next house. I am here to tell you, Mr. Bozer was THE BEST SANTA EVER! He was a good friend of my mom's and spent an extra few minutes at my house before heading back to the North Pole to load up the sleigh. It was an amazing thing for me....I actually had the REAL Santa come to my house. I didn't know for years that so many people were trying so hard to make me happy. They understood all the things that were happening that I thought were my fault. Now I look back and wonder what would have happened had they not all been there to support my mom. After my parents divorced, many asked her what took her so long. You have to understand, this was a different time. A time when 50% of marriages didn't end. A time when you stayed married no matter what.

I started this post to tell you a happy story of a little girl who got the doll she really wanted. The one that she would treat with love and could be the baby she could take care of and protect. I had no idea all of this other stuff would come out. I guess some memories stick around long after you thought they were gone.

My bloods a boilin

Short but VERY LOUD, LARGE FONT rant here. I have a real problem with Ticketmaster. If you want to see any event in our area,(major city, not podunkville) you have to buy your ticket/s from them. They are a bunch of bottom feeders. I just bought 2 tickets to the Transiberianorchestra for S1. This is his Christmas present. (the whole point of this post isn't to have you sit there and think "she bought him THAT?"---he is not a typical 20 year old, we have covered this before, now go back to my rant) These tickets were $37 each. Two tickets should be $74. Right? How come they ended up costing $93.30 you ask? Because this company charges $7.50 convenience fee PER TICKET, a handling fee PER TICKET and then they charge you TO PRINT THE TICKET ON YOUR OWN PRINTER AT HOME!! $19.30 in extra charges. Assholes.

People

I have lost a reader. When you only have 12 to begin with, and you lose 1, it is noticeable. Hell, thats like getting an extra large pizza with a piece missing....or buying a jumbo package of toilet paper that is a roll shy. I know why this reader left. It was my snide remark about the shoe thrower. This reader took offense and let me know about it. To set the record straight...IT WAS A JOKE. I never expected to ever be Heather "Dooce" Armstrong ~~ that blogging queen has thousands of readers and gets hundreds of responses to her posts, but hell, I can't even get 12 to stick around? Maybe it was my delivery. Maybe this person was the last person in the US to still think Dubya was a good leader and can't understand why a man felt the need to lob a shoe. Maybe I need to work on my material. I will try to come up with some more interesting material and get back with you. In the meantime....are all you kiddies ready for Christmas?? We won't be having much of one around here if mr. mailman, mr. ups man, and mr. fedex man don't show up soon. I will be wrapping a lot of pieces of paper with item descriptions written on them and passing those off as the real thing. I only went to one store to shop. Honest. And it was a drug store. All the rest was via ebay, overstock, and amazon. Christmas cards..not only are they not sent, I haven't bought any yet. So those of you that are anxiously waiting for my card to appear....please don't wait. Go about your business, move along, there is nothing to see here. I was supposed to have both of the college boys home now. Only one is here. S1 has decided to stay at his apartment a little longer. Seems as though there is a female that has been circling him for a few weeks and finally came in for the kill last week and they have been seeing each other daily since. Yes...I did say S1. The same kid that had dated the love of his life for 3 years. His only real girlfriend ever. Over Thanksgiving she told him she wanted to be able to date other guys to be sure S1 was her true love....the only catch was, she didn't want him to date anyone else. Yes. She really told him that. Well he was broken hearted, we sat on his bed for 3 hours one night and I tried to explain women to a young man with no sisters...this was not easy. He was crushed. I was crushed that he was crushed. I was also a little peeved that she really thought this idea of her dating and him not dating was an acceptable idea. So fast forward~~the circling girl came in for a landing and S1 is having fun. Another young adulthood crisis averted. Oh, and circling girl is older. 3 years older. Is graduating this year. She thinks S1 is wonderful, so I know I will like her :)

Tell the truth

How many of you would like to give the shoeless man a high five? (you only need to watch the first 10 seconds). C'mon, you can't tell me that this didn't make you think hmmmmm. Though the first thing I thought when I saw it was why did it take his SS agents sooooo looooong to react. (insert another hmmmm here.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0125Qrn24EQ

Somebody didn't read the directions

ANYONE GOT A STRAW?

