October 20, 2012 Mess for a Cause

I'm working on a scrapbook.

Usually I do this in a separate room, off the beaten path, so I don't have to worry about the mess that I make whenever I feel creative.

However, when I was sleeping in the living room (so many months ago) , CB moved a TV into the living room so I could be somewhat entertained and leave him alone for a minute.

The TV from the computer room is now the TV in the living room so there is no TV in the computer room where I usually get down with my bad self and scrapbook to my heart's content.

I can't scrapbook all day without noise from the TV in background so I drug all my shit to the dining room and set up shop there.  An added benefit is that since we can't eat at the table, CB has to take me out for dinner!

Crap.  You know what I just thought of?  I could have watched a movie on Netflix on the computer.  Damn it. 

I made a mess that I have to clean up when, if I had given it any thought at all I could have made a mess them shut the door.

Oh well.  The floor needs to be swept anyway.

So there's that.

October 19, 2012 Civic Duty

It didn't take me very long to fill in my advance ballot today.  There were only 3 Democrats on the whole damn thing.  Not one Democrat ran for a county position.  I didn't even bother to vote for the repuglicans who are running.  This is Kansas, they don't need my vote.

Even though this is Kansas and my vote for Obama/Biden won't matter, it still felt good to vote for that ticket.

On this day when George McGovern is more in the next world than this one, my thoughts went back to the presidential election of 1972.  While not old enough to vote, I was more than old enough to campaign for McGovern and work in the Ford County Democratic Headquarters.  McGovern promised to end the war in Vietnam and said that the Watergate break in was something to pay attention to.  He was a great liberal who was a champion of the underdog, the blue collar worker and the common person.  Unfortunately, the voters of this country felt otherwise and McGovern was beat by Nixon.

Two years later, Nixon became the only president to resign in disgrace. 

I've always been proud that I was a "McGovern Democrat" and, in fact, still am.  A signed book by George McGovern is one of my most prized possessions.

As long as there are people like me and like Barack Obama fighting the good fight, George McGovern will remain very much a part of this world even while his soul resides in the next.  

October 18, 2012 Progress is Measured in Inches

Steve and Angie Land of Heartland Physical Therapy have done it again!

Boot - gone (not forever, just packed away)

Shoes - on both feet! 

Laces - NOT ELASTIC! 

Challenge - tying these damn shoes.  I need longer arms or an ability to hold my breath longer.  Don't even act like you don't know what I mean.

Steve told me it was time to start walking for exercise.  Walking!  For exercise!  Finally! 

I am to start of slowly - 10 minutes, at a time, concentrating on my gait (after 6 months of walking with a cane, a walker, a walking boot and combinations of each I need to learn how to "walk right" again), and building up some stamina. 

This afternoon I went to the ball diamonds and walked part of the way around them, staying on the level sidewalk. 

So, I'm proud this evening.

And I'm thankful for physical therapists who do their jobs well and who don't seem to mind me, well, me being me!   But, since I am paying for their 2 children to go to college, they really don't have a choice, do they?

In fact, I found an old MRI of my other knee and when I showed it to Angie, she said "Now they can go to medical school too!"  Yep, Heartland PT LOVES me.  Loves. Me.

October 17, 2012 Better to Look At

Remember all the pictures I posted of the beautiful trees, loaded with colorful leaves? 

Yeah.

Now those damn leaves are blowing all over the estate and someone is going to have to rake them.

It's not going to be me.

I don't think I am nearly healthy enough for yard work.  I am, after all, barely healthy enough to get out of bed in the morning.  We wouldn't want me to over do it.   Would we?  WOULD WE?

I didn't think so.

I would be a raking fool if I could burn the leaves that I rake up.  Burning leaves is just about my favorite smell in the world.  Too bad we can't burn them in Wamego.  (Please go back and read that last sentence with a good bit of sarcasm.  Thanks.)

October 16, 2012 I am NOT Making This Shit Up

All of these stickers were on ONE vehicle parked outside of the bar on Wamego's main street. 

A couple of observations:  this person hates taxes.  This person supports a chapter of the Vietnam veterans.  If this person is a vet, then taxes are what paid his/her salary and perhaps his/her pension and perhaps his/her GI bill education.

I don't get the new math sticker.  Maybe because I don't understand math in the first place and maybe because I am not a right wing nut job in the second place.  I don't think it makes much sense to have a bumper sticker that people don't understand.  Do you?

Comparing Jane Fonda to Hitler is a bit problematic for me as well.  I'll just leave it at that.

Wanting Obama to be a speed bump?  I can at least understand that because I think Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, Romney, Ryan, Limbaugh, Beck, Coulter, all lined up would make a wonderful set of rumble strips.

October 15, 2012 Breast Cancer Sucks

Not so very long ago, a dear friend of mine died from complications related to treatment for her breast cancer.  Pissed me off, not to put too fine a point on it.

We can put a man on the moon but we can't find a cure for cancer?  I don't get it.  There is some ground breaking research going on around the country (and around the KSU campus) so perhaps during my lifetime a cure will be found.

The sister of my traveling buddy, Kimber, is a firefighter in San Francisco.  Chris, a single mother of 2 darling girls, is a tough, strong woman whom I greatly admire.  When I read about her activities on Facebook it makes me tired.  She is always going and doing and building loads of memories for her kids. 

Anyway, Chris is a firefighter and her station (Chris, if you are reading this, don't scream, I know I don't have all the terms right) sold these shirts and I knew I had to have one.  Not only to support the cause to find a cure, but also because this is considered a uniform shirt for the firefighters.  When I wear it, I feel so strong and secure and ready to save babies from a burning building. 

Now, we all know that I am in no condition to save anyone from a burning building, least of all babies, so it's good for me to have a rich fantasy life.

One story I want to tell you about Chris.  She posted on Facebook that one of her little girls got bit by another child either at school or some activity.  Chris asked for suggestions on dealing with the situation.  Crazy Aunt Sarah's advice:  Bite the bitch back.

Haven't heard from Chris since.

October 14, 2012 New Floor

One of the few things I don't like about my house is the wood floor in the dining room and kitchen.  I love how it looks, but it's in bad shape.  I'm sure you all remember the time I was trying to scoot my chair in and it wouldn't scoot because the planks were uneven and my chair broke and I fell to the floor.  And at some point wet my pants in the process. 

It is time for a new floor.  Don't tell CB.  He is not on board with this.  Keep in mind that I have been using a stove with one broken burner for the past 8 years.  But who's counting. 

I am.  That's who.

I digress.

While chatting on line with 2 strange men both of whom said they knew how to put in hard wood (I think they were talking about floors.  Weren't they?) I decided to invite them to my house for a long weekend and we'd get the job done. 

Still talking about floors.

They readily agreed and began talking about who was going to bring the nail gun and who was going to bring some kind of saw. 

See, I told you we were talking about floors.

I said I'd provide the alcohol because, after all, you can't operate heavy equipment without alcohol.

In case some of you are worried about early onset Alzheimer's, I do know the 2 guys - we've been friends for 30 years - and it's high time for a reunion.

Speaking of high, one of them asked who was going to provide the medicinal marijuana since we are all so old and most certainly a job of this kind will make our backs hurt.  I volunteered several of my clients.

I kid.  I kid.

We are shooting for sometime during Christmas Break.  If it happens, there will be so many pictures of proving that drunks can get the job done.

Again, do not tell CB.  I think he'll just have to wake up one morning and see the kitchen torn up.  It will be better that way.

It's easier to ask for forgivness than to ask for permission.