spring break

Spring is finally here.
Although there aren't any outward signs like flowers yet, it's still nice to know that the hard winter is over.

Haven't posted lately as I've been depressed.

One of the VP's where I work died unexpectedly.
He had surgery, a partial hip replacement.
Was home from the hospital a little more than a week.
Watched a Hockey game on a Saturday night with his wife and son
said he didn;'t feel well
stood up to go to bed
collapsed
Son gave him CPR
Never came to
Dead at 55
They think it was either a blood clot or an aneurysm.

He was a good guy
Actually cared about his customers and not just their money.

His family had the wake and memorial service at the town he grew up in which is 2 hours from where I work.
It was last Thurs & Friday.
As I don't work in the same department as he did, I wasn't given the option to go to it during work even though I worked with him also.
Kinda sucked...
I didn't even ask to take the time off either as I took Weds off as my son was home on spring break.

My son turned 23 while he was home on spring break.
I feel old.
My baby boy is 23.

My Dad isn't doing too well.
He was walking with a cane for about a week.
Now lately he says that his good leg bothers him when he walks with the cane.
He is also having more pain in his back.
He can't sit comfortably in his recliner as when he leans back on his back, it hurts.
Not good
So to watch TV he sits at the dining room table and leans forward on the table.
Luckily they have a TV in the Dining room, no satellite, but at least he gets the basic area's stations.

I am very worried about him because he says at night a few times it felt like his back was on fire and was in a lot of pain.
My mother put cold towels on his back, which he said helped a little.

My father isn't one to complain when he is sick or hurt, so this must be painful as he is actually saying something.

He has 3 doctor appointments next Tues the 31st.
Hubby is taking the day off to take him as it is difficult for my mom to try to help him.

My sister and I contacted our brother who lives outside of DC and let him know what was going on.
They changed their travel plans and are coming up here instead of to my sister-in-law's brother's place for Easter weekend.
Hopefully it will cheer up my Dad.

Happy Spring

Two Irish Women

Two women were sitting next to each other at a bar.
After awhile, one looks at the other and says,
'I can't help but think, you're from Ireland .'

The other woman responds proudly, 'Yes, that I am!'

The first one says, 'So am I! And where from Ireland might you be'?

The other woman answers, 'I'm from Dublin, I am.'
The first one responds, 'So, am I
and what street did you live on in
Dublin?'

The other woman says, 'A lovely little area it was ,
on McCleary Street in the old part of town.'
The first one says, 'Tis a small world. So did I!
And to what school would you have been going?'

The other woman answers,
'Well now, I went to St. Mary's, of course.'

The first one gets really excited and says, 'And so did I.
Tell me, what year did you graduate?'
The other woman answers,
'Well, now, I graduated in 1964 .

The first woman exclaims, 'The Good Lord must be
smiling down upon us!
I can hardly believe our good luck at winding up in the same pub
tonight.
Can you believe it, I graduated from St. Mary's in 1964!!!'

About this time, Vicky, the bartender' s wife,
walks in, sits down and orders a beer.
Brian, the bartender, walks over to Vicky, shaking
his head and mutters,
'It's going to be a long night tonight.'

Vicky asks, ' Why do you say that, Brian?'

Brian answers, 'The McLaughlin twins are drunk again.'
==========================================
Hope yourselves had a wonderful St Patrick's Day.
My husband is half Irish, so it can be said that I have a bit of the Irish in me from time to time.!

Random stuff

Why is it that the majority of the women in the office building I work in feel that they must wear black all the time?
I feel like I am at a funeral.
Then on Friday they wear Khaki pants.
I like to shake things up and wear green slacks and navy slacks.
At the last employee meeting it was a sea of black and grey.
But there were a few of us colorful people.

Hubby asked me if he looked as old as the man in the commercial where the guy says that he is 52 and had a heart attack.
Hubby is a few years older.
Being the loving wife that I am..... I told him that he did not look as old as the guy in the commercial.
but I didn't say that he didn't look as young as the guy in the commercial either.....
It's all in the wording.....

Note to self...
Do NOT wash work clothes after you wash throw rugs again.
Because all the clothes are now covered with sand like silty junk from the rugs...ARGH!!

Penguin woman was spotted on the way to work.
She was walking in the road even though there is a 3 feet shoulder on the side of the road.
Had to swerve to avoid her.

