Hatteras

Hatteras Island is a long, thin island off the North Carolina Outer Banks. The Village of Hatteras, which is where we are, is located way down on the tip of the island. Almost nobody except fishermen goes that far down the island to vacation, and the population ot the village is small - according to the zip code profile, there are there are 341 men and 293 women.

What this meant to us is that we pretty much had the beach to ourselves! When sitting on the beach, one could look left and right and see only a hand full of people on miles and miles of sand! This made it quite convenient for us to have our own little parties. We generally just baked in the sun, slept, read, played Jarts, flew kites, played backgammon, drank, ate, and smoked. Ed tried surf fishing every day, but never caught anything but a few little sharks. Oh, and he caught a big nasty skate once. Here is a picture of a skate. Since it was so abandoned there, 4-wheel drive vehicles were allowed on the beach, so occasionally we'd go 4-wheeling in Lloyd's jeep. Here are some pictures of us on the beach.

New Season

So it's Memorial Day weekend... My situation this year is so different from what it's ever been before that I have no idea what to expect or how to plan or how to have fun.... But HEY! I've got my shorts on for the first time this year, and they really feel great. And I've figured out a way to exercize some using the grab bars in the bathroom! I really think what I need to do to make this a good summer is to make small life improvements every day. Or at least to do something fun every day.

Things were sure different when I was younger. (I didn't say better, I said different!) When we were in our early 30's, my brother, sister, Lloyd and I traveled down to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina . We stayed at the Burrus Motor Court year after year. What "Hatteras Area Information" has to say about it is, "Oldest and cheapest of the bunch, but get what you pay for. Mr. Burris doesn't always answer, keep trying."

Although, actually, we were quite happy there. We didn't want much, other than a place to get shit-faced and to be left alone. They had a wrap around porch that we sat on for hours on end and amused each other. (Although it didn't take much to keep us amused. My brother, for example, once entertained us for the entire evening by burping "The Star Spangled Banner.")

They had a fairly good size unguarded swimming pool that was kept in various s stages of murkiness. Sometimes it was crystal clear, but on one occasion a maid said, "I can't believe you're going in that pool. I won't let my kids anwhere near that pool!"

We always found it refreshing, though. Ed usually went in first thing every morning for a "wake-up swim", and we always went in when we got home from the beach. One year Sue brought a huge inflateale toy shaped like a whale. That was the "whale boat year". Also, by tradition we had to play "JFK and the PT boat survivors". One of us would be JFK. The PT boat survivors would languish about the pool moaning and haphazardly hanging off inflatable rafts and JFK would swim manfully around the pool and grab the raft in his teeth and pull it to safety. Mind you, we were in our 30's!

I'm running out of time, so I'll share some pictures and tell you more in the next post!

That 2 story building is the Burrus.


Pool


whale boat

Potential disaster

I got up quite early this morning. I took Metro Access home to get my summer shorts out of Mom & Dad's storage area because it is supposed to be 90 degrees on Monday. The bus was supposed to come at 7:45 AM, so I went up around 7:30. Miss Donna (name changed) was already up and wandering about aimlessly on the enclosed front porch, clutching her shirt collar around her neck, wearing the shirt covered with a thin robe and a bunchy pair of gym shorts. There were four to five strands of costume beads around her neck, and her teeth hadn't been put in. Miss Donna very much lives in her own world, and doesn't understand anything going on around her. She is always very happy and pleasant and is always saying happy things to the people around her and trying to be friends.

So Miss Donna comes up to me this morning looking real worried and says something like, "Where is everybody?" and "There's nobody in here." I try to convince her that everyone is around somewhere. She gets distracted because she is trying to give me her St. Christopher medal and I won't take it. "Look at all the beads I have around my neck, and you don't have any", she says. Then she tells me how nice I am, and that I have pretty blue eyes. Then she wanders away and goes into another room.

