The Tooth Fairy Gets Fussy

My daughter has six children. It seems that if one gets sick six get sick etc. Well my daughter received a letter that I would like to share with you. She posted it on her blog Psycho with 6. I think it will start your day off with a chuckle. psychowith6.typepad.com.

The Wii Strikes Again!

We generally play the power bowling on the Wii that we got for Christmas every day. We have had some difficulty that is associated with older people that are obsessed with something. We were playing thirty or forty games a day if not more. We yelled at each other and laughed and had a ball. I got tendonitis from playing so much, so I had to slow down.

If you have followed my posts you are aware that I did not have the safety strap on and took a big swing and let loose of the remote and it flew up about ten feet, knocked a picture off the shelf and fell down on the entertainment center. Fran gave me a gentle reminder to wear the strap. Ever after I have done that.

When I swing at the pins I go way back with my arm and then do a mighty swing forwards for a ear shattering  pin action. (I do have the record of 697). Any way today I was not doing well, so I went way back with the remote doing my best to knock those pins down, when all of a sudden I felt like I had hit a brick wall with my hand. Fran let out a yelp. I looked back and to my amusement there he sat with his ball cap completely cocked to the side and his brand new glasses askew. I laughed until I cried. I am still laughing as I write this. You have to understand I actually hurt him. He looked like he had tears in his eyes. His glasses are brand new and just a tad bit bent. (sigh) Actually he said this was all my fault because he had stooped over to get Maggie her ball. Hmm I think that someone’s priorities are all messed up.

Awesome!

Awesome is one of the new words on the little candy hearts that fly around every Valentine’s Day. Awesome is in the new found hearts since the “new age” kids like that kind of language. Ten billion, yes I said billion of these little powdery hearts will be sold this year. They started manufacturing these little gifts in 1902.

They even make crafts out of these little sweets, like wreaths and lots of creative ideas.
I can remember when I was a little kid how we would exchange these little hearts. Sometimes we would make little Valentine’s baskets out of muffin papers. We would put those little hearts, nuts, and other candies in them and give them to our friends and maybe our sweetie. Of course, no one knew. We would take a lot of time decorating a mailbox with hearts and construction paper. How fun. I read on Facebook the other day that Fran’s daughter-in-law was helping her son decorate a mailbox for her son. The tradition lives on.
Some of the famous people like Jerry Seinfield even contribute words or phrases for these little hearts. They are pastel colors and usually pink lettering. Oh are they sweet!
They are not my favorite candy, but they sure do bring back memories of giggling and having such fun on the bus on our way to and from school giving each other silly little hearts.
Have a fun Valentines Day.

One Year Anniversay

Anniversaries can be for anything. One usually thinks of an anniversary marks years of marriage. Anniversaries, however can mark anything that is extremely significant to a person. I knew someone that was an alcoholic that had received a coin celebrating his one year of sobriety; hence an anniversary.

This month is a one year anniversary for Fran and I to celebrate our quitting smoking. I had smoked for fifty years and I think Fran was a little more. I think, personally that people that smoke as long as that have very little chance of being successful in the fight against nicotine. Fran and I made a pact when we first quit that we would talk to each other when we were really wanting a cigarette. We were each other sponsors. It worked so well that way. I can remember telling Fran that I could commit a crime for a cigarette. He would laugh and say he knew just how I felt.

I have told you about Fran and I going to a karaoke club on weekends; we did not skip. Oh yeah, that was the worst night of our lives. We both wanted to scream we wanted a cigarette so bad, and to make matters worse we had a friend that went with us that night that had quit just the week before. He kept saying he wanted a cigarette, a cigar, anything that he could smoke.
Sad to say, he didn’t make it more than a few weeks, but we did. We are so proud of ourselves and so are our kids. Some of our kids smoke and some don’t. We raised our kids to think for themselves, but we did say once you start it is so addictive, that it is extremely hard to quit the habit. Let’s talk a little about habit. It is not just nicotine. Cigarettes become a part of you like another limb actually. The phone would ring and I would not answer it until I had picked up my cigarettes and lighter. I can remember the feeling of not being able to find a lighter or a book of matches. That was about as horrible as running out of cigarettes. I can remember dumping out my purse to find enough change to buy a pack of cigarettes. I can remember actually budgeting cigarettes. The column for cigarettes was four hundred dollars a month for the two of us. I think that was the final straw. When I married Fran and saw the amount of money that we were spending and what we could buy or use that money for I decided that I was going to quit. I told Fran about my plan and that he did not have to quit just because I did. In two weeks he had quit smoking.
The next thing I did a few weeks ago was to have my heart and lungs checked. I am one of the lucky ones. I don’t cough, my heart is very healthy, and I have a young person’s blood pressure. Smoking as long as I did could have been a disaster for me and my family, but I was like a lot of people especially young people, I just wouldn’t listen. So celebrate February as heart month and quit like we did and have a healthier heart and more money in the bank!!

Spinoza Is My Name, Comfort Is My Game

When I was in my younger forties I started working in nursing homes. I lost ten pounds in one week. The stress was unimaginable. I had no idea that “old” people could be in such dire straits. Some people had “frozen” joints. This presented in horrific pain when they were given showers. I would hear the screaming and I thought I would have to quit and find something else to do. A frozen shoulder would mean that they could not lift an arm to be washed underneath. If it was not washed and cleaned then skin irritation could lead to infection etc. But to me hearing all the screaming I would just get sick.

