Wow don't you love FAMILY! I am very happy to hear that your father is doing better. I will keep him and your mother in my thoughts and prayers. Eliz33

The only way I'm watching Survivor is if you are on it. (And who's out mulching the garden and raking leaves if all yal' are inside watching the boob-tube? That's what I want to know!)

Brenda, you don't have to watch Survivor, you are already on it! GW is a form of it...lots of interpersonal dynamics go on here. But the TV show is intriguing, especially if you can get through the first 6 weeks or so.

John, I'm probably a lot like your mom and may get more so as I age. It's nice to know someone such as yourself would stick by her and your dad when they really need you. A lot of people have lost touch with the basics.

for Brenda - winter is about the only time I catch up on boob tube watching. Because my real job involves monitoring a computer all day long I have big problems watching tv when I get home. I call it 'watchin a box', and if I watch a box all day the last thing I wanna do when I get home is watch a box. I find that I enjoy 30 minute fluffy sitcoms better than anything else - thank god for UPN and all the black sitcoms, makes me feel so urban and ethnic, like by watching them I get some sort of street cred.

for the rest of you - trust me when I tell you. Having cameras follow me around in the woods would not be a pretty thing. Me in a loin cloth would much more currupting than anything on HBO, think of the children....

Now if they would set up Survivor to really be a survival of the fitest contest - where you get off the plane and they hand you a compass, a machete, and packet of seeds, while they point you to the jungle I might reconsider.

John, glad to hear your dad is doing better.

My understanding is that the TV show is a competition for money and "survival." Well, some of yal' might think GW is Survivor, but I only compete for money or for promotion (=money), so no competition in GW for me. I agree that there are lots of interpersonal dynamics - people are interesting and all the different views are fascinating. I don't think it's as interesting here as it used to be when a larger number of different people posted. Hope that has to do with lack of interest in posted subjects, and not anything to do with a subtle survivor-like atmospere.

Did people post heavily at this time of year in the past? Seems like if we didn't talk about a few OT threads, we'd have to close down til February. The garden questions seem to attract little interest at this time of the year. Sometimes I post a less than informed opinion just to be polite.

I notice that some people who come here basically just want their questions answers. They don't want to "discuss." That's the way I used the board a few years ago. And that's fine. Personally, I love the personalities that have emerged.

I do agree that OCCASIONALLY there has been a little testiness, and a way too serious feel in A FEW of the postings. Unfortunately, we can't nor would we want to put anyone's torch out. Like survivor there are all types here...some with mucho experience and college training in the subject, and others who just love gardening, newcomers and vets alike. If we don't want to read something that is too technical for our taste or too flaky, just pass over it. That's the beauty of the internet...so impersonal and distancing. And there will be no test. Anyone is free to open up a subject or ignore one.

Personally, I love coming here each day for little smidgeons of time...here and there. I learn a lot and enjoy the companionship.

Gotta go, Survivor is on!

Yep, Claire, and Cindy "succombed to the curse of the car" tonight. Ya have to wonder if she would have STILL gotten voted off if she HAD given back HER car in exchange for letting each of the other four contestants have one of their own?

It's POSSIBLE, but then... my thinking is it might have saved her the vote LAST night, but it would be no guarantee she'd get to Final 2, for sure, and actually likely she'd still have gotten voted off last night, even having given up her new car so the other 4 could each have one... I mean, look at Stephenie... this is twice in a row she's voted against someone she was in an alliance with who had JUST included her in their reward.

At least Cindy has a nice new car.

As for your question, Brenda... yeah, it's me... all my fault... I used to run around the forum with a torch snuffer, putting out the torches of anyone and everyone I didn't like! :-P Seriously, had that been the case, I could think of maybe two or three I would have actually "snuffed," as I've found VERY FEW posters on this forum who don't seem like really nice folks; can't say the same on some OTHER forums.

Now I need to get out of here and go see if we have any freezing rain or sleet outside, yet... sure hope not. We're supposed to have the annual Master Gardener Christmas dinner tomorrow evening, and I'd like to make that, but after breaking my ankle on the aftermath of sleet almost two years ago, I'll NOT go out on that stuff again!

Y'all take care and BE CAREFUL out there!
Jeff

Jeff, all of a sudden I was seeing Rafe in not such a great light. I'm not sure he would be all that anxious to give up a car and let everyone else have one. I agree with you, she was already out of the loop anyway.

