Black Oak’s Daughter

I got an e-mail through the NaBloPoMo site from Eden (how cool is that? She’s an internet STAR and I’m just a wee little blogger, and she e-mailed me!)  Anyway, she invented and runs NaBloPoMo which just finished this year.

So today I got home late after 11 hours at work, had dinner with roomie, did a few chores, and then checked my e-mail.  HOLY COW!! I won a prize!!!  There’s like a 1/2 of 1% chance of that and I actually won something!

This very nice blogger donated prize #11 - any DVD under $15 on Amazon.

So now I have a decision:

Wall-E because Pixar movies make me giggle, and I could use a good giggle lately.

OR: the new Indiana Jones movie that I really want to see, but the reviewers weren’t kind.  Still, I like Harrison Ford, so it can’t be all bad, I’d probably enjoy it.

OR: my second favorite Sci-Fi show from the 80’s.  Someday I’ll write about the time I was pregnant, watching the chick that got pregnant by the lizard guy give birth to a normal baby girl, and then her twin, the lizard baby crawled out. I only had nightmares for a month after that.  Mark Singer and Michael Ironside were made for their respective roles. It was a cool series. One of the first “serials”. The shows weren’t self contained, they were all a piece of the bigger story and that held my attention.  Babylon 5 in the 90’s was the same idea. That one was some of the best written SciFi I’ve seen on TV.

I’ll decide tomorrow.

Right now I’m still smiling because I won something.  YAY!  See how easy it is to make me happy

No Comments »

November is always interesting because of NaBloPoMo. Finding something to write about every day was oddly less of a challenge this year. Last year, a week into NaBlo I was diagnosed with Cancer. Thankfully, there was no such trauma this year. My life has changed though.

Work is even more chaotic, I’m still dealing with health issues, and we’re not even going to bring up the economy, but with all that going on around me, there’s a big part of me that understands now that all I can do is what I can do. I’m more laid back. My writing, I hope, reflects that.

In any case, the month is over. I wrote 30 posts in 30 days. No pre-writing either. I sat down every day and wrote something. Most days I enjoyed it. I even wrote a couple of things that I was completely satisfied with. That’s rare with me. I could rewrite a paragraph 5 times and still find something weak about it, but for the most part, blogging isn’t meant to be perfect writing, it’s meant to be self expression, and that is what I’ve done.

No Comments »

I talked to my next door neighbor while I was raking leaves today. She’s been unemployed for a few months, and hasn’t found anything that pays even half of what she was making. Her mother is a real estate agent who told her that the house across the street from me that’s for sale, as well as the house on the other side of my neighbors house are both in foreclosure.

I live in suburbia, where people come to escape the crime and bustle of the city.  Good people, that want to raise their children away from gangs, drugs, and everything else that comes with city life.  We’re not immune to it out here, but it’s certainly many degrees less extreme here.  The biggest crime in my suburb is usually some punk kids robbing the change and CD’s out of unlocked cars. Most of my neighbors are from the inner city. We are quite the melting pot around here. They’re good people, nice, caring neighbors. They are also NOT wealthy.  The kids next door think that I’m rich because I give them a can of pop occasionally. It’s worth it to see them smile.

The lady that lives in the house across the street with her kids is a nurse. It’s an expensive dream to live in suburbia, but parents make sacrifices so that their kids can grow up better than they did. They make sacrifices so the kids can learn how to be better people. It’s a lot easier to do that here than it is where kids can’t go out at night because there are bad people around.  So they move out here with their little ones, hoping for something better, and the economy tanks, their mortgage is suddenly bigger, and there worse off than they were in the city.

It’s not right.

No Comments »

Seriously.

The stores hype the hell out of their day after thanksgiving sales.  People become animals in search of their 20% off prey. They show up hours early and push and shove for their place in line, crash the doors when they aren’t unlocked fast enough, and today, a 34 year old temporary worker that didn’t get out of the way when the doors were broken down died when a couple thousand stark raving animals trampled him in search of their sale item. A pregnant woman was also taken to the hospital, but her and her baby are OK.

Welcome to the most civilized nation on the planet, huh?

Is the economy so bad that we stop caring about each other because we can get something for $5 off if we can just get in the doors and grab it first before they’re gone? Or is it that human beings have degraded to such an extent that a human life isn’t important as long as it’s some lowly guy that makes $6 an hour at Walmart?

Those people, the ones that killed that poor man, I sincerely hope they understand what they did today. It’s not in me to wish vengeance on anyone, but dang, it’s hard not to at least hope that as many people as trampled him are charged with manslaughter.

When I was a kid, Christmas was about music, and gatherings, and midnight service at church, and a present or two somewhere along the way.  Now that I’m divorced and on my own, I’m much more in that mode than I was when I was married to a man that turned it into a greed fest.  You won’t ever see me participating in the day after thanksgiving sales. I did it once with my daughter and it was just stupid.  I have most of my Christmas shopping done for the six people that I need to shop for this year, and the few things that I have left to pick up will be done after work.

I realize that the stores hype the sales because they need to make money, and I realize that the customers need to save money too, but when there’s a mob situation like there was this morning it might be a good time for the marketers to step back and evaluate the situation. At the very least there should be enough security to protect the lives of the employees and the shoppers.  The mob mentality that these sales generates calls for that. Hopefully lessons were learned from this tragedy. I’ll be watching what they do next year.

No Comments »

The turkey breast is in the oven, the cheesecake and brownies are cooling (pumpkin pie will happen tomorrow, sleep was more impotant today).  The stuffing is ready to go into the oven, Roomie is in charge of the green beans and potatoes.