BigD's lung is fillin' up with lung juice again. We are headed BACK to Pittsburgh again on Thursday for what we HOPE will be a quick round-trip visit. Hopefully they will just stick a pin in him. This time, I am throwing a small suitcase in the back of the car...j.u.s.t. i.n. c.a.s.e.You know that if I don't we will definately have to spend the night (or more) but being prepared means that we will be home~~before having to sleep somewhere other than my bed. I knew something was up because his voice changed again and he started to get back his annoying little cough cough. I called the office and they wanted us to come over today but neither of us was prepared mentally to go there again, yet. Plus tomorrow morning S3 has an appointment to have his toenail removed (ewww, gross, I know) and I am not going to reschedule at this point because he has been gearing himself up for this. He is not the most courageous tiger in the zoo and this is taking all the nerve he can gather. SO, when I called the office they agreed to let BigD get a chest xray here in small town and fax them the report. They said there isn't a ton of lung juice there right now and we had to pinky swear that we would go to an ER if he got short of breath or symptomatic at all other than the cough, cough. Somewhere in this flurry of activity, I need to do some Christmas shopping! I will have some pretty pissed off guys in my house if Santa doesn't swing by our shack on Christmas eve and leave a little sumpin sumpin under the tree. But tonight I am going to look at puppies. God help me if they are as cute as everyone has told me. A friends dog had a litter of 8 and I have avoided going there (having a hubby in and out of the hospital has helped me keep away) but I have to see them tonight as I am picking up S3 at their house in a bit. Please remind me over and over that I DO NOT NEED ANOTHER DOG in my life. I love my 2 and NO they DON'T need a little sister. (7 girls and only 1 boy puppy who already picked his family). I may post a photo though, if they let me take one. (a photo, not a puppy)

GO AHEAD, PET HIM, HONEST--HE WON'T BITE

30 SECONDS LATER:

FINALLY!!

Got the call today......drum roll please~~not cancer.

While that is terrific news it came with a bit of an unexpected diagnosis. Apparently at some point in time BigD had an infarct in one (or more) of his pulmonary vessels causing a large area of scar tissue that became a globby cystic jelly filled fibrous mass.

We will have a followup with Super Uber Doc in a couple of weeks to ask some more specific questions pertaining to what comes next but for the time being, the last 2 1/2 months of worry is over.

Now for your viewing pleasure is a photo journal of our trip. Some of the photos at the end are gross so if you are eating dinner right now, don't look. The night before the big CUT we spent the night in a hotel after going out and buying toothbrushes etc etc. This photo of the bed in the morning is an indication of how well we slept.

I LOVED the humor in these next shots.....the first one says "please follow the arrows"

After yet ANOTHER PET scan...we had to go see the Uber Doc which required signing in and then registering with my new BFF....check out her name, and YES she was :) She was delightful!

This next photo made me soooo sad. This kid was about 18-19. We sat in the waiting room for 2 hours waiting for BigD to be taken back to the surgery dept. This kid was waiting for someone to go back too. It took every ounce of my being to not go over to him and beg him to please start taking care of himself. He is a medical disaster waiting to happen. In the two hour time frame we sat there, he went through 3 cans of pop, a gift size container of M&M's and a couple bags of chips. So sad.

Once BigD was taken back to surgery they plunk the family in this terrific waiting area. It is actually 6 waiting areas in one.Each one had a TV, rocker, chairs and lamps. It was very comfortable. Each patient is given a number and you can follow along through the surgery process by finding their number on the board. It tells you what part of the surgical process he/she is in at that time. Very cool idea. The following are photos of the "room" S3 and I stayed in while BigD was an inpatient. My BIL is a wonderful, world traveler that floated us some of his Marr*iott points and we had a nicer room than we have had on some vacations.

Here is the view from the room and a shot that made me chuckle.

The sign says not to block the door :) NOW HERE COMES THE ONES THAT HAVE A TAD OF GROSSNESS TO THEM. ALTHOUGH IF YOU ARE LIKE MOST PEOPLE THAT SLOW DOWN AT THE SCENE OF AN ACCIDENT JUST TO SEE SOMETHING...YOU MIGHT LIKE THESE.

Two chest tubes, not one, but two, because he always has to be a showoff.

The goal is NOT to fill these. This is where they put your extra parts when they discharge you. We are sooo freakin glad to be home.

THANKS TO ALL OF YOU FOR YOUR THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS....THEY WORKED :)