Stephenie is the ultimate machiavellia...she plays the game every minute...I think it was Jaime who said that. I'm thinking last night might have been the first individual challenge she's ever won.

I'm getting a kick out of Lydia making it to the final four with absolutely no ability in anything except donkey work and mostly staying under the radar, a place I've yet to experience myself. You too, big guy?

Watch your step, what happened to a Southwest jet, could be you!

Not I, Ms. Claire... Since breaking and dislocating my ankle at the same time (the doctor RE-located my ankle while I was still sitting on the stretcher, in the HALLWAY of the E.R., as there were no rooms available -- after I had received 100 MG of IV morphine, but when he yanked it back in, it didn't matter, I was wide-awake, very lucid, and felt the pain like I'd not taken an aspirin!).

And then when complications set in 5 weeks later (infection which meant they had to go back and take all the hardware back out and I had to spend another two months off that foot)... well, I'm just VERY careful now.

No slip-slide and crash for ME again.

As for Lydia... yeah, how about that? She just COULD end up with the $Million -- be kinda like Vanuatu, where the lone guy against 7 women ended up with it -- guess it will depend largely on who gets the next two immunities... We should all know tomorrow night.

As for Scout's "Survivor money," they TALK like the other contestants don't get any winnings other than an "appearance fee," which I think is like $15,000 or $25,000, each (not enough money to be able to start an animal shelter, I don't think)... but I have to wonder if there isn't some kind of sliding scale for those who get close, as she was in the Final 3 in Vanuatu.

Yup,

I think Scout got a lot more than that.

However, $25,000 would be enough to start a small animal shelter here in Oklahoma, especially in a small town like Perkins. Property values are not as high here. High school students working through the local tech schools could build the building and volunteers could do the labor of putting up a fence and building the runs. I guarantee you that if they offered to grill steaks and hamburgers and had tubs full of ice cold beer & pop, half the town would show up with saws and claw hammers! OSU students could help out, too. It could be done.

Mahatma Gandhi once commented that you could tell a lot about a country by the way they treat their animals.

Every day in America, thousands of pets are abandoned, "dumped" and/or mistreating! Every day former pets are put to their death in animal control facilities and die from many other causes, including abuse and neglect.

How many Katrina victims did not or could not go back to find their "beloved" pets that they left behind. Some are being held in shelters? Some were destroyed and some died of starvation and God only knows what else. Not very many are even seeking their lost pets through the Internet or animal rescue organizations. Thousands of animals sit waiting for their mommie or daddy to come get them. There are thousands. They were traumatized by the hurricane and flood too. Amazingly, some still roam the streets! How sad. How sad. It is shameful. It is a stain on this country.

Americans spend billions of dollars a year for Cosmetic surgery...billions??? How many animals could be saved and cared for? How much do we spend on education? How much of that could be spent giving medical needs to those who do not have any means? How many children and old people could be fed and clothed in this country, who sit in poverty and go to sleep every night hungry & sick. How many of our parents and grandparents are abused and neglected in nursing care facilities and/or cannot afford medical care or medicines? How can all these conditons exist in this country and yet there is sufficient money to spend billions on cosmetic surgery and Botox and E.D.??? It is sickening.

Yes, you can tell much about a country by the way they treat their animals.

I met her before Survivor and I thought she was making a decent living as a motivational speaker and sometime country/western singer/entertainer. If I remember right she had a few advanced degrees and had written a few books.

I laughed soooo hard when she called the prissy girls "bow-heads", some of the color commentary she provided on that show was priceless. She may have a large chip on her shoulder but the ol girl can come up with a zinger every once in a while.

The term "Bow Head" was commonly used during the 80s-90s by non-bowhead girls ans women who went to school/college because they were interested in actually learning something and getting a degree for a career not just there to make a fashion statement, be popular and get boyfriends and land a (hopefully) rich husband.

Scout didn't coin the phrase.

But, it's cool. If you think she is terrific, who am I TO SAY YOU ARE RIGHT OR WRONG.

Peace
Annie

But you are correct about her degrees and books and being a motivational speaker.

Hmmm, I had NO IDEA from her performance, actions and behavior on the Survivor SHOW she had ANY formal education beyond perhaps High School. They listed her as a "rancher," and I know many folks who do that sort of work don't go beyond high school (although I also know some get advanced degrees).