The Metro Access bus comes. I go out the front door, exchange pleasantries with the driver, back-up onto the ramp, and am hoisted into the air. As I am sitting on the elevated ramp, I hear a commotion. I look, and Miss Donna is fighting her way out the heavy Sunrise front door. She wears a bracelet which sounds an alarm if she goes through the door, but that same alarm goes off for other reasons, and it often goes off by accident, so it is usually ignored.

She is complegtely copnfused by the noise. I yell, "Miss Donna! You can't come out here. Go back!", or some such thing.

She, of course, walks straight up to the bus.

The Metro Access driver runs into Sunrise to find someone to come get her. He is gone for a long time. Meanwhile, I just talk to Miss Donna.

Finally someone comes to get her. The Metro Access driver says "They sure don't watch out for people here. I had to look all over before I could find anyone!"

Biblical experience

The Tower of Babel
Artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Year c. 1563
Type oil on panel

You've all read about the tower of Babel Well, I re-live that experience at 7AM every morning. The employees here come from all over the world. Many languages are spoken. A representative list includes Spanish, Arabic, Amharic, Nepali, Jamaican Patois, Krio, Sin hala, German, and French. Those are just the languages I've identified - there are more. They employees come in at 7AM. The time clock is just outside my door. They are a friendly group and like to greet each other enthusiastically every morning and rejoice in each other's successes or lament in each other's tribulations, BUT none of them can really understand what anyone else is saying. Either the other person is speaking another language, or, more likely, they are speaking broken English to someone who barely speaks English himself. And do you know what you do when the person you are talking to doesn't understand you? YOU SAY IT AGAIN, LOUDER. It gets real loud around my room early in the morning!

metro Access Tales

Tale #1- On the way to the Birchmere the other day, the bus went by the Pentagon to pick up someone. This is to be expected - It is, after all, shared public transportation. The woman we were to pick up was a middle-aged woman in a wheelchair with a briefcase who was obviously going home from work. The Metro Access driver couldn't get the ramp to go down to pick her up. After myriad calls to headquarters, it became apparent that a) this was his first pickup on his first day; and (b) he was never going to get the lift to work. SO, he called headquarters and told them to send another bus for this woman. So, off we go to Birchmere leaving this woman at the Pentagon sitting stranded by the side of the road in her wheelchair. Then we get to Birchmere, and I roll out on the ramp, and, once again, he can't get the ramp down. I ask him to hand-crank it, and he says he's tried, but that is also broken. I think that is highly unlikely, because that is the emergency back-up. Meanwhile, the show is going to start soon, so Susan Craft comes out. Here is a picture of us about 10 years ago. Anyway, Susan has a way, of making things happen so soon I was down and at the show.

Tale #2 - The Red Lobster we went to for my birthday is fairly easy to locate. It is on Lee Highway, in Fairfax City, but apparently it isn't on the Metro Access GPA. The driver who took me there had a terrible time finding It. He even had to stop at a gas station for directions, which is unheard of. The driver who came to bring me home says the got way out in the middle of nowhere and the GPS said."You have arrived at your destination", and he thought, "No I haven't!". He checked to see what I'd said in my original call. and for a landmark I'd said it was across the street from Hooters, and he knew Hooters, so he found me.

Final Tale - I'm fairly certain Metro Access drivers aren't allowed to eat on board. Right? Passengers can't. No driver ever has before. My driver today was a huge fat woman who started the trip downing a handfull of candy. but who, by the time we got there, was throwing the bus in park every red light and running around the bus gathering little containers. By the time I got got home, she had an entire picnic laid out.

In a hole

Why in the world did I get off on a stupid history lesson? I'm amazed at myself.

Anyway, what happened was that the Union army set off the explosives, and in the resulting confusion they all rushed into the crater the explosion caused. The Confederate Army stood around the edges of the crater and picked them off, and also shot cannons down into the crater. According to the NPS publication, "The Union Army had suffered a loss of over 4,000 in killed, wounded, or captured as against about 1,500 for the Confederates." This is a picture of the crater.



