ok, so mm had an unexpected happy hour today, when the l.o.'s parents...free spirits both...came my way......i enjoyed the ends of 3 bottles of wine....a sauvigon blanc and 2 chardonays.......such is the plight of an owner.....one hates to drink anything people would pay for..........so i drank what was unsellable unless another bottle was opened.......i was reminded of how much i enjoyed happy hour in cincinnati at the blind lemon...5 to 7 pm, drinking 2 beers and playing backgammon with friends.........with good conversation........mostly we talked about children, and getting children into college....but that is our lot in life at this point.........thanks......to the l.o.'s loyal parents for a lovely diversion................

ok, so one of my many junk emails was from heidi, telling me she was frightened to the belly.........now that is a new one on me..........what could she mean........sick to her stomach?

ok, so mm wants to talk painkillers, or lack thereof.......i have managed this entire week of pain on a bit of ibuprofin and aspirin, rather than prescription meds, because they representr a place i do not care to go...the rush limbaugh place of woe, as an example.......though i have been quite uncomfortable, i fear that i may get to like these painkillers...and tragedy would surely follow.........i suppose that is also the point, if i still have pain, i know to be careful...with painkillers i would not feel the need to be watchful of my posture, my lifting, my 'position' in doing anything....and i might end up more injured than i already am........this position seems strange to others, especially to the workmate who offered his prescription pain meds to me just yesterday..........who seemed quite confused that i would refuse........i pointed out the warning about drowsiness........anyway, it is friday morning, and aspirin isn't quite enough, but it will have to do.......

ok, so mm was delighted yesterday when someone she knew brought by a bag of halloween 'buckeyes'..........for non-buckeyes (anyone unluckily enough to be been in any state other than ohio) 'buckeyes' are peanut butter balls dipped partially in chocolate stabilized with wax to make them resemble real buckeyes..........i was quite touched, as i had not had a peanut butter/chocolate buckeye in years.....and only managed to eat part of one because they are soooooooosweeeeeeeet.......it was the thought that counted........i have in my pocket right now a real buckeye......one from my grandpa's tree in independence, ohio........i have at home a buckeye given to me by my grandpa on the way to the cleveland airport in september 1981 (we were going on our european honeymoon......) i carry my buckeye for good luck..........

ok, so my mom and i had a pretty good conversation tonight, after she brought cayle home.....cayle, who was too sick to go trick-or-treating........who started in moaning on the coach when asked to start her homework....she who had been quiet all day until homeowrk was brought up...............anyway, my mom and i got to talking about the florida right-to-die case that republican jeb bush has 'championed'.........my mother, who is a life-long republican, is totally against the re-instatement of the tube in this woman who has been in a vegetative state for 13 years.....'your father would have been horrified if i had insisted on a tube',.......she recalled......yes, he would have been.....and though it was pitiful to watch him slowly starve to death (nov 18, 2002) it was much better than to watch him linger for years..........none of this playing god business.....it would have been playing god to put a tube in, not the other way around..............to our family, we let him go to his maker in a serene, positive way....not grasping for life that was no longer there..............hard to believe that a whole year has passed..........

ok, so today, mm has the back of a woman aged 100, and she would use a cane if the bending over to grasp it wasn't so painful.........

ok, so mm cannot remember is she has mentioned her aching back.......which she strained sunday whilst catering lunch at her church..............i was in such pain yesterday that i called the chiropractor across the street and got an early afternoon appt............say what you will abouth this potentially dubious group of practitioners.....i do feel better after having seen my xrays- which showed my pelvis twisted to the point that one hip was 1.5 inches higher on one side and rotated to the point that a nerve was pinched........after some 'adjustment' i did feel better.....and slept some better, but i have a long way to go before i can say that i am 'back' to normal......

ok, so when mm runs out of new literature to read, she always goes back to the best of the classics.....madame colette has such a way with words, with sentiment, with life's rough patches, with guarded optimism.....the book i chose at random....the blue lantern, is one of her last published works.....the blue lantern refers to the blue light she kept on in her palais royale apartment when she wrote....on her blue paper.....the book reads like a blog............a freely written memoir of the end of her life......the part i have re-enjoyed so far remembers her last trip to a spa in switzerland for treatment of her arthritis and to 'reduce'....she asks for cheese a nd butter to go along with her bread at breakfast, and she is told that there is none...........'what? in the land of gruyere you have no cheese?'.....she admonishes...........i suppose it if ever win the lottery...like the minnesota lunch ladies..........i will buy a paris apartment in palais royale.............and blog on a blue-screened laptop...........