It's only in the VERY LONG postings she's been making on the Survivor Blogs that she's really been showing her education, but it appears NONE of that education was in EDITING, as she consistently posts without checking for spelling, grammar and punctuation... I admit to doing that here sometimes, as well, when I'm in a hurry and on a roll. But most of the time I try to either proofread before I submit, or as I'm typing, as I'm doing with this one, by watching the screen as I type. The ones that get away from me are when I'm watching TV and typing at the same time and then post without proofreading... but someone always catches it for me later, thankyouverymuch! I just wish GW offered editing in your posts, like most other forums do.

Now I think this is quite enough about Scout, lol.

As for how we treat our animals... and our elderly... and our poor -- well... just don't get me started, SweetAnnie... The day WILL come when all the greed comes back to bite all the greedmongers in the butt; however, I fear it will bite everyone else at the same time, so the poor and the elderly and the animals will probably get even less because the rich and powerful certainly aren't going to give up anything unless we have something like the French "storming of the Bastille."

I'm not advocating socialism, just social responsibility and more kindness and compassion... "a kinder, gentler America," perhaps... Seems I heard a president say something like that once... I wonder if his SON ever heard it!

'nuff said?
Jeff

Madame Defarge here. Drastic times require drastic measures.

The muslim extremists who call us The Great Satan might not be so apt to blow us to kingdom come if we spent a little more time putting our own house in order.

I'm with ya, Annie. We Americans are hypocrites, hiding beneath our own veil of democracy and Christianity. If we cared about our own people, we would provide accessible healthcare for all, respect the elderly and not allow our young men to die in a futile war that has nothing to do with homeland security.

In sanford here, the various rich churches have been involved in a marathon to see who can build the largest, most expensive, lavish addition. When I think about the God that they are supposedly worshipping and what his message was, I wonder how they could have gotten this far astray. Sanford has a horrible poverty problem...that construction money could do so much good here.

Go ahead, call me judgmental...someone's got to call a spade a spade.

Jeff,

IMHO, her degrees, the context of her books and her topics as a motivational speaker TOTALLY corresponds with what you "saw of her performance, actions and behavior on the Survivor SHOW."
The books are, let's say, not my cup of Earl Grey, and as for her motivational talks...they are supposed to encourage others to become writers and not let anything stop you for attaining your dreams for success (like her). Sounds great, don't it? They motivated me 'a plenty'...get a rope!

My bad... :(

No more - I promise. :)
----------------------------------------------------------
Now, changing the subject drastically, last night I went to see the film "The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe", the first book in "The Chronicles of Narnia". Splendid performances by the children. Very good film. Jolly good. Well done. Brovo! It prompted me to get out my volume set and begin reading them again. There are 7 books within "The Chronicles of Narnia", each about 200 pages in length.
When I first read them, I was the same age as Lucy, the youngest of the four siblings in the Narnia books. I instantly identified with her. I was the youngest of four children in my family - two boys and two girls and in the same order of age and gender as were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy.
Wonderful film.

Well, it's a good day for baking a batch of Swedish Pepper Gingerbread cookies!

~ Annie

LOL, I poke my head back out of research & writing & craziness and it looks like I dropped out of a conversation!

"What would I do?" is a good question -- no offense, it sounded friendly and honest (but thanks for the defense, Brenda ;).

**warning**extended ramble below**

*no, I don't like NHC. quality is too low.
*as a society we need to decide if there are universal "benefits" and "services" that are of such high benefit to society that everybody should have them. IMMUNIZE!!! (oh, was that in caps??) immunization is a great example -- are there others?
*personal responsibility from patients. if you're supposed to show up on saturday, you show up. DO NOT show up the next day with an emergency BECAUSE you didn't FEEL like coming in when you were SUPPOSED to and then it's an emergency and i'm expected to serve your every wish. how can i tell you what it feels like to have the general surgeon who works till his eyes are blue underneath call and cancel breakfast because his patient did that?
*personal responsibility from patients. if it ain't malpractice, it ain't malpractice. the default is for a patient to win malpractice, hey the doc has deep pockets. needs radical change, and imho docs should get together and fight bad suits for all its worth to try to get some sanity back. problem is, default is for a jury to award the complainant something. there need to be trained, rational people on these juries, or there needs to be some sort of review board. i don't even know. something???
*personal responsibility from nurses. nurses who speak english well. nurses who have iq's above 80. nurses who passed chemistry with better than a C. by the 2nd time. otherwise they better have a crazy good work ethic(++note below).
*societal encouragement for nurses. what happened??? nursing shortage? i wanna be able to fire a nurse and hire a replacement. more training, high standards, enough mental interest for them.(##comment)
*fair billing -- probably needs to be open market. (then how to deal with medicare, medicaid?)
*reasonable expectations for dr's. i'll comment later b/c this sort of makes me mad. (cf above re personal responsibility)
*less paperwork. dr's _should_ dictate everything both for cya and for the patient to have records, but i am going to reconsider some life decisions if i spend more time with paperwork than with stuff i like. one less dr for the wards = one less to compete to provide services = higher prices.