Now, the whole point of me telling this amazingly long story is to tell you about this guy we knew who was a docent at the park. He had a group of tourists go through, and one of them said, "That was no crater. That was just a big hole in the ground!" That was sort of how I felt at the Archives. I was like, "What's so great about this? It's just a bunch of documents?!"

After I'd been all through it, though, I crossed the street to the National Sculpture Garden, sat by a fountain, and read "Great Expectations" and felt quite cosmopolitan!

Archives

For my real birthday today, I wore one of the birthday blouses Mom had given me and went to the National Archives to see theiir new exhibit on the Civil War. My reaction to it reminds me of a story that we told back in Colonial Heights High School. One of the guys worked at Crater National Park as a docent. The Park pays homage to a civil war battle where the 48th Union Regiment proposed do "dig a long gallery from their picket line to a point beneath the Confederate battery, blow up the position by means of powder placed in the end of the tunnel, and, finally, send a strong body of troops through the gap created in the enemy's line by the explosion. They saw this as, perhaps, the end of the war." "By July 17 the diggers were nearly 511 feet from the entrance and directly beneath the battery in Elliott's Salient. The Confederates had become suspicious by this time, for the faint sounds of digging could be heard issuing from the earth." "Digging was finally completed on July 23. Four days later the task of charging the mine with black powder was accomplished. Three hundred and twenty kegs of powder weighing, on the average, 25 pounds each were arranged in the two lateral galleries in eight magazines." "Meanwhile, preparations for the attack which was to follow the explosion of the mine had been carried out." Once digging was completed, plans were made for the attack after the explosion. Burnside expected, not only Meade's and Grant's troops, but also a "fresh and numerically strong (about 4,300) Negro division should lead the charge after the explosion." Meade and Grant did not allow this division to participate. Burnside was not informed of this decision until the night before the battle. "At 3:15 a. m., July 30, Pleasants lit the fuse of the mine and mounted the parapet to see the results of his regiment's work. The explosion was expected at 3:30 a. m. Minutes passed slowly by, and the men huddled behind the lines grew more apprehensive. By 4:15 there could be no doubt but that something had gone wrong. Two volunteers from the 48th Regiment (Lt. Jacob Douty and Sgt. Harry Reese) crawled into the tunnel and found that the fuse had burned out at the splice. They relighted it and scrambled to safety. Finally, at about 4:45 a. m., the explosion took place. The earth trembled as men, equipment, and debris were hurled high into the air. At least 278 Confederate troops were killed or wounded in the tremendous blast, and 2 of the 4 guns in the battery were destroyed beyond repair. The measurements of the size of the crater torn by the powder vary considerably, but it seems to have been at least 170 feet long, 60 to 80 feet wide, and 30 feet deep." In the mass confusion following the explosion, the Union attack fell apart.
Caretaker here... More tommorrow. (all quotes from NPS Historical Handbook)

More Birthday

What a wonderful birthday! Mom and Dad and Sue and Shirley and Martha and Ron took me to Red Lobster and we all had a great time and the food was great and I got many more wonderful birthday presents than I deserve. Also, I got a box of fun stuff today from my aunts 'Trica and Brenda. They are always sending me stuff to keep me cheered up. Today they sent an inspirational hanging plaque that says, "Be Joyful Always", and a toy kaleidoscope, and a tin whistle on which I can toot songs, and a rubber frog glued in a clear plastic egg that I kinda don't understand. Aren't they great aunts? Here are their pictures. Tricia is in the green 2nd from the left. Brenda is in blue on the far right. Here is their picture in 1964.

