Diabeticical

Thanksgiving and type 2 diabetes

2011-11-16T13:53:00.001-05:00

With the holidays just around the corner, I thought this might be a good time to mention my approach to eating during this time of the year. There are no real tricks to my approach, just some common sense views and ways to avoid the pitfalls that diabetics face while everyone else stuffs themselves. The typical Thanksgiving fair is tough on a diabetic, and there are diabetics who say "ey wth, its one day a year, I am going to splurge and then go back to all the restrictions the day after" I cant do this. I have learned that it takes me just one bad meal to reorganize my brain into thinking it can eat anything that it wants. Call this poor self-control, or no will-power - call it what you want but it is how my brain works. For this reason if I go off the wagon once it takes me weeks or months to get back on. So I just avoid the whole issue and continue to make good choices even when temptation is spread out before me. So here at The Diabetic Zone is my strategy for the big day coming up. Maybe you can use it, maybe you can't I will leave that decision up to you. Either way, best wishes to you and yours as we enter the holidays!

And the rest of the story

2010-01-15T09:10:00.004-05:00

Well, I have a feeling that this is an ongoing story that, as the more farmland in Florida becomes populated, the more widespread it will become. You might remember the post I did on sinkholes?

Back when I first moved to Florida I slowly became aware of a HUGE issue here in Florida, an issue that has succeeded in convincing myself and my husband that buying a house here in Florida is NOT the wisest of decisions and that is the problem of sinkholes.

It is so bad in fact, that the county I happen to live in at the moment (the county that my husbands business is located - so unless we are happy with an hour commute for him everyday we also must live in) is virtually uninsurable when it comes to home owners insurance. Ok, let me rephrase that. You CAN get regular home owners insurance on a home for not much more then the national average, BUT you have to buy a sinkhole rider if you want to be protected against this little...nuisance. Most insurance companies won't even offer sinkhole coverage and those that do the prices are unbelievably high.

Ok a bit of a geology lesson here. Florida basically floats on large aquifers. These aquifers need to be fed and replenished when the water drops below acceptable levels. Mother nature in her infinite wisdom, and not to mention just basic principles of physics, compensates for the depletion by opening up sinkholes. These sinkholes range from small depressions in the ground to house swallowing monsters and appear out of no where and eat anything within close proximity of it. The sinkholes occur mostly because the water table in the aquifer has dropped so therefore there is just air between the limestone and the top of the water table. The weight of the earth will collapse in on itself and this in turn is another way to feed the aquifer when it rains. Florida is covered with small lakes many of which were originally sinkholes that through time and sediment have become bodies of water which wild life makes good use of. We have one such lake at the back of our house as I have shown pictures of occasionally on this blog.

Ok, so everyone knows the cold snap that Florida just endured right? We have not broken the 60 degree mark yet in 2010... well not until yesterday that is and there were nights that we were in the teens and twenties.

Yeah yeah so what has this got to do with sinkholes you are asking? Patience I am getting there.

Freezing temps have a huge impact on the water levels of the acquifers but in a round about way and here is how.

Farmers.

Yes farmers. Seems that the farmers in many places of Florida rely on the water in aquifers to water these crops. In normal situations with normal weather that is not a big deal, I guess the water used makes little impact on the aquifers and the rain tends to replenish them quickly so no harm no foul. BUT when the weather is extreme, as has been the case for the last few weeks it has done great harm and a lot of people are crying foul.

For instance, we have a city that is in eastern Hillsborough county ( same county that Tampa is in) that has self proclaimed itself strawberry capitol of the world. Strawberries are very vulnerable to below freezing temps. So the farmers of these crops will water them in order to provide a layer of insulation on the tender plants. The ice that builds on the strawberries keeps them IN MOST CASES at a constant 32 degrees. and the destructive 28-29 degree air cannot get to the plant. At least that is how I understand it. The above image I have included is the tactic that the farmers use to try to save their crops.

Great, more power to the farmer, right? But this has an adverse effect on the aquifers in that it drains more water then normal from them. The last figure I read was that the aquifer is running some 60 feet BELOW normal levels and mostly this has to do with the farmers insulating their crops. Oh and btw it is not just the strawberry farmers doing this. The citrus farmers insulate their crops in this manner as well.

So over the last few days the domino effect has begun. Some 22 new sinkholes have opened up in the area, one is on a major interstate that bisects the state from east to west. While diverting traffic in order for the state to deal with that sinkhole, the road that the traffic was being diverted to is showing signs of forming a sinkhole as well. Houses are being swallowed, land is disappearing. Many of the people who are losing parts of their land and buildings did not have sinkhole coverage.

Sometimes I think that Florida is just going to sink into the sea.

So thanks farmers. I dunno if I was a homeowner that this was happening too, I think rather then having strawberries on the table come summertime I would rather keep my house.

St Petersburg Pier

2010-01-05T15:12:00.002-05:00

Recently my youngest daughter came for a visit. She lives back in Arizona at the moment and one of the reasons for the visit was an appt. that she had with a cosmetology school she wants to attend. So we made time for that and the rest of the 5 or so days she spent here was getting to know the area and doing a bit of sight-seeing, something I have not really been able to do myself until she came.

So one of our stops was the famed St. Petersburg pier, in of course, St Pete. This pier was originally opened somewhere in the late 1800's I believe with a rail way that was laid down here to help transport some of the goods that were shipped over from various parts of the world.

The pier itself was torn down and rebuilt in 1973 in a more modern-istic style (at least what was considered modern in those days - personally I love the "retro" look of it with the quirkiness of a Salvador Dali painting) and became the inverted pyramid that it is today. You can see it over the shoulder of my daughter in the picture and Tampa Bay on either side of the road/walkway leading up to the pier.

There has been some rumblings in the community that the powers that be, are discussing closing and/or demolishing the pier. It has not really been reno'd or updated to meet building codes since it was built and with the advent of the modern shopping experience ( malls big and small) it does not draw enough revenue through its little pyramid of eclectic shops that are housed with in it to pay for any such renovation.

Personally I think it would be a sad thing to see this very interesting landmark disappear. There is a grassroots organization of local businesses and residents who mark the area to save the St.Pete Pier....but who knows what will happen in this economy.

Enjoy

Happy New Year

2009-12-31T09:02:00.005-05:00

This being the last day of the year I thought that this day of all days deserves a post on the blog.

New Years Eve is a time of reflecting and I have to be honest with you all, I am not all that jazzed about reflecting on the past year.

Each year as take down the Christmas tree I place all the fragile ornaments in their holders/tubs/wrappings, usually the last thing to go is the angel at tree top. As I remove her I wonder to myself what will my life be like the next time I see her, lately I add to that wonderment the question, "will I even be around next Christmas?". I think that it is a legitimate question when you reach the half century mark and beyond, especially when I think to myself that my late husband was just 50 when he died. In a few short months I will be older then he ever was. He died just a week shy of his 51st birthday. That is a strange feeling since he was always older then me by 6 years. So my own sense of immortality is called to the forefront as I march into this year. Don't ask - if you are not a widow you won't really get it, like most things having to do with widowhood its a "had to be there" situation if ever there was one.

Warning off topic rant below......