ok, so i visited a blog called bigwhiteguy.com, which was featured on cnn.com this morning as a blog of note..........this guy has t-shirts, books, the whole nine yards for sale......all as a spinoff of his blog from hong kong...............he allows no comments.....so i could not comment on the banality of what i had read.........maybe i am just jealous of the cnn coverage......mm is no blog of note, by any means...........more of a whine of note.........

ok, so mm has had a moment of confusion today.......i was sitting reading the paper(s) after work, and i though to myself, 'gosh, you need a vacation...you haven't gone anywhere....' and then i was reminded of my own reality......since january i have been to spain, to washington dc twice, to williamsburg, to monticello, to mammath caves, to graceland, to yellowstone/grand tetons.................three plane trips............not babd for not having gone anywhere..........

ok, so mm is about done with this tooth whitening torture.......my teeth may be getting whiter, but my gums are in deep distress.......much too sensitive from the acid that bleaches the teeth............still, i am supposed to use the product 7 more days.......

ok, so this is sunday and the only good reason for sunday is alias at 9:00 pm....if not for that show i would have already gone to bed.........i am thinking about fixing supper.....which seems silly, as cayle has eaten continuously throughout the day........popcorn, 2 bananas, an apple, hot cocoa, cheese melted on crackers.......on and on.......we are all edgy until scw comes home from campaigning...in jessamine county....by himself.....or so it seems.........

ok, so mm is enjoying crab cakes for breakfast.....freshly fried crabcakes no less.........i popped into the restaurant this morning at 7:00 am to put a few things in the oven....i am catering a luncheon......and said crab cakes were in the fridge leftover from last night.......i fried up the lot of them for my family to have for lunch.....i was afraid that if left to my family to cook...they would be baked or microwaved or worse......crab cakes are certainly not at the top of the decadence scale........that slot is reserved for smoked lox salmon and caper/sour cream/cucumber sauce..........oh my.......

ok, so mm registered to vote in ohio at age 18, with her parents present, as a republican........that was the year that nixon resigned over watergate......then promptly changed parties when she moved to ky in 1982...........i lived through the reagen years, thrived during the clinton years despite the blue dress and cigars.....and live vicariously through the bush fiasco years.............knowing he will go the way of his father 1 term and out..............

ok, so mm is getting sentimental, and it is all jeb's fault.................my dad died almost a year ago, from the starvation and dehydration that comes when loving family members say 'we want no heroics, or machines, or tubes'....he could no longer take food from a spoon or liquid from a cup.......and sometime in the 1st few weeks of november he drifted off to be with his god .........his choice.....having coached us all to his wishes....none of this 'i know that he heard me when i was close to his face because he grunted...........that is pure shit as far as i am concerned.....if these florida parents truly believe in heaven, they will let their child float there peacefully............rather than post her image on their website in her peculiar state of vegetation...............a fate worse than death......to be posted on a web site with one's mouth open and one's brain vacant.................which brings me to another fate worse than death........pregnancy against one's will........i have mentioned in this blog that my children share a greatgrandparent who died from complications of a backstreet ilegal abortion,....none of this partial-birth crap.....there is no such procedure.............the circumstances mentioned are those of a woman fighting for life.....her life before an infants life.........no more, no less.............this bill passed with much fanfare will surely be struick down by the supremes because it makes no provision for saving the mm's life.......duh...that is the only reason why the circumstances exist.............by the time pregnancy reaches this state, it is either delivery or death for the mother or the baby...............i would hope that my spouse chose me over the unborn........not some nitwit senator or governer, or c-average republican president..............

ok, so mm admits that she is competitive......and when a parent of a senior came into trc today, and spoke of a school in ohio close to her family's heart, where her boy had visited, and lowrated it because they only would promise tuition and not room and board to her child, she had to bite her tongue when the subject of test scores came up.....this child had taken the plan test, and only came up with a composite 28..................well, mm could have launched into a diatribe about superior test scores............but she chose to just stand and smile.............