Re: societal expectations for dr's. We are basically taught that we are obligated to take care of someone all the time, etc. Basically translates to, "you will become slaves to some supposedly ethical statement that we are dressing up so we can bind your consciences and control your lives." Umm, hello? Come up with some convincing ethics. And stop telling us simultaneously to a.) take care of ourselves and b.) enslave ourselves. This is partly a complaint against the medical education process and partly a complaint against all the assumptions that society makes about dr's. Some of it is introduced by the docs themselves.

++re: nurses, i had a classmate in a microbiology class at a community college whose m.o. was to take a class, drop it just before the drop date, stay till the end, and then retake for a grade. she had a learning disability & probably never got better than a B or so in anything. i would work with her any day, and i wish i knew where she was to hire her. why? she _cared_. she cared, she worked, she was honest, and i personally think she had the ability to learn and do what needed to be done. i would rather pay to train her twice upfront than live with somebody who passed the first time but never learned.

##i don't agree re: poster who said that nurses used to get a lot more help. maybe i don't understand the comment. i think nurses have fewer skills and more patients. one of the older nurses was telling me how they used to do a lot of things that docs do now, the docs would just show up at the critical moments. she was the only nurse i've ever met who knew how to intubate a baby. wow. dumbing down nursing, as i see, makes it less intellectually stimulating for them and more crazy for the docs. i'm not 100% sure how i want to deal with that -- physicians assistant plus nurse for organization? nurse practitioner?

I really think that the basic problem is the loss of work ethic. There is no reason that stupid people cannot do a job well if they are in the right job and will work to make sure it gets done right. And I don't think nurses are in the class of fundamentally stupid people, so they should be able to do just as well. Dr's tend to be people who are either "smart" enough to get through without working much or, more likely, people who can work hard when they have to. But they still make mistakes and I am willing to bet that there is a bell curve of dr's too.

I guess I probably have pretty high standards of excellence, but then if you ask a roomful of people where they are relative to average over 50% of them think they are well above the average. Probably the number was around 80%.

Anyway, what I don't know is how a standard of excellence
should be provided for nurses and dr's both. Both professions have a lot of tests already. Both have shortages but it is possible to get fired. Both have pretty good salaries, I think, although nurses get a way better deal with hours and flexibility. I don't think any of this will be solved unless the whole country heads back to a decent work ethic and moral rationale for work. If it doesn't come from inside, it's just going to be external rules which is or becomes bureaucracy.

Ok, so I haven't used capitalization, consistent punctuation, or even necessarily whole sentences. I admit it. But that is the quick & rambling, and I need to think about getting more done on my paper.

Welcome back, Arwen! I agree with you about the waining work ethic. I once had someone (20-something) interviewing for a job call me BEFORE the interview to enquire about the car allowance. Turns out if it wasn't equal to the lease payment on his new suv, he wanted me to know we were going to have a problem. Really. I'm beginning to agree more and more with Jimmy Carter's views in his new book "Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis." DH thinks he is a moron, but he's getting the book from audible.com for Christmas to listen to anyway - there's more than one way to skin that cat. I'm apolitical, so I'm not well-informed on Carter's politcal acts, but I think he is both wise and caring and he got a Nobel Peace Prize for some reason, right? "Caring" seems to be a common thread.

More patients per nurse = more work for nurse. I would imagine increased lawsuits is in part why nurses are not allowed to do more advanced procedures anymore.In OB certainly nurses did do a lot more in the days before there were pediatric code teams, etc. Nurses are doing more administrative stuff now rather than nursing skills. Also more nurses are LPNs rather than RNs. Less training in basic medical science.

Well the Monday USA Today had a story about 'Superbugs' infiltrating hospitals. It profiled three nasty bugs in depth - all three are what my dad has contracted while in the hospital. Staphylococcus aureus or Staph, Clostridium difficile a diarrhea bug, Acinetobacter baumannii which causes pneumonia. He will be fighting these guys for a long long time (if not forever).