In the widowhood community there is a label given to non-widows, and that is "DGI" aka "Don't Get Its" for the most part it is a very appropriate label, but the widow community tends to be overly sensitive and tends to label anyone who attempts to make us feel better and falls short simply because they don't know what to do, as a DGI. And it is not always used as a nice thing. Widows like to isolate and elevate themselves. They want to think that they belong to an exclusive club that no one can get membership to unless their SO has died, and that is ok and true mostely - but some widows look down their noses at non-widows and like to chatter amongst themselves about how no one can POSSIBLY understand, so why even try "just keep your mouths shut and leave me alone"...of course these are the same widows who get very upset with the people in their lives (non-widows) who don't call them/come over/do things for them, in other words they DO leave them alone - so it is a can't win for losing situation.

End rant.

Anyway, I have a lot of thoughts running through my head. This is probably the worst Christmas/New Years I have ever spent in my life in so many ways I will not list - it is too depressing to see the words pour out of my head onto something as tangible as this blog. Don't get me wrong, my life has not been a bed of roses, I have had one or two of these things happen to me during many of the holidays of my life, but all of them at once? Never happened, so I am a bit overwhelmed right now and attempting to keep a common sense approach to things - but it is hard.

I hope that at least one of the things (and there are quite a few of them) that is making this a rough time for me manages to change this new year. I would appreciate it if you would also hope that for me as well.

Thanks for reading and hope everyone has a wonderful celebration and new year.

2009-12-23T11:09:00.003-05:00

The wild life in this swampy part of the world is quite amazing and there is rarely a week that goes by that I don't see something that makes me go "wow" and run to find the camera.

Currently, we have a little red headed woodpecker ( think Woody) making what seems to be a nest in an old dead palm tree that happens to be center stage in the back yard. It appears to be a home that over the years either many woodpeckers have used or the same one winters here, and then I am assuming, in spring brings his/her little brood into the world. Lately when we take the doggies out for potty time most of the time, this little woodpecker is sitting cozy in his hole/nest and all that is visible are his/her little head and eyes closely monitoring us and the dogs. We are trying not to get too close to the nest so as not to scare him away forever and I have yet to get a decent picture of him/her. All day he spends working on the opening and cleaning out debris from the interior and, I believe, replacing it with new debris to line the nest with anticipation of what might be to come in the next few months. So don't worry I am working on that little photo...but until then I discovered a very pleasant surprise during the last rain.

I have noticed that during, as well as the first sunny day, following a rainy day the wild life comes out in droves. The last rain we had I noticed that we have red breasted robins...a whole flock of them were out in the front yard, I assume digging for worms that were attempting to make their way out of the saturated soil and I noticed something else - a little family of cardinals... wow. I haven't seen cardinals since I lived in Nebraska back in the late 70's. I am assuming that they migrate down here from a colder part of the country and spend the winter here.

Sadly, by the time I changed lenses, set up the tripod for a zoom shot, a school bus had gone by and the noise scared both the robins and the cardinals away.

Luckily, I think that this little family of cardinals is living in a tree that is adjacent to our back yard and I found them later in the day when the sun came out in the back yard. The shot was taken with my portrait lens so there is some distance ( portrait lenses don't zoom very well lol) so that is another goal - to get a better photo that you can actually see the bird and not just a red blob in the yard.

Anyway, trust me, these are cardinals and of course click on the pic and it will show up a bit larger on your computer screen.

Enjoy

A murder of crows

2009-12-18T15:40:00.003-05:00

I often wondered why a grouping of crows was called a murder, now I know.

We seem to perhaps be the wintering ground for every North American Black Crow that exists within 10,000 sq miles and we all know what crows do best, they caw. and caw, and caw and caw and when they are not cawing randomly, they do it in unison to provide hours of listening pleasure. I am not kidding, I have to turn up the volume of the TV when they are soaring nearby. It might lead me to murdering a few crows if they don't move on in the near future. Oh and lets not forget they poop too.

When I am outside and they blacken the skies I half expect one of two things to happen, either Tippi Hedren is going to jump out of the bushes and scream at me (re: The Birds), or a tripod is going to break through the trees and point its ray gun at me and disintegrate me ( War of the Worlds the most recent version with Dakota Fanning), of course Tom Cruise should be nearby if that happens, so maybe that is not such a bad thing...

The pictures that I took and posted here represents a mere fraction of the crow population that has been gracing our neighbourhood for the last week or so, but there is only so much that a lens can capture.

Our neighbourhood is defo going to the birds.

Rain

2009-12-04T08:55:00.003-05:00

Whelp, it is raining.....all day.....again....

and thats all I am gonna say about that.

Flori-duh driverz

2009-12-03T09:11:00.003-05:00

I have driven in various parts of the country in my life, being 50 years old, having acquired my first license when I was just a month or two past my 16th birthday, and someone (a woman no less) who is a pretty good driver and actually likes driving, has given me the opportunity to see a lot of things in my driving career, both good and bad. Of course it is the bad things that stand out and up until my relocation to Florida I thought I had seen it all. I had come to the conclusion that Phoenix and most of California, have the countries worst drivers.

HAH! Not so fast.

They ain't got nuttin' on Florida drivers!!! You people have no clue about safety or being a defensive driver. You are the worst lot of drivers I have ever had the misfortune of dealing with, and bare in mind I think I have driven a total of MAYBE 5 days since I have arrived, all fraught with moments of terror and disbelief at the ineptness of driving abilities here ( having driven just a handful of times here is a minor inconvenience due to hubby and I just having one car at the moment).

As often as it rains here you would THINK that Floridians would be well versed in the fact that you have to modify your driving habits a bit, you need to turn on your wipers and generally just be careful - not so, rain has the opposite effect here in Florida, drive as fast as you can, don't bother with the windshield wipers ( your speed will wick the water away just fine) and weave in and out of traffic like a well made tartan skirt.

On the other hand when the weather is nice and dry, going 45 mph on the expressway (local interstate system) where the speed limit is 70 AND doing 45 in the fast lane is the norm. Floridians either don't bother getting the turn signal "option" on their cars or if they do it is just some odd thing that sticks out of the steering wheel that is to be ignored ( I honestly didnt realize that turn signals were an option. I have to wonder if speedometers are considered an option on a car as well and not part of standard equipment).

Child safety seats seem to be a nuisance to most families and it is more fun to let the kids climb all around the interior of the car as the driver does 45mph in the fast lane, in the rain (no wipers) down the expressway.

Floridians seem to be in a world of their own when they sit in the enclosed boundaries of their cars. They ignore most other people on the road and do as they please no matter the consequence, that is until you try to pass one. You then, and ONLY then, seem to show up on their radar and the race is on. 45mph now turns into 85mph just to keep you from catching up and passing them.

I don't consider not having a car to drive around in the majority of the time necessarily a bad thing, it has probably kept me alive.

Maybe this is the reason that everyone drives around on their riding lawn mowers. Too expensive to fix a full size car in an accident.

Speaking of drivers here is my Flori-duh story of the week...sad but a wtf moment as well I can't get much past the title....

Tampa woman, 75, dies hot-wiring her own truck

TAMPA — A 75-year-old woman who was authorities say was trying to hot-wire her truck died when the car started suddenly and ran over her.

At about 10:40 Sunday night, Jacqueline Cloward popped the hood to her 1989 Ford F150 truck and was using a screwdriver to start it. The truck was parked in the Sweetbay parking lot at 4519 Gunn Highway and was in drive, according to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office.

When it started, it rolled forward over a parking block, knocked Cloward down and ran her over.

The joys of peanut butter

2009-12-01T09:26:00.003-05:00

Every morning I am greeted with this...