ok, so mm had a marvelous visit with her friend jane...over lunch and champagne, after her dad finally got her electronic wheelchair hoist that is fitted inside her van to retract........that took phone calls to the manufacturer, no less........we needed bubbly after that ordeal.........the first thing her mom told me was about her sister whose husband left her after nearly 25 years of marriage just about the time her job was 'downsized' out of her company........so sad......we did have a good visit, and jane looks great.......

the teeth whitening torture continues......i am able to wear these devices 4 hours total a day, though not in one single stretch.......i can see results, but these results have not translated into a desire to put up with discomfort for any longer than necessary..............

ok, so mm's friend jane is coming to eat lunch with me tomorrow......i have known jane...aka as mommy's friend jane, longer than i have known my spouse..........in fatc, i can honestly say that every memorable hangover i can recall involved jane in the preamble....she was with me, along with our mutual friend beth.....the very last time, in 1981, that i ever drank tequilla..............she had a boyfriend who owned a bar in mt adams (where i lived before i met ecw) who gave her 1 bottle of t. and a bottle of triple sec, and we made margueritas and watched beth's slides of luxembourg until we could drink and watch no more........we were trying to plan my honeymoon (three weeks of camping in europe), but mostly we drank and had a great time............jane has been to the continent more times than i have been, though not as many times to france.......she is much more diversified............anyway, i could tell(blog) jane stories ad infinitum............jane is one of the reasons why i live to travel on a regular basis........you just never know when the other shoe will fall........jane was diagnosed with m.s. several years ago, and is basically wheelchair-bound........she continues to travel agressively nevertheless, but not without difficulty.........tomorrow we will have champagne, even though i will be at work.....because i always have champagne when i am with jane.........even on the marguirita night........we had a bottle of champagne...........you gotta love a woman who loves champagne.......

ok, so mm is now undergoing the teeth-whitening torture............this has involved a trip to the dentist.....impressions made of both upper and lower teeth (the gagging involved with the making of the impressions should have tipped me off to the pain and discomfort ahead.......) the impressions are turned into custom-fitted clear plastic plates that are to be worn with the chemical bleaching gel at least 4-6 hours daily for 2 weeks...............so far i have been able to tolerate 1 hour on the top and 1 hour on the bottom, never both plates at the same time......because all i can think about is how i am choking and soon to die......i cough, i gag, and i tear up.....it is totally awful, and i would quit if i hadn't already paid for it..........i lasted an hour this morning because i resorted to lamaze breathing................i will try sleeping with these things this evening....maybe unconciousness is the only answer.........

ok, so mm got a 'personal' letter from glenna fletcher today in the mail, along with 2 'personal' snapshots of herself and ernie graduating from lafayette hs in 1970, and another one of their children taken in 1982............she, was of course, asking me to send a financial contribution to ernie's gov campaign...........let me tell you, glenna, why the check will not be in the mail.......1&2) you misspelled my name and left out the hyphen.....an unforgivable fauxpaus....if you know me so well, you would know how to spell my name..........3) i am a DEMOCRAT.........my finger has never touched the repulbican part of the screen.........4) i have seen ernie in person, long ago at constitution square festival...........he reminded me of a suspicious jockey......short and creepy.......5) i do not like those digging dog ads aimed at chandler.............6) i hear tell that e.f. might have himself a ladyfriend..........one that is not his wife.......but maybe glenna has chosen not to notice...in the fine tradition of politician's wives.............

ok, so break is over and everybody is back to school...........i already miss my extra 20 minutes in bed and my supplemental 15 minutes or so playing solitaire before driving to work......solotaire is such a mindless, soothing game.........well, maybe i would win more often if i did not play it mindlessly........................

ok, so my entire family was home last night.............acw popped in for the evening, cayle got a bit out of sorts because no one would play her horse game with her......alas........grandma and scw have returned from ohio........we got to hear tidbits of info about each school toured, and about relatives visited, and clothing purchased at outlet malls......