Sweet Honey

Susan Craft, a friend since 1977 (when we were roomates at Virgina), took me to Birchmere last night for my birthday to hear "Sweet Honey in the Rock". If you aren't familiar, they are "an acappella ensemble of 6 black women has been a vital and innovative presence in the music culture of Washington, D.C., and in communities of conscience around the world." They further say about their music, "Blues, spirituals, traditional gospel hymns, rap, reggae, African chants, Hip Hop, ancient lullabies, and jazz improvisation. Sweet Honey’s collective voice, occasionally accompanied by hand percussion instruments, produces a sound filled with soulful harmonies and intricate rhythms. In the best and in the hardest of times, Sweet Honey In The Rock has come in song to communities across the U.S., and around the world raising her voice in hope, love, justice, peace, and resistance." As you might can tell, I had a great time and loved the performance.

Tonight I'm meeting Mom and Dad and Sue and Shirley and Ron (and maybe Martha?) at Red Lobster Pretty groovy bithday, huh? How old am I??? I just subtracted 1957 fron 2010 and came up with 53, so we'll go with that until proven otherwise.

Hope!

I just got completely frustrated with this place. I ran some errands this AM and got home around 10 AM. I told them at that time that I needed to get switched to my other chair. The problem is that I can't run around town in the chair and can't work at the desk in the scooter. Well, I waited patiently. (picture of me waiting patiently)
At 10:30 I called again. She said she'd remind them. At 10:45 I caught one of the caregivers in the hall. She said she knew, but that she couldn't do it by herself, and had to wait for Tomika. 15 minutes later Tomika wandered up the hall with another resident. (So I'm to assume her money is worth more than mine, or what?) They finally took the 15 minutes required to put me in the other chair at 11:10. This place aint cheap - I pay over $6,000.00/month. Wonder how much it would cost to hire a 24/7 assistant, buy a Hoyer Lift, and pay normal expenses, and rent a place? You know, the more I think about it, I probably actually could do that. Hope! What a great birthdy present!

Weddings

I went to the church this morning to fold bulletins and a nicely dress Hispanic couple dropped by looking for the "Padre" so they could get married. The Pastor wasn't in, so they left. It reminded me of when I was a kid and Dad was at Market Street UMC in Winchester. VA. Winchester is real close to West Virginia, which apparently had restrictive laws about getting married or a long waiting period or something. Anyway, West Virginians just flooded into Virginia to get married. Dad had long lines all day on Saturday. Dad came home at the end of the day with his pockets just shoved full of money. He and Mom had the best time looking at it all at the end of the day. I mean, just think about if - Here was this preacher with a very modest income and 3 kids to raise suddenly just raking in the bucks. They knew it would be gone when they got moved, so they didn't depend on it for regular expenses, but did stuff with it like to buy my piano, and take the family to Disney World.

Freedom!

I GOT OUT! Mom and I went to Tysons and saw "Date Night". It was mildly amusing in places, and was basically an OK movie, but not a great movie. (Now I sound like Simon Cowell on American Idol.) Do you think maybe I watch way too much TV? Anyway, it got me out of this hell hole for a while. "Date Night" should have been great, because Tina Fey and Steve Carrell are both so funny, but it just wasn't written with very many funny moments, AND it never really took the time to establish empathy with the main characters, AND the plot actually got confusing toward the end.

Rainy Day

AARRGG!!! Rain traps one inside just like snow does. (Or at least it does if ones main method of commuting is in an open wheelchair!) Although, actually, if I put as much effort into finding worthwhile things to do as I do into bitching about having nothing to do, I'd probably be fairly busy.
Ron saw my plea for his help with a website on the blog yesterday, and he got me started in the right direction on the webpage. Thank you, Ron. It will take some work, but soon I'll be sharing a new web address with you.

Tommorrow I'm going to Tysons to see "Date Night" with Tina Fey and Steve Carrrell, and I'll get to eat lunch out and look around the stores and basically NOT BE HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I actually do need to buy a case for my cel phone. Let's call tomorrow a mental health day!

I do wish it would stop raining by then, though. Do you suppose it is raining so much because Bob Ryan left NBC 4?