The folks that would get out of their wheelchairs and were at risk of falling would be tied to their wheelchairs and then to the hall railing. They looked like they were in straitjackets. The date of this terror for people was in 1986. “They” said they were mentally ill. “They” were wrong. They either had Alzheimer’s Disease or other types of dementia. In the eighties they closed down the mental health institutes and bus by bus they shipped them to nursing homes. The nursing homes were not equipped to handle the admission numbers. They were happy to fill their beds, but not equipped to fill the physical and emotional needs of their new people. I am making this sound like these poor little folks are animals by saying “shipped”, but that is what happened to them.

I transferred from the first nursing home to a much nicer home with well trained staff. I had learned a lot at the first home, so I was armed with knowledge and compassion for the folks that needed me. As time went on I was able to distinguish between Alzheimer’s Disease and stroke, and other kinds of dementia. I was an Activity Director. I was very much like a school teacher and made lesson plans for “my” residents.

I learned that there was so many different kinds of illnesses that older people were afflicted with and many different ways to deal with them.

Many folks that find themselves in a nursing home are so lonely and depressed. Reasons for this are so varied that it keeps staff on their toes to help them. Some people decided not to get married or to have children. Many of these folks had no visitors. If you looked closely you could see tears in their eyes when others had visitors. It was my responsibility to divert these feelings with activities or tricks of the trade. One of these tricks was Spinoza. Spinoza is a little brown teddy bear that is so soft, you would swear that he is real. You almost always want to hug him when he says, “Hello, my name is Spinoza and I need a friend.” He sings and he says little sentences that are easy to respond to. “Will you be my friend?

Spinoza has cassettes that fit into a zippered fold. He has a little red heart if I remember right, that you press and he starts to sing or talk. I can remember I probably would get into trouble for spending one hundred twenty dollars on him. I didn’t and he was handed to resident after resident that needed the comfort that he had in his little heart.

I think that Spinoza is also used for little folks that may be in the need for a calming influence too.

If any of you have spare time there are so many folks that need volunteers just for visiting, or to send them cards, just some personal attention.

As I Get Older

As I get older one thing reminds me of another. Example: the other day we had a ninety nine cent pizza. It was a saltine cracker crust, had about four pieces of pepperoni that were the size of chopped pimentos, and just a sprinkling of cheese. Oh, I forgot to tell you, it was six inch by four inch in size. The box, however, was the normal size for a medium pizza. Needless to say, we had to get another one out of the freezer. While we were crunching the pizza (I should put that in quotes) a wave of memory over took me and I saw a pizza parlor in South Dakota. In the town I lived in there were only two pizza parlors. One was thick crust and one was thin crust. One was Godfather’s and one was Shakeys. Shakey’s had the crunchy crust and Godfather’s was the thicker one. The kids’ dad loved Godfather’s because he could get a bushel basket full of meat and vegetables on one pizza platter. The crust was thick on the sides and thin in the middle. You could get this huge pizza and a pitcher of coke for ten dollars in 1980.

I liked Shakey’s because it crunched and I have always liked crunchy things like celery.

I figured that Shakey’s had disappeared like other franchises like Woolworth’s. We were at friends’ for coffee the other day, and I mentioned the Shakey thing and he said they are still in business. When I got home the computer says there are still 400 Shakey’s still operating. You will be in for a treat if you can find one!

It was over thirty years since I have had one of their wonderful pizza’s, I am sure by now that they have thick, thin, meatlovers and on and on with choices just like any other pizza parlors.

Godfather pizza parlors that are still around get four and five stars. There are not as many as there used to be, but they have survived all the “newcomers.” Hmm, just like their namesake!

Simon Cowell Doesn't Know Everything!

Sometime before I met Fran I had sung a couple of karaoke songs. I even had gotten a karaoke machine for Christmas, but it had a tiny little screen about five inches big. I used to have to sit on the floor in front of it so I could see the words.

Karaoke has both printed words and music to help you sing. It is not easy, especially if you don’t know the verse part of the song. Usually the chorus is much easier to sing because that is the popular part that is usually on the radio. I know I can sing along with the chorus on the radio with no problem.

Three years ago my friends took me out for dinner and then to a karaoke club. I looked through the karaoke book and found a song that I really liked. It was called “Could I have This Dance For The Rest Of My Life.” Anne Murray sang this song and made it very popular. Some time after that Fran got up to sing. I thought he had a very pretty voice, but more than that, I just knew that we could sing duets that people would enjoy.

We sang several songs together and he came to our table and visited with my friends and me. He agreed that we harmonized well together.

Two years ago we were married. We sang karaoke at our reception. At one point a couple that we enjoy being with was telling us that there was karaoke software that you could use to download karaoke songs. I just never thought about where the C.D.’s came from. They showed us how to do it and for about forty dollars we had about a year’s worth of fun. Fran, especially became obsessed with making C.D.’s and labels for them. He had a lot of karaoke equipment so now we can sing almost any song we want to without having to buy a C.D. over the counter. It is legal by the way.

We hear Simon Cowell making fun of karaoke and we both make sour comments about him. There are some excellent singers that sing at karaoke clubs.

One year ago we made our own C.D. We laughed and laughed. Our cockatiel was chirping in the background, Fran was coughing, and I talked and didn’t even think about my voice being picked up by the microphone. We mailed them out to our family and friends and we got so many comments on our bird, Mert, I thought she got the “Emmy” instead of us!