Meme:

"Your ship has sunk.
You have, of course, been stranded on a deserted island.
You have salvaged a copy of the King James Version of the Bible and a copy of the complete works of Shakespeare.
Nothing else.
“The very next day you find one of those Arabian Lamps in the sand.
Of course, you rub it and, of course, a rather grumpy Genie appears. “‘Let’s get this straight - there is a recession going on.
There are restrictions on the three wishes now.
I don’t do water or air transport now so no boats, planes or magic carpets.
As for electronics, forget it.
There isn’t the infrastructure on this island.
“‘I can let you have one book and I mean one VOLUME, one essential item and one luxury item.
Now hurry up and make your choices, I have to get to those five other islands you are going nominate. "

The one book I would chose would be a guide to surviving on a deserted island.
The one essential item I would chose would be a lifetime supply of waterproof matches to start fire to keep warm.
The luxury item I would chose would be my box of art supplies, something to keep me busy while I'm sitting by the fire and not reading all those Shakespeare books.

Anyone who wants to do this meme, can consider themselves tagged. I only have a couple of people who read this, and I 'd rather not alienate them...so to do, or not to do, that is your option.

On my way to work if I time it just right I get stopped my school buses traveling in the opposite direction, but stopped to pick up children.
One such bus stops on the other side of a 4 lane highway so it ties up traffic during "rush" hour.
Lucky me, I timed it so I got to stop for the bus.
I sit in my cold car and watch as a pink and purple clad moppet saunters up her driveway after the bus has stopped for what seems like an hour already.
She just lolly gags along, oblivious to the lineup of traffic that is stopped in both directions.
Turning around she looks back at the house and we are all probably thinking the same thing, you better not be turning around to got get something you have forgotten!
But she just waves to the shadow in the picture window.
She seems not to mind the freezing 8 degree temperature as she merrily strolls along, with her knapsack on her back.
Three songs play on the radio and the little blond bomber finally gets in the bus.
But, we can't go yet because the bus driver has to wait till she meanders back to a seat before the bus can move....and leaves the red lights flashing....because bus drivers can, they have the power to control traffic like that.
I got to thinking...how nice it must be to be a child and not feel rushed to get anywhere.
The bus will always wait for you, no matter how long you take, and so will all those people on their way to work, who have to try to get in to work on time.
Then I thought, maybe there is a reason she doesn't want to get on the bus.
Maybe some of the other children are mean to her on the bus or she loves it at home so much that she doesn't want to go to school....or her teacher is a crab.
Or maybe she is just an inconsiderate little twit who likes to see all the cars stopped on the highway...

Peace people

No snow here :-)

I heard Georgia got snow :-)
We didn't :-D
It was sunny here all day yesterday and today.
Daughter showed me phone picture from someone in Atlanta of the snow.
My father had his last treatment radiation treatment Thursday.
They gave him a diploma saying congratulations you made it through treatment or something to that effect.
I saw the x-ray of all the rods and pins they put in his back.
Quite impressive.
The rods are at least 6 inches long.
He is still in pain, but refuses to take pain medication other than when he goes to bed at night.
He says that it helps him sleep.
He still is using the walker but the physical therapist says that he can start using the cane.
If it weren't for his leg going wonky & numb I wonder if he would have gone to the doctor about his back..

A friend of Hubby's was at the crash site of 3407 for about 4 hours during the clean up. He described what he saw even though I told him we really didn't want to hear it as he was pretty graphic in describing what he saw.
I won't repeat it here as I was nauseous after hearing his story and as you can imagine he saw things that no one should ever see they were so horrific.
But as with a car crash, where even though you don't want to look you do anyway, I didn't leave the room but stayed to listen like a fool.
I just hope that the families never hear some of the stuff.

I saw a mouse run across the room the other night. SO Hubby put out one of the new mouse cube traps that I bought. Within 5 minutes we had the little bugger...in a plastic cube...still alive....now what...what do you do with a live mouse in a plastic cube? Did I go and look at it..NO!!, Daughter did and said that it had beady little eyes...
I could hear the thing scratching the plastic so he put it out side to freeze it and the wind blew it and the end opened up and it escaped.
He put a cube in the garage and caught another one...maybe the same stupid one.
This one was drownded in a bucket of water.
I hate mice!!