Web page

I had a web page selling rhymes for people to use on special occasions in the past, and made some $, so I decided to do it again. I got the page made with FrontPage, but have spent hours unsuccessfully trying to load it on the web using "Just Host" and talking to an unhelpful woman on the phone. If I don't get it tomorrow, I'll call Ron. Such a page would give me something real to do.

It's been raining all day, and they say tommorrow, too.

Bob Ryan, my fave weatherman is leaving NBC 4 and going to 7. Mom met him once at the mall and got his autograph and then left with his pen and he came after her saying, "Mildred! Mildred!"

Hark

I'm in a very bummed out mood. This obnoxious "care manager", Parmella, treats me like I'm totally worthless and can't think. She brusquely orders me around, and whenever I question anything or ask for clarification, she says "You talk too much. Stop your talking." (She barely speaks English at all, so that's a paraphrase.) All this when she is the one I'm relying on help me get on with the basic details of living. Frankly, I'm in tears every time she leaves.

So I think I'll share more Christmas card poems from the 1990's, 'cause I aint feeling real amusing right now.

The Dulin choir was David's church choir. I sang in it. I wrote this to reflect his constant lamentations. Names have been changed to protect my innocence!



TO: Hark the Herald Angels Sing

"Hark," the Dulin choir sings,
"We think we know everything.
If you cross us, we'll go wild.
You won't like us when we're riled.
Don't tell us where to keep our eyes!
On the hymns we'll harmonize!
If our music's sounding lame,
We will let David tske the blame!
Hark," the Dulin choir sings.
"We think that we know everything."

Jessica, by herself adored,
Always must have the last word.
Judy's late, oh here she comes,
Flying, wild-eyed, in the room.
Dody's the authority
On speaking Latin correctly.
John keeps muttering, "Go to hell!"
I fear that John may not be well!
Hark," the Dulin choir sings.
"We think that we know everything."

Decisively laying their pencils by,
They'll mark music when pigs fly!.
Tom, of talent has a dirth,
But thinks that no one knows his worth,
So he bellows when he sings.
It sure is a nasal thing.
If each singer does their best,
Why, then, is David not imopressed?
Hark," the Dulin choir sings.
"We think that we know everything."

Salvation

MY TV IS BACK!! The repairman came at 8:30 this morning, and I've never been happier to see anyone in my life! He keeps telling me all these grim things about how this brand of TV (Sony) has a history of completely breaking - so much so that there is a class action suit against Sony - but I don't know what he hopes to gain by scaring me with such stories. What I have is a Sony Brand Vega LCD projection TV. The repair was simple - the lamp burned out and needed to be replaced. Ron had fixed it for me once before.
Ron is very sweet, by the way, and had offered me the TV from his bedroom if this one couldn't be fixed.
Now the next question I guess is - what am I going to do with all these library books? I started reading Great Expectations by Dickens this morning. I'm only up to about page 5. Pip has been approached by the scarey, raggedy man in the church yard, and found out about the jail break. My best guess is that the raggedy man is an escaped criminal. Stay tuned...
The old fellow next door (Bill) is an an aquatintance of mine because he used to live where I lived (Park Towers), and he is a good friend of my good friend, Martha. Here is a picture of Martha. (I don't have a picture of Bill.) She and my sister are having mint juleps at our annual Kentucky Derby party. ANYWAY, Bill and I have been watching Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy on the wide screen TV in the big room that separates our rooms, so I guess I'll keep doing that, but it means spending more time out in the actual nursing home.


Nope - I wrote that a couple days ago, and it turns out Bill doesn't even want to watch TV with me. So much for neighborliness!

You know what? I hate living here.

Ethiopians

I went to the church today to fold bulletins and the Metro Access driver looked just like Soloman, one of the Ethiopians I used to date.

I dated Ethiopiaans because my sister Sue began dating this guy named Nega McKonnen who was Eritrean, but that was before the war, so Ethiopians and Eritreans considered each other brothers and lived in little "enclaves" in DC and Arlington. Since Sue was actually dating Nega, I just started "dating" some of his friends, Soloman and "Steve". "Steve's actual name was about 15 letters long, so we just called him Steve.