There is so much to be thankful for. About this time a year ago I learned a lot about myself and who my friends are.  That they would stand by me through life and potentially death.  I am very blessed.  Through all the recovery since then,  through the job stress, the financial stress, and the worry of more impending surgery, I can’t let go of the fact that the people in my life are what matters. The rest of that other stuff is all a matter of my own attitude and how I choose to handle things. I beat cancer, I can beat a little financial crisis.

I’m not going to list things that I’m thankful for, because quite honestly, they’re just things. I’m much more interested in thanking the people in my life, and many of them read this. So (alphabetically)  Bob, Don, Donna, Ian, Irene, James, Jeff, Keith, Ken, Mike, Nicole, Pat, Paul, Rae, Rusty, Steve, Sandy, and Lord help me, I know I’m forgetting someone else, forgive me and my estrogen free brain.  Thank you all for your love, concern, patience, hugs, laughs, tears, support, help, kindness, and friendship.

There is no one more blessed than I to have you all in my life. My thoughts and prayers go out to all of you that you are having a wonderful holiday with people that you love. I am. Life is good.

No Comments »

I had a pretty good day today.

First, this morning I got the coveted free parking pass for next month at work. Its a magic little card that you wave and the gate to the underground lot opens. I wasn’t supposed to get that until next week.

Then I was talking to my boss and showed him my new iPhone that has e-mail capability. He made me an offer. He couldn’t give me much of a raise this year but if I put my corporate e-mail on it he can pay my cell phone bill for me. It’s a nice perk and I can be a little more productive for my job that way.  I won’t be married to it like some guys are with their blackberries, but it’s another tool in my proverbial closet to make my life easier. And I get my cell bill paid.

Then I got home and part one of my financial relief plan arrived in the mail so I had to go to the bank. I got there and the teller offered to upgrade my savings account to a higher interest account with no fees or limits on things like how many withdrawals a month. Sweet!

Then we celebrated with Japanese food for supper. YUM!!! I googled the restaurant from my iPhone in the car on the way to the bank. The search produced a phone number on my screen. I touched it and the phone asked me if i wanted to call it, so i did. How cool is that? 411 and the $1.50+ charges are a thing of the past.

Oh, and this is my first post from the iPhone. Tonight I found a Wordpress app. It seems to work

The iPhone, it’s a cool little piece of technology.

And don’t think I missed that the universe threw a lot of nice things at me today. Thank you universe. I have a lot to be thankful for. Today was nice icing on that cake.

Tags: Geekdom

No Comments »

• egg nog flavored salt water taffy is really good.
• I really wish i could remember the password to my FTP software.
• for about 10 minutes a night my normally docile, 20 pound Maine Coon turns into a FEE-RO-SHUS bobcat wannabe. He’s hilarious. I’m still Alpha cat, so he doesn’t chomp too hard, it’s more a game of pursuit for him.
• Being broke makes Christmas shopping really easy.
• I’m feeling a little better today. One more night of sleep like last night, one more night for the antibiotics to work, one more day of work this week tomorrow. I am going to enjoy the long weekend. Me and my camera need to get out for a day.
• I had a conversation with my friend Ken today. He’s been an outstanding friend, but he has his moments.  He had to tease me about my little blankie. Then he told me that he’s working his way through a serious medical condition and potential abdominal surgery.  I can commiserate with him on that one, abdominal surgery sucks.  I offered him my blankie too because my mommy taught me to share my blankies when someone else needed them.  He declined.
• I’m having a strange love affair with green beans.  Tonight I made them my favorite way and ate a whole pile of them. I’m still full.
• Message to minime - it’s nasocort. And check your stats… it helps to have friends huh?

No Comments »

I went to the doctor today.

I’ve been having headaches for a couple of weeks, and my nose won’t quit running, so I got it checked out.   Doc gave me a prescription for antibiotics for the sinus infection, and refilled the prescription for the sleeping drug that I try to only take a couple of times a week.

He also gave me 2 months worth of samples of one of my blood pressure drugs, a months worth of samples for a different sleeping med that I think I’ve tried before but can’t remember because apparently my memory center was stored in my ovaries. I haven’t had a brain since that surgery. I also was given and a months worth of a steroidal nasal spray, most of which will go to minime because it gives me a headache and that’s what started the whole trip to the doc anyway.

All in all, he saved me $100 in prescription co-pays for the price of my $20 copay to see him.

I think I came out ahead on that one.  My end table is covered in med bottles. I feel like a total junkie.

Maybe the headache will go away now.

No Comments »

I have a little blanket.

Really little

It’s about a foot square. Light brown fleece with a very worn faded burgundy colored satin edge.

It’s so small it wouldn’t even cover one of my cats.

It was given to me by my dad, I don’t remember when, but I don’t remember a time when I didn’t have it.

When I was a kid, I had a thing. It was a weird thing.

A thing about blanket edges.

Whenever I snuggled, or got tucked into bed, I had to be able to fondle the edge of a blanket.

I always had one of my old crib blankets in bed with me.

I kept them long after the crib was gone.

They were my security blankets.

One was pink, one was white.

My blankets were all satin edged, or double folded cotton. The ones on my bed too.

The weird part was I really liked the feel of the edges.

So much that I used to wear them out feeling them.

I think that’s why mom let me keep the crib blankets, so I didn’t wear out the edges on the ones on the bed.

So, I still have this little blanket. The last of my “blankies”

My dad gave it to me.

40+ years ago.

It still has the tag on it that says “Executive Security Blanket”.

I thought that was funny that my daddy had a security blanket.

He told me it was a joke, but I could use it for my dolls.

My dolls had other blankets, this one was mine.

The satin on the edges is very worn now.

The fleece has a hole in it too.

I don’t care.

I have this little blanket.

My little blanket with the worn edges that Daddy gave me.

In the drawer.

My little secret 40 year old security blanky.

I’m glad it’s there.

Sometimes I need it.

No Comments »