I will be going back for two weeks in mid January and again for a week or more in February. Oklahoma is not my favorite place in the winter but I remember it only having one bad snow/ice storm per season and they've already had one this year so maybe it will be mild and sunny.

So once again I get to morph into SUPERNURSE 'Johnny' and sing "here I come to save the day!".

Brenda - I think Jimmy Carter is a saint! I worship the man and everything he's ever said or done. There is not a better human being on the planet.

Let's all gather at Fearrington Village the next time President Carter comes to McIntyre's. Meeting him would be surreal...and we can poke around their gardens while we're waiting in line!

Count me in Pup, he's one of my heros. Adele

Mine too, Adele... He wasn't such a great president, but he's certainly the best EX-president I think we've ever had... really done more for humanity as an ex-president than most of them do in their entire lifetimes and really EARNED that Nobel Peace Prize (plus, it WAS intended as a SNUB to GWB -- the people who made the decision as much as said so, recently, and frankly that makes it that much sweeter in my opinion).

We really DO need to invade other countries, conquer them, topple their governments and help set up a new regime sometimes... I think Afghanistan was a PERFECT EXAMPLE of that, and in fact I was in favor of that when they were only THREATENING to destroy the 1,500-year-old Buddhist monuments, before they actually did -- much less after it became apparent they were the staging ground for the terrorists behind 911.

Iraq WAS NOT, and it's proven to be just a big mess and an example of exactly how WRONG we can get it when we got it pretty RIGHT just a few months earlier.

Oh well... nothing to do now but let it run its course, I guess... slowly draw down our troops as the new government gains "control," and then leave entirely (all the while the insurgents will be waiting in the wings), and then watch as the whole mess erupts into a full-blown civil war once we're out of there again.

Maybe we should draft Carter to run again?

Merry Christmas!
Jeff

Well, sad news from the homefront... dad has been moved back to the big hospital because the staph infection is doing a number on his heart (evidentally staph can hide either around the heart or inside a certain valve - the facts were unclear). They are still acting like this is survivable, but it sure sounds grim to my ears.

My poor sister (the older of my two younger sisters) has been handling all of it by herself, she arrived with her 8 year old (Dani) in tow. None of the neices were free to babysit so the kid had to spend 12-15 hours in the waiting area while sis took care of dad (children aren't allowed in the room). Luckily her husband arrives today and the older neices are now on Christmas break so they can help keep Dani entertained. Any child that can spend an entire day in a hospital waiting room all alone and not destroy something cannot possibly be related to ME!

Mom is restructuring her life so that her house is more accomodating to the college age grandkids - she now sees the importance of having them drop by, even if it is to do a load of laundry.

Guess I will have to sign up for Survivor, its either that or win the lottery - thats the only way I'm going to be able to afford this crisis.

I'm so sorry to hear your dad has had a setback. God bless you (the difficult-to-be-away sibling), your mom, sister and little niece. A tough row to hoe on Christmas for anyone, but your little niece learned some real family values from that experience. I'm sure y'all will find a way to thank her for her patience when life calms down a little out there in OK.

In the meantime, know that my heart goes out to all of you.

I second what Miss Ann Thrope said, John (like you're really like that, Claire -- NOT!)

Sure hope your dad pulls through this... yeah, staph infections that go to the heart can be VERY serious... killed a local doctor who didn't take his own apparently minor skin infection seriously enough and that happened to him... If they had better sterile procedures where he was, he may not have gotten that to start with, but then if never did, huh?

At any rate, know we're all thinking of you and pulling for you.

A happy and hopeful New Year to you all!
Jeff

John, we know you're in OK right now, but you haven't given us an update on your dear dad.

Pup - dear dad is doing remarkably well. He will be released on Feb 2nd or 3rd. His bones are all healing right on schedule, he can now sit up and eat on his own, brush his teeth, comb his hair, etc. In a way, the fact that he suffered with hospital born infections was a good thing - except for the near death parts - the antibiotic treatments kept him in the hospital and are what continue to keep him under their round the clock care. If they had released him way back when they wanted to there would have been problems with his metal harness he is required to wear. The harness takes two people to put on (I can do it by myself in a pinch) and needs to be in place for him to sit up or leave the bed to use the bathroom or attend a physical therapy session. If he was at home we would have to hire a nurse to come out to the house (30 minutes out in the country) and help us put it on him and then come back to help us take it off or put it back on (he can't sleep with it on). Medicaid or Insurance would only pay for ONE nurse visit per day. So by getting so sick and needed lots of antibiotics he has been able to stay at the hospital where there are lots of people to help him with the harness. The staff has gotten better but I am still amazed that they basically hand us his medicine and never stick around long enough to see that he takes it. They want us involved but sometimes I feel like I am doing their jobs.