ok, so the word of the day is vicarious...............so many ways that one can be vicarious....let me count the ways........1) down-and-out drunkedness......one of my coworkers drank 8 shots of bourbon this week in less than 1 hour....or so witnesses said...........2) adulterous behavior...........one of my married coworkers went out with another unmarried coworker after work.........3)foodstamps.....most of my coworkers receive public assistance of some sort......4)alternative lifestyles.......most of my coworkers enjoy at least one run-of-the-mill alternative enjoyment.........5)childish pranks.....one of my coworkers 'saran-wrapped' another's car after work............6)t.v.addicts.......need i say more...........7)convuluted family relationships...........again, there isnothing much more one can say about that.......8)creditor calls......ditto............9)tattoos/personal piercings.....................double ditto..........10)lexington bars.............i need never show my face at any.......i have heard enough already...................i am so tired from a full day at work, not only from labor, but also from the vicarious experiences that i glean from others.................it is a heavy burden on the worst days.............

ok, so the red sox are out, the cubs are out, and mm is out of the baseball-watching mode..........now is the season for long hot baths............and early to bed

ok, so i catered the centre trustees dinner tonight,.....but this pales by comparison to serving lunch to the mother of one of scw's old montesorri 'chums', who went on to private school in a southern state after bate........his mum contends that he turned down the parson school of design because there is no green space in ny...(how can one turndown a school one visited as a sophomore?)...........he will surely attend the design school in savannah.......he is such a flw afficinado, though he has not been to fallingwater,.......his mum has purchased him a secular book on that very place/subject for xmas.....by the way........she seemed cunfused about its exact location, and seemed ultimately annoyed that scw had actually been there.........she did make comment on the reality that her boy will have to pay full price for college because of their income.......i had to pinch myself to stop from a true guffaw......the poverty we chose after i quit the hospital has allowed quite a financial aid windfall...........when both of the boys are in school we should make out like bandits.........we hope...........

ok, so i decided after work yesterday to drive to lex. and take acw out to supper...........after a few goodwill stops of course, and marshalls......where i found some nice french bath products made with honey that were mentioned in my born to shop book on paris.....i would have rather bought them at monoprix, but this may be as close as i get this year........anyway, we met acw at jbeth and had a nice supper.....cayle was delighted to see him, and tell him about her horseback riding lesson this week.........and about soccer, and about school...........he was pleasantly interested in what she had to say............so idyllic i bought them both books on the way out..........

ok, so there are potentially 2 more days of baseball in my future....should the cubs and red sox be elliminated, i will not bother to stay up to watch the stinking yankees or the marlins...........i went to bed last after after the cub fans interfered with the catching of a foul ball, and the cubs shortstop messed up on fielding a short hop.......the cubs fell apart after that.................

ok, so i have been watching baseball since i got home from work......boston is losing to yankees..............a revelation......yankees pitcher david wells is a leftee- pitches with his left hand......and he has pitched to several left-handed batters...........this is inconceivable to me...a leftee.......as i can neither throw nor bat left-handed.......i eat left handed....i write left handed........but i do everything else with my right hand..........i may have blogged/ranted on this topic previously.......i apologize.........i put keys in locks with my right hand........i knock on doors with my right hand........so troubling.......so sinister.................

ok, so scw visited oberlin yesterday.........and saw at least 2 people from danville (elizabeth morrison and someone from boyle county....)while he was there......wonder if he will see the same folks at wooster today..............

ok, so gwbush is no upsetting his own party members over his handling of iraq.........sen lugar of indiana has broken ranks and openly cirticized bush's recent pr push , with all of his mignons out on the dinner/speech trail....lugar said it is clear that bush's people are not speaking off of the same page.......

ok, so today is the first day of fall break, and though i have to work every day and several evenings, i am thoroughly enjoying my slowed down morning routine with an extra cup of coffee and a blog before i take a shower and get dressed...........i spent yesterday doing continuing education articles and posttests..........when i mail in the paperwork i should be near to the 15 hours of required cont. ed required by the state of ky.......ironically, i reattainment of my certified diabetes educator credential was worth a full 5 years of cont ed according to the american dietetics assn, but the state of ky does not see things that way.........ah well, this ordeal is nearly over...........i enjoyed alias last night......the only reason to wish for sunday evening is alias.........as we began this season, sydney's boyfriend vaughn has gotten married, because he thought she was dead these past 2 years.....the 2 years that sydney was thought to be dead after the fire at her apartment and the positive dna match from remains found.......well, it wasn't sydney, and now she is trying to find out just where she was and what she did during the past 2 years......lots of drama, suspense, and intrigue....i may ask for the first season on dvd for xmas.......