My daughter flew back in to town Saturday.
I was a little anxious about her flying.
She called us after she boarded her plane, so we could time it when we would need to leave to pick her up.
But, my husband being the clever fellow he is, decided that we would go to the Denny's restaurant down the road from the airport and wait for her to call us when her plane ended.
Even though her plane was scheduled to land at 4pmish, we would still eat dinner at Denny's.
My daughter thought that this was a silly idea and that we should just drive around the airport till she called after the plane landed.....and probably get stopped by airport security for driving around the air port 20 times and looking suspicious.....because that is what she wanted us to do.
So being adults, we decided to go to Denny's.
It was a clear somewhat sunny day.
No snow.
So I felt better about her flying.
We got to Denny's and the place was mostly empty as we beat the lunch rush and were early for the dinner crowd.
I did notice that there the majority of the few people in there were senior citizens....and Hubby did qualify as one as he is over 55!
We were seated quickly...
I looked around the restaurant as I like to look to see who else is around...in case I know someone...even though it would be highly likely that I would know anyone there...but one never knows.
Off in the corner of the restaurant in a booth, sat a man with his back towards us. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, with the hood up and when he turned around...I noticed that he was wearing large dark glasses and looked like the unibomber.
And he was talking shit about the government.
Creepy
I pointed him out to Hubby, who had to turn around to look at him.
Just as he turned back from looking at him, the smoke alarm went off in the restaurant and I nearly jumped out of the booth.
The waitress came around and assured everyone that Denny's wasn't on fire.....I told Hubby that it must mean that our food was ready.
Which it wasn't
And we had to wait longer
And here's how thrilled my hubby always looks when we are out to eat.

And I was only half way finished eating my western burger when the daughter called to say she landed...early.
So I told her we would be there in 10 minutes or so to wait outside for us....
She wanted to know where we were and I told her Denny's.
"WHY are you at Denny's!!"
"Because everyone has to be somewhere"
"AUGHH!!!"
"See you in a few minutes"
So I got a to go box and we paid the bill.
We made it to the airport and I doubt if she had to wait more than 5 minutes.
On the way home, we weren't on the road for more than 10 minutes when it started snowing very heavily, near white out conditions as the wind picked up. I was thankful that she chose the flight that she did as if she waited till the next one she would have had to fly through that shit.

Fire & Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Robert Frost

To those souls unlucky enough to board flight 3407, their worlds were ended by both fire and ice.
My deepest condolences go out to the families and friends of those who lost their lives.

My daughter flew out of Buffalo Thursday on her way to Atlanta. I texted her during the day and didn't get a response.
I went to bed early Thursday night.
Friday morning I awoke to the clock radio telling me to stay tuned for an update on the horrific plane crash.
What plane?, where? Why hadn't I heard from my daughter?
I was relieved to hear that it wasn't my daughter's plane and deeply saddened at the same time to hear that the plane crashed 6 miles from Buffalo in Clarence center.
Everyone was killed that was aboard the plane and one of the people in the house also died.
I know people who live in that area...some of my husband's cousins and their families live in Clarence.
I've been to Clarence.
My cousin used to take his children to a day care center .25 miles from the site where the plane went down.

A family was home just doing their own thing when a plane fell out of the sky and on to their house and exploded.
Amazingly 2 people escaped from the house.
Can you imagine being living in one of the houses next to the house that got hit?
Just last month we had a plane land on the Hudson river and everyone walked away, the pilot proclaimed a hero.
Friday the 13th eve, different story.

Would you rebuild your house in the same spot if you were those people?
Would they even be allowed to build in the same spot?
Why would anyone even want to rebuild in the same spot where 50 people died?
Hopefully they will decide to put a monument on the spot.

We used to live in the flight path of Griffith Air Force Base, and some of the planes would fly over the house rather low. One day I was outside with my kids, who were 2 & 4 at the time, and a plane flew so low I could read the numbers on the plane. It was kind of creepy when the shadow of the plane would appear on the lawn as it flew by.
I had many nightmares about planes flying into my house.
So glad that we moved out of that area.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mamma Mia was fantastic!!
We laughed, we cried, we fought the urge to sing along.
Our seats were awesome, we could see the costumes and the actors faces perfectly.
We went out to a BBQ place afterwards.
I would go see Mamma Mia again...much better than the movie by far.
They could have made the movie so much better by getting actors that could actually sing.

I didn't buy any Valentines this year.
normally it would bother me if my hubby didn't get me flowers or a card, but this year, it was just another day.
He did buy us a special heart shaped cake which we took over my parents and shared.
I didn't even send my son a card at college.....but he didn't send us one either so it doesn't matter.
Hope everyone had a nice Valentines Day.

(see comments for update)