Mom is a big disappointment. She doesn't want to do anything to help herself or my dad. She wants me to drive her up to the hospital but never understands that I have to stay there for certain procedures and cannot be expected to drive her home when she gets bored (sometimes immediately after arrival). She won't even try to do little things like clean up after herself at home. I have to race home after spending 12-13 hours at the hospital and do all the housework and clean up her mess in the kitchen. If she would try and fail I would feel differently, but she boldly states that she has no interest in doing any work - hard or otherwise! Its pretty exasperating and I have trouble being nice or patient with her.

I hate to fly and I would have clung to the landing gear to return home the day after I got here - it was that bad, and I've got another week to go!!!!

hang in there, john. we're all rooting for you and your family.
how's the situation with the wildfires?

Oh John, I feel for those of you who are so strong and capable, holding others together...not easy...(mom must be depressed/not dealing with ANYTHING)...hang in there...dear gardening guru.

But,hallelujah!!!!It's miraculous about your dad's recovery! Maybe when his crushed body finally heals, HE will be the one to inspire mom to move on.

claire

Wildfires aren't real close to where I am - I guess the closest ones were 35 miles away. I have seen plenty of small ones along the highway going into town. Obviously started by someone deliberately. They have been handing out one year jail terms to folks caught buring their trash or using their grills outdoors (its in the 70's here so folks wanna be outside). The weather out here is something else, cold nights, very warm days and lots of wind, humidity in the teens - just what you need for an unstoppable fire.

If I had brought my camera I would show you fotos that look just like the serengeti or the Australian outback. Pretty in a "someplace special that few people know about" sorta way but way too harsh and bleak for me anymore.

Sounds like Tierra Del Fuego of the West!

And Russia so cold that the oil wells are freezing, potatoes hard as rocks.

Come back to the Triangle of Paradise, John. Who knew!

It's not unusual for seniors to be clinically depressed, John. Maybe your mother, and the rest of you, would benefit from a prescription for her?

oh, good- i'm so glad the fires have stayed well away, john. i know you were really worried about that before you went. it sounds beautiful in a haunting sort of way.

brenda, from what john's told me the problem has a lot to do with the fact that his mom absolutely refuses to be seen by a dr, let alone a shrink. hard to treat someone when they won't get or allow you to get help for them. it's the most frustrating thing there is to care more about someone's health and wellbeing than they do themselves.

Yeah, know what you mean. Most family practitioners will prescribe antidepressants now, if you can wrangle her in to one. My grandmother-in-law is on them, along with the other pills she needs, and doesn't even realize it.

Here's wishing your dad continued recovery so maybe he CAN come home and get your mom out of her slump!

Take care of yourself, John!
Jeff

Today is my first day off since getting here!!! I have no idea what to do first. My baby sister is here from California and she can hover over dad all day. The only drawback is that I have to use dad's old dodge pickup and it can barely get up to highway speed (highways here are 70+ mph) and it swims around on a windy day. I don't care - I am off to the big city.

Dad will be released on Feb 3rd. He is ready - we are all ready. The staff is gonna cry to see him and the rest of us leave - we tend to be the life of the party in a sad sad place.

Taking care of him is way different than it was back in November. Back then he couldn't sit up in bed, couldn't turn his head, had to constantly wear a rigid brace, had to swallow a million pills a day while lying on his back looking at the ceiling. Now he can sit up, feed himself, decide whether to wear the brace or not, only takes 4 pills a day, he can even use his walker to hobble over to the bathroom - Just Say NO to Bedpans!!!

I know it sounds whiny - but not one minute of all of this has anything to do with ME!!! I don't get to eat when I'M hungry, I don't even get to eat WHAT I want to eat, same with sleep or going to the bathroom. The life of a caregiver is completely wrapped around the patient and between him and my mom I am wore out. I live in fear that my mean older brother will give them each a little brass bell to ring when they want something. The only solution is to get dad settled in and then race home and gather up mom and haul her to the hospital and sit the two of them side by side so that I can take care of both of them at the same time.

My plane lands tomorrow evening and I will be the one running off the plane to kiss the tarmac at RDU!!!