ok, so mm's mamma has left the state of kentucky, with my precious boy scw, bound for ohio to visit colleges...........oberlin, kenyon, wooster, dennison, and miami of ohio..........mm's mamma offered to run him by osu and ou, as well (my alma mater is osu and hers is ou) but scw graciously declined.........for my part, i have no need for my son to attend my alma mater, especially when its campus hosts 48,000 students and his chosen major us available at much smaller venues...........i fear for them both on the road.......grandma is getting to be a careless driver and scw is a novice driver............i will pray hourly until they return.........

ecw went on a 'century' ride today, so he was not at church..............cayle and i decided to go to wah mei in harrodsburg, since there were only 2 of us........i had almost forgotten how people behave at buffets......we each made just one trip, and filled just one plate.............and i still feel overful from that one plate......but others who we were there when we arrived were still there when we left........still eating...........

i am blogging prior to my daring daytime assault upon my mother's house...........now that she is away, i am going in with trash bags to tidy up...........she is not one who keeps up with newspapers, catalogs, junk mail, recycling, and over time this clutter gets out of control...........she appears not to notice...........when i try to clean up when she is home, she finds reasons why she must keep every scrap that i am trying to throw away............and nothing really gets accomplished...........so i swoop in when she is gone.........and added bonus....i get to watch cable tv for a brief fix.........

ok, so tonight i met the nationally known radio guy who owns a big piece of property out on bluegrass pike........the gut who hosted fletcher's fundraiser and never asked us to bid on the event..........the guy who orders 'old' wine with corks that tend to crumble...............the guy who seemed intrigued about someone whose entire family has a hypenated last name....he said he could arrange for arnold to visit........i said as a closet liberal i had no need.........bad choice of words......there is nothing cloistered about my politics.......................

ok, so tonight the newest hewlett-packard ad featured images from parc guell(sp...) one of my favorite spots in barcelona.........the view was from the undulating wall/bench that forms the bounderies of the terrace covering the cool cavernous space below...where flutists play eeeire melodies.........the bench is covered in broken bits of crockery that are harmonious in color, texture and form..........a really remarkable place to visit........

ok, so mm neglected to mention the painful 40 minutes spent at cayle's soccer team picture gathering.........cayle promptly got out of the car and went directly to the play area at millenium, rather than to the picture area as per instruction..........i marched over there when others from her team began to gather there, rather than in the desginated picture area...........and attempted to redirect the throng toward their goal..........on the way over someone's dog took over cayle's short-term memory slots.........and another march over became necessary............at this point, even the photographer got out of her truck and tried to round up these girls so that pictures could proceed.........of course, the individual pictures were done first, with the remaining team trying to kick each other over with a soccer ball on the nearest field...... it became apparant that no one was driving this bus, when we were all standing around, even the photographer waiting for something to happen..........i suggested to the photographer that now might be a good time to round up everybodyt for the group shot....she said she was waiting ont he coach to say so.......the coach that was shooting soccer balls with the team in the field......paying not the least attention to the photo-session..............ergo, 40 minutes in- a picture was taken, and we drove frantically to anderson-dean to watch scw run cross-country............need not have rushed, as the meet was behind, and his race was over 30 minutes delayed...........he did well, by the way...a strong second place........

ok, so mm and md went to see porgy and bess last night..........with tickets given by a student....we sat up next to god, just a few rows from the top........lts of empty student seats, by the way........we appreciated the subtitles flashed on the screen above the stage.......else we would not have understood what was going on, even when sung in english....or gullah as it were.........beyond the songs like summertime, and i got plenty of nothin...........the songs were rather boring and contrived............so much for opera........i need never attend one again.........

ok, so i heard most of the terry gross/bill o'reilly interview on fresh air last night.........o'reilly is evil.............and mean............so so nastily right wing......i beleive that when america comes to blows again it will not be north and south....or black/white....it will be left/right wing...........those right-wingers can make me so angry...........

ok, so i have watched 3 baseball games this week......stayed up til 11:45 last night watching the end of the cubs/marlin game.........why?.................

ok, so mm has new glasses....which look vaguely like her old glasses.....except these are no-line trifocals.......which curiously give one a feeling of sea-sickness if one rotates the head from side to side too quickly.......happily, mm does not reside in california, the state of fools in my opinion...somehow they think that this man can balance the budget while preserving schools, after-school programs, and social services..........arnold has no clue, possibly because he does not manage his own checkbook....he pays others to do that, and he has millions of dollars of his own to toy with............as does his wife..........now there is a couple who live in the real world.............well, california will certainly get what they deserve.........

ok, so i watched the boston redsox beat the oakland athletics last night.........why? i have no idea....i just felt like watching baseball.........

ok, so mm made cobbler for supper, but is that not reason to be suspicious?...........i am especially suspicious of anything said by arnold......w ehave emailed our california friends of our concerns........

ok, so i blogged numerous times on friday, then nothing...........acw came home for a few quality hours on saturday night.......he did his laundry, we ate chinese take-out, and we bought groceries to keep him going another 2 weeks..........he looks great, he is in upbeat spirits, and he seems appears to be enjoying his classes.....sunday's nhs induction was short but sweet...........

ok, so just one more blog....about arnold.....and his gropes and his admiration for hitler.................if california voters elect this man, knowing that he is such a man......then they get what they deserve...................i will pray privately for maria shriver who is presumably happily married to him...............

ok, so i am still reading the laurie colwin book,......we are in 1968 when she dropped back into columbia just before the students for a democratic society (sds) staged a strike and took over the food service in which her apron read food/colwin.........at that time, her best friends name was reis (last name)....and the chapter is studded with reis this and reis that.............sounds very comforting.......columbis, and reis, and food, and laurie colwin..............

ok, so it is nearly 6:00 pm on a friday evening, and i am home alone with no clue where everybody else is (except for ecw who is at work....) my mother picked up everybody else ages ago...who knows..........i have gone through the papers, and started in on a reread of an old favorite....laurie colwin's home cooking......laurie used to write regular columns in gourmet magazine until her untimely death in a traffic accident.......although her column ran 1 full year after the accident because she had turned in 12 columns at once just before her demise......she also writes/wrote novels.....i have 2 of them......anyway.....she writes like i think.........so it is a pleasure to reread her first book about cooking..........at the point where she recalled that she no longer keeps kosher, i was prompted to blog.........because this revelation about someone already dead and with god met with profound sadness.........if laurie colwin, who lived for food no longer kept kosher, then who IS still keeping kosher? .......as a sunday school teacher as well as a foodie, i am intrigued by the notion of foods deemed acceptable or unacceptable by god.......of course, in the new testament, peter has a vision that is interpreted as all foods being clean...so i do not feel obligated to be kosher...but still, it does my heart good to know that someone is still following the genesis and exodus and numbers rules for food.........as i understand it, Joe Lieberman keeps kosher.......i may have to vote for hime based on that quality along...though i would rather vote for either howard dean or wesley clark.....maybe they could form a triumverate...like in ancient rome..........clark could be pompey...........

ah well,..........today ms. dickey ate at trc, and took time to express her sadness that she will not be at dhs to teach scw in ap english next year.......she went on to say that she enjoyed having andrew, and sensed that neither he nor rowan appreciated praise in class, as it made them appear to be smart kids/nerds....a quality that both despised...........that is an observation that i have made myself.....that acw was never comfortable with his brilliance...........rather, he was embarassed by it........of course, now that his ap english exam score of 5 allowed him great latitude when it came to dropping calculus twice..........he may be glad that he paid attention at some point when english was being discussed at dhs........

back to laurie colwin, whose prose reminds me of a cozy blog.....she is someone that i wish i had met, and someone whose kitchen i regretfully have never seen.......well, i have seen it as it is mine.... neither of us have a food processor, or any other gadgets that require storage..........

ok, so mm is so old that she could barely focus her elderly eyes on needlepoint today.....this is tragic........i have needlework projects that i must finish before i leave this earth.........i did order my new glasses today...hopefully they will have better resolution for that up-close work........

ok, so mm bounces between being hot and cold.........last night i woke up freezing.....forgot that in the winter socks really make a difference......i also tossed a light blanket over the comforter...........the next time i woke up i was beastly hot.....go figure...........i must make time after work to bring in the plants from porch.....freeze warning for tonight........