We actually had a good time together as a group. Some of the things we did together were:
1. We went to Baltimore and rode paddle boats around the inner harbour
2. We went to Winchester Virginia and watched the Apple Blossom parade, which is literally about an 8 hour parade
3. We went to Ethiopian restaurants. Our favorite was Meskerem. The food there is quite authentic. Lots of Ethiopians eat there. The way Ethiopian food works is that you get a big platter covered with Injera, a flat bread "made from premium teff, a cereal grain unique to Ethiopia. or whole wheat fermented to perfection." Everyone orders a stew, and every one's stew is laid out in dollops on the platter covered with Injera. Each diner has a stack of Injera, and the diner pulls off a piece of the bread and everyone eats communally of any of the mounds of stew with their fingers.

I'll tell you more about Ethiopia later - I have to go eat meatloaf with gravy in the dining hall!

Beera entata! (That means "Let's drink beer now" in Amharic!

My teeth haven't hurt at all! This dentist is very good. I highly recommend him. He even called me at home last to ask if I was OK. (I was!) Believe me, there is no one on earth more horrified of the dentist than I am, but this was not (except for the cost)a horrible experience.

Did y'all see Marathon Man?

I think what made me decide never to go to the dentist again happened when I was about a junior in High School. The absurd dentist checked and fixed my teeth, then called my father into the room and said I had to have my wisdom teeth taken out! He showed Dad on the x-ray how they were impacted and turned sideways and would never grow in and would get infected. Dad seemed to buy into it, but I said "no way in HELL was I getting my wisdom teeth out, they were just fine, there was nothing wrong with them, and that the whole wisdom tooth deal was just a racket!" I didnt get them out, and they'be never given me amoment of trouble. That turned me off dentists forever, though.

My brother
got his taken out a few years later, though, and really seemed to enjoy his experience with the pain medecation!

Dentist

I spent the entire morning in the dentist's chair. I caught Metro Access over at 5:30 AM and didn't get out until almost 11:00 AM. He did the root canal and filled a cavity. The cavity alone would normally have done me in. Actually, it didn't really hurt at the time. I can feel the Novocaine beginning to wear off now, though. Let's all just keep our fingers crossed.

At one point he said to his assistant, "Wow - it's dark in there. I can't see anything."

The COST for all this was (get ready) $3,000.00, which certainly answers the question, "Why in the world would anyone want to be a dentist?"

I'm now trying to drink soda out of a can with a mouth that's entirely numb. This would cause a great deal of halarity, were I to be in a better mood.

And, to top it off, the TV is still broken. A TV repairman ordered a part and is supposed to come tomorrow and fix it, so, once again, please keep your fingers crossed.

To: Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone


Ain't no sunshine in the home.
Gloom abides here every day.
Ain't no sunshine in the home.
Seniors waste their time away
Wishing offspring would just stay.


*Wonder when I'll see my son?"
That is what they often say.
Ain't no sunshine in this home.
No one wants to be alone
Simply passing time away.


I know, I know, (etc. x 16)
Gotta leave the old folks alone.
Maybe call them on the phone.

Just a call across the miles
Gives them happiness and smiles
'Cause it's hard to be alone.
Ain't much sunshine in this home.

What's the Use?

I really just lost it. I get 2 showers a week here and one is supposed to be tonight and I've been looking forward to it for days and now THEY HAVE NO HOT WATER AND THEY DON'T KNOW WHEN IT WILL BE FIXED. I can't do anything but sit here and cry. I really am losing it.

Following is what I'd originally planned to write:
I'm super bummed out because my TV isn't working! It's pathetic how much one depends on the TV in situations such as mine, because it isn't possible to move around the room at will and just go over and get on the computer for a minute or grab a book. You have to sit where they leave you until you can get someone to move you, and then, where ever they move you, you have to make yourself content there for a while. It's much easier to do this with a working TV.