Oh John, mission of love accomplished! Welcome home...you will give TGIF a whole new meaning. Now indulge yourself a bit...eat something good, sleep in (or out) and commune with your plants...doing all of these in any order you darn please.

claire in sanford

Happy returns, John... and I bet Miss Lucy will be even happier than you! :)

Well I survived the day, now I just gotta pack and somehow calm down. Wouldn't really care if I stayed up most of the night, it will only make it easier to sleep on the plane tomorrow. I am such a nervous flyer that I have to take 10m of Valium just to drive up to the airport (this after a lifetime of ocean crossing flights! don't much matter, I hate hate hate it.)

My first stop today was the National Cowboy Hall of Fame - a top notch museum with the best gift shop! Then down the street to my old job at the OKC Zoo (one of America's top ten zoo's) where I was lucky that they were having an all employee assembly so I just stood at the door and met all the various employees that I wanted to see. After that silliness I drove across town to the new Museum of Art to see the 3 story tall Chihuly glass sculpture and it was worth the walk thru traffic! So one busy afternoon, and I made it back to watch my dad learn how to cook chocolate chip cookies (all part of his therapy). Little sis is settled in to the routine and everything is calm so I feel fine about leaving him.

Jeff, you must mean Tami Fay Barker the bestus hound dawg in the whole wide world. Her full name is Tami Fay Barker - this b!tch is a Natural Red Head! (just kidding, she's a mixed breed dog = mostly Vizsla with a bit of Dobermann Pincher. Vizsla are the red form of Weimereiner, also known as Hungarian Red Pointers). I am gonna wrap myself around that hound and never let go when I get home. Folks are just gonna havta adapt to seeing her 60 pounds in my lap while I drive to work. And you guys thought I could be on Survivor! 30 days! I'm having trouble 17! I'm about to cry just thinking about her.

Yeah, John, I don't know WHERE I got "Lucy" from... Tami Fay... that's the pup!

And I'm with ya about Survivor... Aside from the fact that I'm NOWHERE NEAR the physical condition I'd need to be in to SURVIVE "Survivor" (except that I have LOTS of "reserves" I could live off of, lol), they'd NEVER get me on that island or wherever for 39 days unless Tater Tot was in the contract... NEVER! :)

I need to find the email someone sent me recently with dog quotes in it and forward it to ya, or maybe just post it here for everyone... My personal favorite was the one from Will Rogers...

"If dogs don't go to heaven when they die, then I want to go wherever they go."

Amen! :)
Jeff

Jeff, send me those dog quotes too, or better yet, post em here for all to see.

Know what you mean about that Vizla mix, John. One of the dog loves of my life was Sterling, the hugest Weimaraner in the western world...what a chest! Not my dog, just my friend with a great sense of humor...we laughed together. His parents got divorced and he moved away. He worshiped the earth and looked up to me as if I were a goddess whenever I dug a hole.

Your wish is my command, Claire! :)

The reason a dog has so many friends is that he wags his tail instead of his tongue.
-Anonymous

Don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful.
-Ann Landers

If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.
-Will Rogers

There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face.
-Ben Williams

A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves
himself.
-Josh Billings

The average dog is a nicer person than the average person.
-Andy Rooney

We give dogs time we can spare, space we can spare and love we can spare. And in return, dogs give us their all. It's the best deal man has ever made.
-M. Acklam

Dogs love their friends and bite their enemies, quite unlike people, who are incapable of pure love and always have to mix love and hate.
-Sigmund Freud

I wonder if other dogs think poodles are members of a weird religious cult.
-Rita Rudner

A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three
times before lying down.
-Robert Benchley

Anybody who doesn't know what soap tastes like never washed a dog.
-Franklin P. Jones

If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have
known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons.
-James Thurber

If your dog is fat, you aren't getting enough exercise.
-Unknown

My dog is worried about the economy because Alpo is up to $3.00 a can. That's almost $21.00 in dog money.
-Joe Weinstein

Ever consider what our dogs must think of us? I mean, here we come back from a grocery store with the most amazing haul -- chicken, pork, half a cow. They must think we're the greatest hunters on earth!
-Anne Tyler

Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.
-Robert A. Heinlein

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you; that is the principal difference between a dog and a man..
-Mark Twain

You can say any foolish thing to a dog, and the dog will give you a look that says, 'Wow, you're right! I never would've thought of that!'
- Dave Barry

Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.
-Roger Caras

If you think dogs can't count, try putting three dog biscuits in your
pocket and then give him only two of them.
-Phil Pastoret

My goal in life is to be as good of a person my dog already thinks I am.