Recently I was at my doctors for one of my (seems like weekly) appointments and she jumped me pretty good about my eating. By her calculations I am ingesting about 500 calories a day...I sat like a good patient knowing that no matter what she said there was not going to be much of a change in my diet, not if I want to keep my blood sugar under control. I promised to try and do better, but when everything that you think of to eat either leaves your stomach churning or you feeling very indifferent about food, well what are you suppose to do? About the only thing I can tolerate and tastes decent for me lately is toast with peanut butter. I would say that that is my largest meal of the day and I can usually manage to just fource down half of a piece before I deposit the rest of it with a look of disgust in the rubbish. So this has become my morning ritual coffee - first days injection - one hour passes - toast with peanut butter - 2 other oral meds and I can settle in for my day of barfing and trying to work in between throw-ups.

The choods look forward to this ritual as well, they seem to enjoy following me into the bathroom as I deposit my daily intake in the toilet, I dunno maybe the rug is really soft to lay on in there or they are just sadistic dogs? But before that they have come to anticipate the treat that they get while I force feed myself - I always put some peanut butter on my plate and as I am eating they get a little bit of it as well.

So I was sitting there today watching them as they lick the remanents of the peanut butter off my fingers and then off their tongues and thought this is cute, let me get my camera! Ok so they are not technically very good pictures, but you get the idea and I couldn't fit Rikki in the picture she seems to have an aversion to getting too close to the choods so her 15 minutes of fame will have to wait. I just snapped a few before running to the bathroom for the last part of my ritual and thought I would post them here.

The 2nd thing I would like you to notice in the 1st picture are their feet. I had them groomed recently and I was complaining to the groomer about the sort of grass that "you Floridians" think is grass. How it sticks to dog feet and faces and I am tired of picking it all off. So she suggested poodle feet. They are shaved completely, but the legs are left with that teddy bear look.

I owe her my sanity, clean up after the daily outings has become very easy with nothing more then a quick towel to the paws when the grass is covered with dew, rather then spending the next hour picking off vegetation from their feet as well as vacuuming up after them.

From the world of the Florida bizarre

2009-11-30T11:08:00.003-05:00

This is going to have to do for now,one of the medications I am on make me quite nauseous on most days of the week, so until they make a computer that I can operate whilst on my knees in front of the "twah-let" (toilet) I can only manage to post cut and paste news....Oh and for those interested, T-giving was torture for me this year, I cooked and what I ate I had the infinite pleasure of seeing two and sometimes three to four times that day.

Bomb threat was ruse to delay takeoff

A woman in Sunny Isles Beach, afraid that her boss was going to miss his flight to Honduras, called in a bomb threat to delay the takeoff, the Miami Herald reports.

Unfortunately for Claudia De La Rosa, she also sent an e-mail, which can be easily traced, so she was arrested on Thanksgiving.

She thought he might miss the flight because she was late to work.

Flori-Duh

2009-11-23T11:16:00.004-05:00

Ok don't get me wrong here, I am not saying that of all the states in our union (Arkansas and Tennessee included) Florida has the most "der-de-ders" walking around...I am just saying.

Incidentally, "der-de-ders" are those who are perhaps 1.5 steps up on the evolutionary ladder from neanderthals, you know the sloped fore-headed knuckle-draggers. Or if you still need help:

Ne⋅an⋅der⋅thal
/niˈændərˌθɔl, -ˌtɔl, -ˌtɑl; neɪˈɑndərˌtɑl/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [nee-an-der-thawl, -tawl, -tahl; ney-ahn-der-tahl] Show IPA

–adjective
1. of or pertaining to Neanderthal man.
2. (often lowercase) Informal. primitive, unenlightened, or reactionary; culturally or intellectually backward.

Florida does seem to have its fair share of der-de-ders, maybe even just a smidge more then most, especially the upper regions of Florida. I would say from Gainsville north you will find herds and herds of der-de-ders, and they seem not to be listed on the endangered species list anytime soon.

I am constantly bombarded by the news with stories that make me go:

SOOOOOOO I have decided to include a few of them here when I am feeling particularly uncreative.

I normally don't like to do this, and I avoid blogs that just C&P Headlines or news stories, but gosh darnit some of these are just too good NOT to plagerize.

So here is todays Flori-DUH story, erm.....enjoy?

Fart rage: don't cut the cheese at his table
> Posted by Barbara Hijek on September 18, 2009 06:15 AM

Two Volusia County men were having dinner when one of the men passed gas on the other man's food.

Definately not a polite thing to do.

Anthony Stevens, 37, told his friend, 28-year-old Tervoris Baker, that it was rude to pass gas and Stevens kicked his food onto the floor. Baker became angry and started chasing Stevens who said he was laughing because he thought they were playing, reports WFTV News.

Baker said he was going to get his gun. Stevens ran out of the house and said he saw Baker with a bat. Baker then began breaking the windows of Stevens' SUV.

Stevens flagged down a deputy.

By then Baker had shattered every single window and dented the body of the 1998 Ford Expedition in a fit of rage.

Baker was arrested and taken to the Volusia County branch jail where he later posted a $1,500 bail.

Probably should have spent it on Beano.

Is that a bird? A plane? no its the space shuttle Atlantis!

2009-11-16T15:07:00.009-05:00

Just cause I thought this was cool its just the vapor trail

You can see the dual rocket fire in this one

As always remember you can click on the picture and it will come up a bit larger on your screen....

Ok so maybe I am a little overly pleased with myself over these pictures, after all its just a fire ball with some smoke trailing, but trust me this is the space shuttle Atlantis as she launched on Monday, Nov 16, 2009 from Cape Canaveral.

I am on the gulf side (western) coast of Florida, Cape Canaveral is on the Atlantic (Eastern coast) of Florida, so I wasn't sure if I would be able to see much of it when it launched, especially since it was day time - a night launch, yeah maybe, but a full daylight launch ey, maybe not so much, but like the true photogeek that I am I had my camera at the ready just in case.

I set it up about 15 minutes prior to launch in the back yard - zoom lens pointed in the part of the sky I guessed might be where it would show up - if it was going to show up at all, manual focus to optimize everything and then I came in and sat down to watch the NASA channel.

The launch was set for 2.28pm EST and like any well run and oiled machine it went off like clockwork. So I was watching in the house ready to run the few short steps out the door to my camera in case I could see something. I watched and watched on TV, kept glancing out the back nothing yet. They were giving stats, "the space shuttle Atlantis is now XXX bazillion feet in the air, traveling at a gozillion miles an hour.." and so on. I was just about ready to pack it up and lick my wounds for not being able to get any shots and then there she was arching through the sky just a few degrees more northerly then I had guessed!!

Quite a sight for a small town girl from Arizona. I remember as a kid Vandenberg air base in California used to do various rocket launches and at night the vapor trail was visible to us, but this was amazing, to know there were actual people on board and to top it all off the space shuttle program will be scraped in the near future so if you dont see it in the next six tries, you never will.

So that was my excitement for the day well could be for the week or maybe the month even! The stats for these shots, I am fairly sure that the shuttle was traveling at around 4000mph (according to what I was hearing in the house on the TV), I didnt catch how high she was though.

Of course part of this little adventure only supports my theory that I need a stronger zoom lens for my camera - which is a little depressing lol.