BUT get over it - right? I have an in-home TV repairman coming tomorrow, so hold your breath!!!!

I went home for Mother's Day this afternoon and borrowed a radio because I usually listen to music on the computer, which is all the way across the room from my easy chair, which is where I want to sit when I'm tired from being in the wheelchair all day, or else I listen to the music channels on TV, which is broken.

TO: BEVERLY HILLBILLIES SONG

Let me tell you all a story about Debaroo.
Her TV broke and she don't know what to do.
Then one day, just to satisfy her needs
She picked up a book and she settled in to read.
Novel, that is.
Lots of words.
Glory be.

Mom

family (minus Ed, Dayna, girls)

silly picture

pretty picture

with family including Ron

with Charlotte

dressed as a hippy for my 50th birthday

with David

groovy glasses

family (minus Ed, Dayna, girls)

Mom and Charlotte (granddaughter)

Mom and Dayna (daughter in-law)

Mom and Dad

Mom and David

Mom and David

Mom and 8 siblings about 20 years ago

Mom and her brothers at beach.

Elvis

An Elvis Impersonator came here! He had on a blue felt jumpsuit that had glass ornaments super-glued all over it and white plastic boots. His hair was dyed jet-black and he had long black sideburns. He sang all the Elvis classics along with a big Karaoke machine. The old ladies all loved him for a while. He would strut around and hold hands with them and sing to them. The caretakers came in once and lined up behind him and danced, and that was a big hit. It went on too long, though, and by the end there were old ladies literally shouting insults at each other and lots of people were up for no particular reason and milling about. Pandemonium prevailed!

Mom story

Seeing as it's almost Mother's Day, and since I have a wonderful mother with a great sense of humor who will never see this blog anyway, and since I could never even begin to tell you how great she is and how much I love her, think I will instead share funny stories and pictures.

This first story Dad told us at dinner Saturday night. (Mom and Dad and Sue and I met at Applebee's because I can ride there on my wheel chair. My sore tooth put a damper on the evening.). Anyway, Mom made some kind of slight mistake and said, "Well, I'll be John Brown!"

We laughed, and Dad told this story about how when he and Mom were still newly-weds. They were in Boston at a picnic for newly graduated preachers. Mom was all dressed up and went through the serving line and her plate was completely loaded down, and she tripped and fell flat on the ground and her food flew everywhere. She looked up at all these startled people in the food line and said, "Well, I'll be John Brown!", a Southern expression I'm sure they'd never heard before.

Wonder where that exclamation comes from? As a rebellious abolitionist, John Brown was greatly hated in the deep South. They say that it was his raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859 that escalated tensions that, a year later, led to secession and the Civil War. Maybe saying "Well I'll be John Brown!" was like saying. 'Well, I'll be the devil."

When we were kids and lived in Winchester, Harpers Ferry was just a nice Sunday afternoon drive away, so we went there all the time. The main memory I have of these educational trips is that Harpers Ferrry had a wax museum, and in it they had a wax depiction of the raid. In that display, they had a diorama of the raid that had a wax "John Brown" laying on the ground wounded, AND HE BREATHED! It was super creepy for kids!

dentist

Whoops! My bad! The dentist's is Robert Morabito, DDS and he seems very nice (except that he wants to do a $4,000 ROOT CANAL next Tuesday, which I guess I'll let him do because I got an incredible amount back in taxes. (But isn't that a HELL of a way to spend a tax refund!)

Sunrise Assisted Living SUCKS!!

It is now 1:05. Repair people still haven't been here, even to check it out. When staff is asked when they are coming, they respond that "they don't know". OK, OK .. I'll shake off my lethargy and find a new place to live.

Sunrise Assisted Living SUCKS!!