-------------------

The only one I don't care for is the Robert Heinlein quote, even though it's soooo true :)
Jeff

Well, dad is home and doing wonderfully well. He calls everyday to ask me silly questions about where I hid something while I was staying there. ("where are those raingauges that were out back on the fence?" - "I don't know dad! did you consider that since it hasn't rained in like a million years that maybe they just blew off the fence into the pasture on one of those windy days?") He has even been able to walk all the way down their long driveway to check the mail. He doesn't have to wear his metal harness nor his soft sponge collar (I had requested one of those lampshade devices that they use to keep dogs from scratching themselves). He does have to recieve his antibiotics three times a day by iv - little sister and my older brother had to be trained on how to administer that and so far they've succeeded - with lots of "air-bubble" jokes.

The best part is the change in dad's sense of humor. I guess you could say that it has matured into full blown ADULT humor - finally!!!! He was always silly and entertaining but now he includes cuss words and insults for shock value. All this gets a rise outta mom and a giggle from us kids. So far the house has seen a steady stream of visitors which keeps things noisy and chaotic which is what he wants - it also keeps him off the roof.

I will be flying out there again in mid April (see the post about the spring swap being moved to late April) to make sure things are going well and to take him back up to the hospital so he show off to the staff. And then I will get out there again some time in mid summer for my 30 year high school reunion - I guess this is just gonna be the year of Oklahoma travel. I had planned on taking a vacation out there next summer for the Centennial Celebration (statehood 1907) but I'm afraid I'll be sick of it by then and looking for someplace else to visit.

30 Year High-School REUNION?!?!?

Yameantatellme You're a member of the Class of '76, too, John?????

Well I'll BE!!!

We're like GradBrothers, or sumpthin', 'ceptin' I ain't made a reunion, yet, and don't think I will, since high school WASN'T a fun time for me (I was the kid everybody picked on).

I'll only go to a reunion after I've figured out how to turn myself into a rich hunk, and it ain't lookin' likely, lol.

Glad your dad's doing so much better!
Jeff

Jeff - I thought we determined that we were twins a long time ago, and the only argument left undecided was which one of us is the good twin and which one the bad???

I believe my graduating class of 1976 had just over a thousand seniors in it - it was one of the largest.

I enjoyed high school but hated college. I've been to the other organized reunions and had a great time so I was really looking forward to this one but so far no one has contacted me about the festivities. Many of my friends from those long-gone days still live in town and I see them whenever I visit (oddly, I still have their phone numbers buried in my memory! Is it sick that I remember, or is it sick that they live in the same house with the same phone????)

I didn't move back to America until the 10th grade. My old highschool from Japan is holding an all-years reunion this year also, and this year it is in Washington DC (one of my favorite cities). I had hoped to spend a weekend up there while the cherry blossoms were gettin busy but now it looks like I will use up all my paid leave with "dad" stuff.

On a side note: another friend has gone into business selling unusuall plants and will be holding his first open house the weekend in April that I will be there - so at least on this next trip I will get to shop for more plants.

Good twin or bad twin???

Hmmmm, you and I are kindasorta like the Mythbusters, except, I think, maybe we'd have to call ourselves the "Sodbusters," or the "Earthbusters." Or should we be the "Plantbusters?"

Someone here (was it Claire, or Dottie, or WHO?) wanted us to be like a "different" version of "Click & Clack" (like THOSE GUYS aren't already DIFFERENT enough! :)

So who WOULD we be???

Possible monikers:

Dig & Dug
Big & Bug
Slag & Slug
Plow & Plug
Seed & Sod

Other possibilities??? Y'all chirp in.

As to who is the "evil twin?" Do we REALLY wanna tell ALL our "secrets," John???

LMBFBO!
Jeff

I believe that was Claire. While back in OKC the NPR station there had a gardening call in show called "You Bet Your Garden!" I believe it was produced by the Gardens Alive! folks. It was national, not a local production. Wonder why the fine folks out here don't play it?

Myself I would prefer Dig and Dug

OK, John. You dig, and I'll say I already dug :-P

Not a lot of time lately. But I just gotta say "I love you guys, dig and dug!" You'd be a hit no matter how you are billed. You can be scarecrow and lion to my dorothy any day.

claire in sanford