Walking pill bottle

2009-11-16T09:44:00.000-05:00

I remember not too awfully long after my father died (maybe a few years I can't remember) I would take my mother out to the marine base in our city, the one that my dad worked at when he was active service - the very one that brought us to "the middle of no where" Arizona, way back in the mid 1960's, so that she could go to the dispensary there to get a refill on her medications. One of the perks that my mom and dad got since my father devoted most of his adult life to the military in one form or another is to get their meds for free as long as they refilled them at the military dispensary. Occasionally she would have to get something out in town, because the military dispensary didn't carry it, but basically I think that most all of it she could get on base.

I remember sitting in the car waiting for her to return with her booty and watching her walk out of the doors with, sometimes, two paper bags full of medications. I remember her complaining sometimes that she just hated taking all those medications. I am not sure how many she was on at the highest point, but there were a lot of bottles in those paper bags. When she would mention how tired she was of taking them, I would silently think, but you NEED to take them, the doctor would not have prescribed them if they weren't needed!

At some point a few years ago, I think she got to chatting with her sister ( my Aunti), who was a nurse in her career, about this whole prescription dilemma, and I think they both came to the conclusion if she wanted to stop then it is her right to do so. (Disclaimer: I THINK this is how it went down, since my mom reads my blog I am sure she will correct me if I am wrong and if she requests I will post the correct details here)

So She stopped them all, every last blood pressure, postassium supplement, female hormone and just about anything else you can cram into a brown papaer bag. I thought to myself - this is NOT good. But I have always had the opinion (contrary to what some others in my family believe) that my mother has a right to do as she wants to do, just by virtue of respect of age I think she is owed that at least, and so when everyone else is yelling at me to get her to do or not do something ( take her medication) I ignore it and defer to her wishes. There might come a time when that is not a good thing to do, but she is quite cabable of making her own decisions now and so that is what she should do - at least in my eyes.

So as I was thinking, Oh no this is not good, I had to temper that with "if that is what you want to do mom, then do it" and she did.

So here it is some years later, I don't think she takes anything prescription - if she does she has a doctor somewhere who will hand out scripts without appointments to check on her, I KNOW she has not been to see a doctor in quite sometime...and she is none the worse for wear it seems. Oh she takes the occasional over the counter med for one thing or another, but she is off all the so-called life saving medications. What she did, seems not to have harmed her, at least in the short-term, long term who knows? But for pity sake the woman is nearly 83 years old. At this point old age will get her before any of the medical conditions she is diagnosed with - I think.

Now here I am 50 years old and I found myself walking out of the pharmacy the other day with two plastic bags full of prescriptions ( they did away with paper bags at some point - brown paper seems to be an antiquated notion, unless you are buying a bottle of Thunderbird at the local liquor store, then I think they will give you a paper bag to hide the contents from prying cops eyes) and all I could think of was my mom and how she must have felt and I haven't even been taking my pharmacy full of meds as long as she did!

It seems like every time I go to the doctor she is adding yet another medication to my list - I used to like to go see her, now not so much. She is nice and she has very valid reasons as to why she has me on one thing or another, but wow, enough already. True though, I am diabetic and that has its own sets of issues, and truthfully at least half of the meds I take are in relation to diabetes, so I don't think that is a negotiable deal...I don't take my medications for diabetes I am setting myself up for a system wide failure that is not reversible.

The latest medication added to the growing list is blood pressure medication. My BP is not astronomically high, in fact I think it is within acceptable ranges for the most part, it runs a bit high at the doctors office, but when I do it in Walmart or some other BP station is is always pretty good (120's/ 80's or so) the last one in the docs office was 145/94 so she put me on an ace inhibitor which has a two-fold effect and she explained she sometimes puts her diabetics on it anyway (high BP or not) because in addition to keeping BP under control it has the effect of protecting your kidneys from the damage that having diabetes might have on them. Well ok sounds reasonable to me.

Next appointment we will be going over my 3 month labs and if at that time my cholesterol has not improved she might put me on one of the cholesterol reducing drugs. Oh goody.

Right now I can't have my husband get my pills for me, used to be he had them memorized. I have a set now I take in the AM and a set for the PM. He is losing track with all the new additions, so if I am lazy and ask me to bring me either set, he has to read out the name on the bottle and I tell him yes or no. IF/when I get alzheimers I will be in real trouble, of course I think they have a pill for that now too so it might help me to remember to to take it.

Now that is a vicious circle, if you have Alzheimers you have to take a pill to help you remember to take a pill for it. I think I need one of those now.

I rattle when I walk, and it appears this is going to be a way of life for me for sometime to come...well at least as long as I have insurance and perscription coverage. If the day comes when we don't, I can't afford to take any of these medications...at least not at this point...but enter Obama to save the day! HAH.

Finally a positive about Florida

2009-11-13T13:20:00.003-05:00

I am sure there are some who read this and think to themselves "Florida is not/can't be all that bad! She needs to be more positive about it all, life/locations/situations are just what you make of them" Or "Good gawd, enough already!"

Ok so to those this might satisify you... let me put this in context a little bit, first...I originate from a place on this earth that no man should ever have been allowed to inhabit. The only things that live there are cracked and parched, including the people and their attitudes. The middle of summer is like living in the face of the sun both day and night. The indigenous creatures are just about all poisonous, so if the heat doesn't get you they will...or so the saying goes.

Side note: I once saw the greatest t-shirt and kick myself every day for not buying it. It was in an airport gift shop, so of course with inflated prices they charge, I vowed not to buy it, surely I could find it somewhere else - no such luck, anyway it had the words "BUT ITS A DRY HEAT" on the front, which seems to be the mantra that most NON-desert dwellers like to fall back on when you are trying to describe the life sucking effect that 120+ plus degrees has on the human body, It also had a cactus or two on it, then scattered all around, various skeletons of different sorts of creatures and people.... It was funny!... guess you had to be there.

SOME TOP REASONS YOU KNOW YOU LIVE IN THE DESERT:
You wake up with a 6" Tarantula, several lizards and a horned toad in your house during 'Monsoon Season' and think nothing of it.

You have to drive your car with oven mitts on

Most of the restaurants in town have the first name "El" or "Los".

You've signed so many petitions to recall governors that you can't remember the name of the incumbent.

You run your air conditioner in the middle of winter so you can use your fireplace

You (and the businesses in your area) dont know the meaning of "customer service"

It is to this last reason I want to speak and the reason that I started this post lol, but my attention span is like that of a nat so I tend to go off on little side roads, so lets get back to the point shall we.

Yesterday was a rare treat for me, I got to have the car for the day and decided to do some exploring. It was a cold day, but the sun was shining so it was nice to be out of the house for a change. I actually drove myself to the doctor, the pharmacy, stopped in at Petco and had a nice chat with the grooming dept in anticipation of the choods next beauty day, and just had a nice look around the area. I am starting to notice something that I am not used to coming from Arizona, specifically Yuma and that is the idea of REAL customer service.

Yuma, is pathetic in customer service. IF (and that is a huge IF) you manage to get a clerk, cashier or other business person to acknowledge your presence, you are met with the attitude of "what the hell do you want, can't you see I am busy" Inevitably ALL fast food, and many sit down restaurants get your order wrong. My husband could eat for free for the next couple of weeks for all the complaint letters he has written to places like McDonalds and Applebees over bad service or wrong orders, and we are not picky, we simply want what we ordered and a smile goes a long way. Complaint letters usually result in some sort of apology from the home office and a coupon for a free meal, or part of a meal, hence why he could eat with very little money for the next few weeks. Oh and I might add that IF you can get the clerk/cashier/store help to notice you, if that person speaks english you have stumbled on a shopping jackpot!

So this is all that I know. Real customer service does not exist in Yuma, Arizona...and really not so much in most of Arizona. There was a huge controversy some years back when Olive Garden was wrestling with whether or not to build a rest. in Yuma. The results of their in-depth analysis of the area? Basically Yuma is not up to the "standards" of the employee base that Olive Garden likes to hire from - meaning Yuma has unintelligent and rude people in it. LOL you can bet this started a firestorm in the community, but I had to agree.

So back to my outing. I noticed something really odd when the clerk in Petco actually took an interest in me... not so much hoovering over me as I just walked around knowing I had only $10 to spend and not finding much for that, but making sure he was available AND accessible to me should I need anything. Strange I thought...he must be bored. I managed to find a little tennis ball and some treats for the dogs that would fall within my budget and made my way to the registers. Said clerk quickly came to the register to check me out, he made pleasant, but highly informative conversation with me. He informed me of all the good things that Petco does in the area with adoptions and donations. He got me signed up for their little rewards card thingy, he got me paperwork for all the upcoming events for the store including "Santa and your pet" photo day and then pointed out the grooming area. I told him I was very interested in that so after we finished the transaction, he escorted me over to the area and introduced me to the groomer on duty a very edgy looking (tattoos, emo hair) looking young man who was about as pleasant a young man as I have had the pleasure to talk with in a long LONG time. He was informative, seemed to really know his stuff and eased my concerns about the patience that he and his staff shows to newly started pups and young dogs to the whole grooming scene. I have a real fear of my dogs (especially the choodles, since they are very young. Rikki my older dog knows the routine and she always gets glowing reports from groomers who groom her) being mishandled by a groomer so as to ruin their grooming experience for the rest of their lives. This is a result of after taking them to Petsmart in Yuma for thier first time and was met with a frazzled, frustrated young woman, who told me that they were a "real handful" I was pissed and let the manager know it as well as the young woman who fancied herself a groomer.

So I finished my chat with Tommy ( the groomer) and exited the store, but I found myself walking in a daze to my car. What was this new and wonderful experience I had just been subject to???

I sat in the car for a moment and let it soak in...oh that was fun, strange but fun. Brightened my day considerably.

So off to the pharmacy, surely I would feel in my comfort zone there! Walgreens in Yuma is ALWAYS busy, the pharmacists and pharm techs are ALWAYS rushed and rude!

I was met with a clerk with a large and what I thought a very sincere smile on her face. I turned around for a moment thinking she must be smiling at someone she knows or her manager - not me, surely! no way!....I turned around to find no one there, incidentally no lines to stand in either. I shyly told her I was here to pick up some prescriptions expecting to be glared at and a huff as she went to search for my scripts in those over stuffed white tubs that line many shelves behind her. Instead she pleasantly asked my name, looked me up in her computer and then said " Ok, Ms Rodriguez we have them all ready for you just give me a moment to get them!" no really! she said that to me as though she was happy to find them! I stood there for what must have been all of 30 seconds to see her happily skipping (ok not skipping, really) back to me with my prescriptions and rang me up. Pleasant conversation ensued as I paid her and she bagged everything up. "Do you need a consult with the pharmacist for anything Ms Rodriguez"? She blinked her eyes a few times waiting for my answer, as I let my jaw hit the floor - That has NEVER been asked of me before, I have had to request it but never was it offered. "No thanks I have taken all of this before" She smiled brighter and said "ok Ms. Rodriguez Thank you, have a great day!" and she meant it! At least she gave me the impression that she did.

So far I have heard my last name more in the span of an hour then I have in about a years worth of shopping in Yuma. I sometimes forget that I am Ms Rodriguez, and get used to being a number or a "you", seems Florida likes to make people feel as though they are really a person and not just a number rung up on a register.

I stumbled out to my car in that heady dazey feeling that I had when I left Petco. Wow.

Next stop the bank. Ok I KNOW this is FINALLY going to be the downfall. Bank clerks are rude and snobs, at least the ones I am used to are. Finally I will be in my element!!

I find the bank, park and inside I go and my ears are assaulted from all directions with "welcome to Suntrust!" "how are you doing today?" "Looks cold out there, is it?" I mumbled something about it being freezing especially for a girl from Arizona and I swear to you all the clerks, managers and any other bank employee with in ear shot, not helping another customer, gathered around me asking me questions SHOWING INTEREST in me. After I answered their questions and squeezed myself out of the huddle of groupies, I found myself confronted with a bright shining face of the clerk that I was to do my business with..

"Hi! What can I do for you today" she said. "Just two deposits, one into my personal account and one that my husband asked me to make to his business account." I knew that this, of all things, would throw the wheels off the "customer service" train that was rolling through the countryside of my life. " I would be more then happy to help you with that!" she jingled...I swear there were bells tinkling in her voice... sure you would, I thought to myself cynically... now comes the "I am sorry you are not your husband I can't complete this transaction" or "I need some I.D. please" Instead I found two deposit slips being inserted into my hands and the question "is there anything else I can help you with today?" being asked of me. "Well no, thanks. I turned and as I am walking to the door my clerk is wishing me all manner of goodwill, happiness, joy, offering to have my car pulled around to the door so I don't have to be assaulted by the cold ( 70 degrees) weather...ok, ok not really, but I nearly expected her to say that!

I was in a great mood the rest of the day, thanks to these people and the little effort that they took to ensure that I knew that they appreciated my business.

I don't think that I will ever be the same, the cynic in me is being strangled and might not survive Florida if I have many more experiences like I did yesterday.

Of money and medicine

2009-11-10T14:37:00.003-05:00

Ok so there is A L O T wrong with our health care system, I think just about everyone agrees with that, but in my opinion just about all the health care initiatives, reforms, and revamps are simply going to put a very small bandage over a VERY gapping wound...it really does not matter what the gov't attempts to implement it simply will not be enough and the part of the medical community ( the VERY LARGE part) that wants to make money will find away around whatever is passed and set into motion. If medicine does not get rich on it, it will not last long...mark my words. Just like Wall Street the money pig of medicine will keep chanting "feed me"

Today I had my second experience with the medical community here in Florida. The first one was ok, not the best. My doctor is nice enough, seems to know her stuff and seems interested in her patients. Her office staff maybe not be so much. They have managed to get my birthdate wrong in their system which has brought my benefits to a screeching halt. God forbid the insurance advocate who might push through payment of a bill when the birthdate is off by a digit....oh no that can't happen! So while I deal with that I am continuing with the other things such as a follow up mammogram. The first films were taken in Arizona and the doctor reading them decided I needed additional ones for a complete evaluation...something about nodules and density - I dunno. This was one week prior to my relocation to Florida so doctor in yuma felt that Florida was advanced enough technologically speaking to continue on with the task, so that is what I decided to do.

:insert decision regretting face here:

After suffering through terminal hold, incompetent schedulers, clueless file record clerks AND supervisors, convincing them to mail the medical release form I needed to sign to get my films from Arizona, my husband faxing them back from his work... I finally got my appointment two farking days before my follow up with the doctor, I think she was hoping that I would have had my films by this time and we could go over them see if there really is cause for concern. HAH.

Now you have to understand something here, making an appointment is a touchy thing for me. The facility to which I am to go in this case is about a 30 minute drive from me. At the moment we only have one car and my husbands work is about 20 minutes in another direction, so I had to get up early, time it so that I could get him to work and still make my appointment never mind trying to figure out how to navigate the alligator ponds and sand cranes that cross the 2 lane hwy as we drive out to "nowhere" florida.

So appointment was set and I showed up, 10 minutes early even! I am busy steeling myself for the requisite boob squishing and they call my name.

TECH: "Ms. Rodriguez, do you have your films with you?"
ME: "No, you have them"
TECH: "I don't see them here"
TECH: "I can't do this today if I cant find your films"
ME: "Why?"
TECH "This is a request for additional films to complete the evaluation, I have to be able to see what I am suppose to be looking for"
ME: "you are looking for abnormalities"
TECH: "Yes ma'am I know that, but I need to see why the additional films were ordered and what area I need to concentrate on"
ME: "You need to concentrate on both boobs and look for something that might be alarming to my doctor and me, why am I telling you your job?"
TECH: Ma'am there is no reason to get short with me, I am trying to do my job"
ME: "Well ya see, I am getting short with you because I was told I could fax in my medical release - by-the-way which I did two weeks ago and that you would take care of getting my films. Now someone has apparently dropped the ball here and it wasn't me. Why was an appointment even made for me? If you need my films in hand before you can do this?!"
TECH: "It should not have been made"
ME: I know that, WHY was it made?
TECH "I don't think whomever made your appt. knows, see we have a central scheduling dept over in BFE Hernando County, and then our records dept is over in BFE Pasco County, and I am thinking that your faxed medical release might have ended up at our central warehouse in BFE BFE County."
ME: "WTF? Don't you think this is a critical piece of information that your central scheduling dept needs to know - Not making appts that cant be completed - before the patient drives herself about an hour to make the appointment?!?!"

And so it went to the point that I left frustrated and infuriated and just about fed up with the business side of medicine. There is no one to even call, it is all computerized and if your films are not in the computer, then by god they dont have them!

I get to go through this whole ridiculous fiasco again the Wed before Thanksgiving. If my films are not there by then, then I think I am going to just tell me doc to hack the puppies off they are not worth the stress.

Lizard spit

2009-11-07T13:20:00.005-05:00

Gila Monster spit to be precise.

I am finding that you can take the girl out of the desert, but you can't take the Gila Monster out of the girl.

For those wondering, the Gila Monster is a desert dwelling lizard, its suppose to be highly venomous. In all my years of living in the desert I never had the pleasure of meeting one in person, they are quite elusive, but you learn to avoid certain indigenous species in the desert and this is definitely one to avoid.

So imagine my surprise when I found out that this ugly spud of a creature ( actually they are quite beautiful in a quazi motto sort of way) is what is keeping me alive!

I inject Gila Monster spit every day, twice a day and it in turn regulates my blood sugar, ergo, I don't slip into some random diabetic coma, or find that my kidneys have failed or my legs must be amputated.

Don't worry I am not under the care of some witch doctor, or voodoo queen, high priestess, medicine woman, though my doctor has the exotic looks of one so she could be one in her private live. Nope this is a real medical break through that seems to be taking the diabetic world by storm.

From the way I read it, back in the 80's there was a doctor/researcher who was doing research on humans who have been bitten by venomous creatures, Said researcher began to realize that the venom had an effect on both the pancreas (stimulating it) as well as most venomous creatures seem to have a very slow digestive system. Now if you know anything about diabetes these two things can be good for a diabetic.

Insulin, the thing that either is missing in a diabetic or is not recognized in a diabetic (hence the term insulin resistant, which is what many T2 diabetics start out as being) is manufactured in the pancreas. Also, slowing digestion in a diabetic in turn slows how quickly carbohydrates are absorbed by and enter the body...carbs are enemies of diabetics, well mostly, I mean there are good carbs and bad ones so we have to be very careful about what we choose to eat. I am VERY sensitive to carbs, basically anything white ( rice, flour, sugar, even milk and fruit juice) I have to stay away from or really use sparingly, they spike my BS numbers fast and high. For instance. I had a bowl of cereal yesterday. I was running around 140mg/dl when I ate it and after the cereal started feeling sort of bad (I feel like I am getting the flu when my BS spikes high), so two hours later (called a post prandial reading) retested I was at 283mg/dl... yipes!

My normal meal nowadays consists of meat (lean or fish) and veggies or salad. Potatoes, pasta, rice, bread - all bad for me and don't make it to my plate very often.

Now it should be noted here that a small spike in blood sugar is quite normal after eating. For the normal person, erm... that is NON diabetic, this spike should really be no more then 20 points. Diabetics might see a bit more, but that is one of the goals of a diabetic to try to keep huge spikes, like 140 pts, down to a bare minimum.

Anyway, these spikes and just my over all fasting readings were getting higher and higher with each passing month to the point that one of my tests (A1c, a 3 month average of your blood sugar) was 11.7... it should be somewhere under 7 so this was substantial and the reason my doctor put me on lizard spit. AKA Byetta.

The good news is that it is working, for the most part. There are side effects, mostly ahem....digestive, but that seems to be the way it goes with a lot of the diabetic meds that you take. It is an injectable too, so I have injection site issues to deal with on occasion. For the most part though, it has been a god send. There is the added benefit of weight loss. This, however, seems to be a temporary thing and as your body adjusts to the drug that wonderful little perk, sadly, goes away, and I am noticing that my appetite is returning somewhat.

Lizard spit....Isn't Mother Nature brilliant! You just never know where healing might come from.

Indiginous neighbours

2009-11-05T08:17:00.008-05:00

Another day of few words, so pictures will be me voice...the first one is just to say good morning to everyone - sunrise over our lake.

The others are of a pair of sand cranes who frequent our area, they are quite friendly -not shy at all, in fact the bigger one of the two (I assume he is the male) approaches me with no hesitation when I am outside with them and seems to be be checking me out to see if I have any food. The big one (nicknamed by me as Ricky as in Ricardo) stands nearly as tall as I am (5'7) but maybe a few inches shorter. The female ( nicknamed Lucy by me) is perhaps 5ft tall and just a bit shyer then her man.

They are an interesting addition and though I dont seem to intimidate them, the choods do and if they get out of the porch they have no qualms about chasing these 767's of the bird world and the cranes will launch into flight scolding the choodles with that very odd honking/croaking noise. (remember you can click on the below pictures - or any pictures in my blog for a larger view..I usually keep the integrity of my photos as 3008 X 2000 pixs so they will be pretty large on your computer)

From thence into beauty....

2009-11-03T15:46:00.003-05:00

Ok I just like Audry Hepburn, in my opinion she is too thin....

The title of this post was taken from a very ghastly movie of which I would categorize as one of my favourites of all time - Silence of the Lambs aka: SOTL. And ghastly is just about the best word I can come up with that describes what my body is looking like these days.

I must admit that with the packing, the moving, the health issues and the financial pressures that have been dominating my life lately the way that I look has taken the rumble seat in the car of my life. But things are starting to wind down and settle into something of a routine, and so I happened to glance up from the now empty cardboard boxes, the puppies falling in the lake and the pile of bills on the desk and took a look at just what was staring back at me...lordy lordy.

Health issues not withstanding I just have to say O....M....G.

Some of these health issues have to do with diabetes and the latest round of meds that I have been put on seems to have the added effect of weightloss.

Great right!!??... not when you have a few hundred miles of loose and excess skin, that up until the weight loss, was filled out with nice plump fat cells. My skin is not 20 years old anymore. It does not rebound like it used to, instead it hangs and hangs and hangs some more. Sadly this is not a health issue pursay. That is that insurance does not believe that cosmetic surgery is a true health related condition, it is an "elective" procedure. Health insurance companies dont pay for life threatening conditions in a lot of cases, let alone an elective procedure. So whats a girl to do...

I don't know.... Pay for it myself of course...so I figure if I start saving now by the time I am around 90 years old I can afford to have this skin removed...of course by then who really cares. So I will have a nice little nest egg to blow on a new wheelchair or a few years worth of Depends and baby food.

A little cheese with that Whine?

2009-11-02T13:18:00.004-05:00

I found a great site that I started to frequent before I moved here to Florida and have been reading ever sense. It gives the "real deal" report on all things good AND bad concerning the area of Florida you happen to live in, as told by regular Joe Schmoe who happens to live here and either knows first hand about whatever topic you can think to ask, has had a relative or friend go through it, or it is just common knowledge as a lot of things are for the natives of any particular city/town/county.

And so the term "swiss cheese" started leaking into my brain via this website.

Seems I live on the ground floor of swiss cheese central.

Here in Florida, at least in my corner of Florida you are known more by the county that you live in rather then the city or town - unless you live in Tampa or St Pete, in that case the city usurps the county and you are known for your city of residence. Here in the Tampa area there are about 400 counties that are associated with living in the "Tampa Area" the counties around here are roughly the size of a football field so naturally there are going to be lots of them. Back in Yuma, it takes about 1.5 hours in either direction to reach the boundies of Yuma County, and in the whole of Arizona there are like 15 counties...So I am not sure how to react to the idea that a county should just contain one or two neighbourhoods then you move on to the next silly name...Manatee county, Citrus County (der, right?) Hernando County, and then there is my county - Pasco County, AKA: Swiss Cheese County...but from all that I have been reading on the area, Pasco and the county immediately to our north ( about 4 blocks up the street actually) Hernando County, share that swiss cheese name equally.

Swiss cheese does not refer to the edible product of that name, though it is very good and I like mine in a roast beef sandwich from Subway, no, swish cheese in this case refers to the land beneath my feet.

Definition: SINKHOLE: [singk-hohl] –noun
1. a hole formed in soluble rock by the action of water, serving to conduct surface water to an underground passage.

Here in Florida the underground aquifers are numerous and they must be fed, in order to do that, at random times of the day or night, week, month or year, for no rhyme or reason, the ground will start to depress and then collapse, the resulting crater is then a water access for whatever aquifer lay beneath it. Aquifers don't seem to care if there is a house sitting on top of it, if it wants water by god, water it will get.

I found a map of recorded sinkholes in the counties mentioned above and by all rights the area I live in as well as miles up the coast and a bit south should have been swallowed up by the gulf long ago.

There are insurance companies that will not even insure houses here in my area...not because of hurricanes, but because of the sinkhole situation. If one happens to open under your house well the resulting damage is extensive and expensive.

Mike and I are now rethinking our need to purchase a house here and this is one of the reasons. So if your house is not taken out by flood, high winds or hurricane then better watch out, cuz a sinkhole could be in your future. Gotta love Florida

Halloween, 2010

2009-11-01T13:16:00.003-05:00

Ok do you see that big, disgusting, gawdy thing in the picture?....No, no, no not HIM, thats my husband mowing the yard, look beyond him past the immense spans of water to the wooden dock there. This is where my story begins for todays entry.

My husband and I, when we can brave the dew and sauna-like conditions on most weekend mornings, like to sit out on the enclosed patio and drink coffee, talk about the meaning of life and, of course, make fun of our neighbours. This morning was actually a very pleasant morning. There is some cold front that is daring to try to make its way through our area and along with the time change last night ( yes we survived it none-the-worse for wear) this brave little front made its way through...although I hear that it is about to turn "Benedict Arnold" on us and in the days to come this very same cold front plans to reverse direction march back through our area to the north as a warm front. I hate fronts.

So we were sitting out there minding our own biz when the neighbour that belongs to this ocean worthy dock decides to wander out and putter around on it. We were too far away to see what he was doing, however (much to our despair) we were not too far away to see his erm...physique... stuffed into something between a speedo and short shorts.

Said neighbour is probably around our age (middle age 50 something) and has the body to prove it. Not only does he believe in bigger is better when it comes to his boat dock he also seems to have this philosophy concerning his belly. The dock is something of an eye sore? I guess would be the term. Oh it is kept in nice shape, but we have a lake here the size of a large swimming pool, the dock this good ol' boy decided to build belongs on a intra-coastal waterway leading out to the ocean or the ocean itself. He even has a boat-lift and moaring for a boat with an actual boat in it. I have a feeling that if he drops the boat in the water that it will run aground quite quickly so he just leaves it dangling there for all the world to see how financially well-off he must be. Thing is it is laughable.

So we finished our neighbour bashing and moved on to other more note worth topics one of which being that my husband in all his twelve years here in the United States has never properly experienced a true Halloween, up to and including last night. I just was not in the mood...being new to the neighbourhood and all, knowing that we would probably not get many trick or treaters, and the thoughts of the choodles barking non-stop for the 3-4 hour trick or treat time just left me "bah-humbug" about the whole thing. But when he told me that I felt a little guilty. Everyone, even a bloke from Small Town, New Zealand, should experience a real USA Halloween at least once in his/her life.

So the wheels in my head started to turn...not easy and there are a few squeeks associated with the wheels in my head but I started planning next years Halloween. All to benefit the Hubs of course. Thoughts of speedo-clad neighbour began to infiltrate my mind as much as I begged them not to and instead of my neighbour I began to see my husband in that sort of a costume. So here is the scenario for next Halloween:

We will set up a lounge chair (beach type) on the driveway, draped in a brightly coloured beach towel and a beach umbrella over it. Sand is in abundance here so might dig up a bit of that to add to the um...ambiance. Husby will dress in the appropriately choosen (by me of course) speedo, either red or blue, but defo something eye catching and of course like most middle aged men in a speedo it will be at least one size too small. We will oil him up and put zinc oxide on his nose and a cute little brimmed hat on his head for added effect. Sunglasses as well.

He is to hand out candy in this manner. Of course the real trick will be to actually find some kids who are brave enough to actually come within the few feet of him it will take to do the trick or treating. But I think I can bribe a few if I start working on it now.

Needless to say I think he is sorry he brought the while thing up...

I have choodles

2009-10-31T17:16:00.006-04:00

These are my doggies, they are easily distracted

In order of apperance : Rikki (Lhaso somthing) Chili and Cheddar brothers and choodles

Cheddar, upclose and personal in all his humiliation after his much needed bath

This is post bath time today, they like to get on my bed and use the comforter as a towel.

My mother reads my blog and told me that I need to put a picture of the doggies up so everyone will know who I am talking about. Since I am a good girl and always listen to my mother (cough) I will do as I am told.

Meet my doggies. They are known as choodles. Well two of them are the eldest one is a Lhasa something or other. Choodles AKA: poo-chi's, Poohuahua's, chipoopoo's or any other combination of chihuahua/poodle you can think of. I personally like Choodle rolls of the tongue easy enough and always makes people scratch their heads and go "a Wha....?"

Anyway they are oh-so happy to meet you, in fact Chili just pooped on the patio floor as a tribute to being included in my blog...yippee

Newsflash: It rained

2009-10-30T10:08:00.004-04:00

Will you look at that!

And I just got through washing all my windows and screens (and believe me there are ALOT of them) last weekend!!

HAH HAH Just kidding!!! This is dew disguised as rain...fitting for Halloween isnt it. It didn't rain, no ladies and gentleman readers this is simply dew. The thing that has become my most hated enemy. You know what they say though, keep your friends close and your enemies closer...I have no choice in this matter really, dew is something that seems to seek out living things to cling to and if it can't get to you it will cling to your windows, doors, screens and anything else outside pleading to be let in.

I have found that it, in addition to human contact and nurturing that it really enjoys dogs and sadly, dogs don't seem to mind dew And sand and dirt and grass and all manner of vegetation likes to be taken along for the ride ... thus the reason I am constantly washing dogs feet and legs...and this weekend we get to do the whole body treatment. Is it futile? of course, but at least it gives me some peace for a few hours before I have to take them out again.

Sorry gotta go now got dog feet to wash.

Spring forward, fall back, or is it the other way around

2009-10-29T12:48:00.003-04:00

Amongst all the other things I have to adjust to coming from west to east is that I now get to experience the time change. This coming weekend we fall back...or is it fall forward? Fall over? Fall down....I dunno.

I have done this time change thing before and I don't really care for it.

In Arizona, where I come from, we don't observe daylight savings in the summer - oh we used to a long, long, LONG time ago, around the time that dinosaurs roamed the earth, but then the people who decide such things, decided that Arizona has enough sun, no need to increase the rate at which the sidewalks can fry eggs. I also think that the decision to stop daylight savings coincided with the electric company starting their endless rate hikes. So it has been a while since I have had to remember to change the clock Saturday night before I go to bed.

I like the inconvenience of having to wake up the next morning to find the rest of the world has adjusted an hour one way or the other and we have remained the same. This inconvenience was never more pronounced then in TV programming. You see in the city I come from not only do we have local TV stations as well as those that come in from Phoenix (some three hours drive from us) but we also got a few California (Los Angeles) stations, so just about the time I would get the TV schedule down and memorized to watch the few favourites that I have, everything would change and I would have to relearn it all again, but I was ok with this - it gave my mind something to do every six months, sort of a challenge see how quick I could relearn the on air times for various programmes.

Somehow there was a comfort in all of this, a sort of security. Sort of like that saying, "I will keep my head when all else around me is falling apart" I was secure in my little world of remaining the same time and everyone else having to adjust an hour. Even if it was a bit of a hassle for me.

Another fact to this time change is that part of the year we are the same time as California and Las Vegas which is ok, BUT the other half of the year we are an hour ahead of them, consequently if you leave for a weekend away in either destination you get a whole extra hour to spend there! An extra hour in Las Vegas could mean the difference between winning 5$ or 500$. Of course leaving said destination to get back home you loose an hour, but who cares when you have just won 500$.

So now I am like the rest of the country, no longer unique, no longer able to look forward to going to bed on that saturday night not worrying about the time change in my little corner of the world, all programming will remain the same no changes there. No where to drive, at least not close by, that once you cross state lines automatically you get an hour added to your life.

I have never liked being like everyone else.

Red-eye tour

2009-10-28T09:55:00.006-04:00

Enlarge this picture by clicking on it for full effect, go on I dare you....

I am slowly meeting my neighbours. They are a colourful lot, but I am coming to expect that from Florida residents. Aside from the consistant droning of the nightly ( well ok maybe not EVERY night) vector control truck that passes through the neighbourhood (Mosquito fogger) the other sound I am getting used to is the colourful language being yelled at each other as the neighbour's mower hits yet another rock or stick in his yard and his cigarette chewing, big haired, wearing a bra-as-a-shirt, wife bellows at him to shut the F*** up. But this is not really fair. This is just one neighbour and they live two doors down from us.

The neighbour on our immediate right ( facing the house cuz I have yet to figure out where north, south, east, or west is) packed up her house in the middle of the night one night and moved out. Come to find out she is walking away from her house facing foreclosure. The neighbour across the street is nice and has two little doggies that I hope my doggies can become friends with. These neighbours are the type that take every last piece of junk they can find and store it somewhere in or outside of their house. I figured this out when my husband and I put out a very old rickety dinning room table with four chairs on the street with a "Free for the taking" sign on it and said neighbours came running up with unabashed glee on their faces asking if they could have it. Trust me, this was no great find, in fact I told Mike he should chop it up into kindling - if we had a fire place.

The neighbours on the immediate left seem nice enough, they are New Yawkers, transplants and they like to take little tours around the neighbourhood on their riding lawn mower. (bare in mind their yard is about the size of perhaps 10 square feet so having a riding mower is rather over-kill of you ask me) They have 2 perfectly nice cars in their drive way so I am not sure what this "lawn-mower touring" is all about. Maybe they have designated themselves the lawn mowing police and if they see any offenders they go ahead and do the job themselves. We live in a somewhat loosely governed HOA, so I am sure that there is a convenant that says you must manicure your lawns on a routine basis...or the lawn mower police will do it for you, and you WILL BE CHARGED.

So we were out talking to the neighbours the other day - the ones who collect, erm...antiques...and of course I asked all the appropriate questions and was duly informed of every excrutiating minutae of all manner of detail concerning most of the people that lived within eye sight. "Becareful of "them"" she warned pointing at the neighbour kitty corner to me "they have about 10 big dogs that like to roam the neighbourhood" and "those people over there they have a huge backyard and have loads of parties that keep us up all night" "Oh you see her? that one down the block around the corner and 4 miles up? ...." well you get the picture she is the neighbourhood busy body.

Still she has some awfully cute doggies, and her husband is very nice...the quiet type that is always over shadowed by his more outgoing wife. So we finished out "get to know the new neighbours" chat and were parting ways when she managed to yell over her shoulder at us "watch out for the alligators!"

I stopped dead in my tracks and glared at my husband. The one thing that scares me most is that we will have to deal with alligators coming out of the lake, and apparently my fears are not unfounded. My husband always poo-pooed me saying no way, its to residential here. So I called her back over and I asked her to tell me more about this and she was, of course, happy to. "oh dont be too concerned, they pulled the big whopper one, out of the lake last summer. You remember that one dont you Doug ( speaking to her husband) I think he ate a kid or something, but anyway there is still a smaller one that has been seen now and then patrolling the lake looking for unsuspecting poopy ducks to feast on, and dogs and cats and small children..."

Great. My dogs have been IN that lake. True not by choice, but they still like to go to the edge of the water and have a good sniff.

"But dont worry too much" she goes on, "mating season just finished so they are more docile now, and they make noises too"

I guess this would be the sound of slurp and yum as they are swallowing their dinner.

So now I am going to great lengths to keep myself and my dogs as far from the edge of the lake as I can and at night time I take a flash light out scouring the waters edge for the red glowing eyes that indicate I or my little dogs are being hunted....I learned this from a red eye tour we took one vacation to florida. We were taken to the everyglades on one of those airboats in search of alligators and the eyes do glow a very crimson red when you spot one with a flashlight.

Handy knowledge to have here in swampland.

Letting pictures do the talking

2009-10-27T11:03:00.006-04:00

I am wordless today, too much to think about so this is my alter-ego doing the communicating....enjoy

View from my living room past the Florida room to the Lake, Cheddar (dog with little man syndrome is taking it all in

Hawk on the tree in back yard

Bird sunning himself on the dock two doors down, still learning the birds around here so not sure what this guy is