The Sunrise air conditioner is broken. Granted, such things happen everywere, but, once again we have to wait on the repair until the Sunrise approved repair service decides to arrive. Lets hope to God that they don't find they "need a piece", as happened when the elevator broke All of this most certainly must pivot around what makes the most money for the Sunrise owners rather than what provides the best quality customer service.

BUT, this is my own fault, because I'm still here LONG after I said I was leaving. I loved the place in Arlington, mainly because of the location. I really am hesitant to commit to a move that would make things harder on Mom, so I guess I've kinda been waiting to see if Mom & Dad might decide to make a move of any kind. Dad would go tomorrow, but Mom won't hear a thing of it. Dad wants to go to Hermitage, so I did check it out, and they don't take people my age, which is probably a good thing, because living in the same old folks home as one's parents seems a situstion fraught with anxieties. (Especially since a major consideration now on my mind is: Since medicinal marijuana is now legal in DC, do they let you smoke in nursing homes?

Stranger and stranger

I have a toothache - bummer, but no big deal... right? Except that I got to wondering, "How do I get from the wheelchair into the dentists chair?" So I call 1-800-DENTIST, and they give me a name and phone # (which I will call tomorrow, because today is Sunday). But the name is "Dr. Bito", and, when you put "Bito, dentist" in a search engine, you come up with this link to a movie called "The Dentist II", about which they say "Murderous dentist Dr Caine escapes from his secure hospital and flees to a small town in the Midwest where he tries to start a new life. He sets himself up as the town's dentist and even meets a new love - but when he finds her with another man, his old murderous urges come back with a vengeance..." This does not inspire confidence. But, on the other hand, 1-800-DENTIST says he has patients in wheelchairs!

Picnic

It's still the same day as the last post and it is still a bummer of a day. Although it actually really shouldn't be... I just get in a bummed out mood when I think too much. I should probably think about that for a while, but that doesn't seem wise.

Did you hear the one about Descartes? He was in a bar, and the bartender asked, "Do you want another drink?", and Descartes said, "I think not.", and POOF - he disappeared!

They had a picnic here, with ribs and hot dogs that they cooked outside. I talked to this guy named Dan who works here as Assistant Activities Director, which is rather a thankless position. He has a band called Poor Man's Lobster. I listened to some of their music on the web, and I like them. Then I went out on the patio with a nice family who has a young woman with only one leg that lives here (I phrased that wrong! No, the other leg does not live in New Jersey!) Look, give me a break - if I don't amuse myself, then who will?

Anyway, here is another Christmas card poem:

This one refers to the fact that we had a one bedroom apartment, so I turned the dining room (off to the side of the kitchen) into my bedroom.

TO: AWAY IN A MANGER

Away in the kitchen,
The place for her bed,
The poor Debbie Taylor
Lays down her sweet head.
The garbage disposal
Upstairs grinds away,
And our icebox engine
Keeps running 'til day.

I love this apartment,
But I'd like to lay
Where nocturnal hamsters
Don't bang as they play.
Where coffee ain't brewin'
As dawn breaks the sky.
Maybe, oh maybe,
I'll sleep by and by.

Bummer of a day

Bad day today, and then, to top it all off, my hit counter appears to have gone backward by 2. I guess that two people who clicked on the blog forgot what they’d read?! Anyway, it’s a good day for Christmas carols in which I can ignore the reality of the present and escape into the silliness of 20 years ago.

This was written in response to the fact that they kept predicting snow and I’d get all excited that maybe City Hall would close and I wouldn’t have to go to work, and then it wouldn’t snow at all.

To: LET IT SNOW

Oh, the weather outside is frightful,
‘Cause the sun is so delightful,
And to work I don’t want to go.
Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow.

Oh, I wanna stay home and watch movies.
That would sure be groovy!
But the wind doesn’t even blow!
Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow.

Well, Bob Ryan said late last night
There was 10% chance of a storm,
And Bob Ryan is usually right.
So why the heck is it so warm!

Well, I guess the old bastard was lying.
God, I feel like crying.
This is three days of work in a row!
Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow.