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Saturday, February 26, 2005
PLEASE COPY AND COMPLETE THIS QUESTIONAIRE!
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LAST MOVIE YOU SAW IN A THEATER? Elektra. I loved it, too.
BOOK YOU ARE READING? I'm reading a Science Fiction Magazine with various stories by different authors.
FAVORITE BOARD GAME? I don't play them anymore, but when I did, I liked SORRY.
FAVORITE MAGAZINE? I like so many! The STAR, and the ENQUIRER, are in the top 10.
FAVORITE SMELLS? I like roses, vanilla, musk mixed with jasmine.
FAVORITE FOODS? Well, I adore all Asian food, (just about). Second has to be Mexican, and then Italian main stream.
FAVORITE SOUNDS? The sound of money crisp and abundant. No, really it's my grandkids, playing.
WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD? Losing family or friends to death. Especially when they are young.
WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE UP? I thank GOD, for the day, and then I pray for the whole family and my friends.
FAVORITE FAST FOOD PLACE? Several really, Panda Express, Alberto's, and Jose's.
FUTURE CHILD'S NAME? I already have three. Gilbert, LaShane and Cherokee.
FINISH THIS STATEMENT. "IF I HAD A LOT OF MONEY"? GOD knows what I'd do with it, so this isn't necessary to discuss here.
DO YOU DRIVE FAST? When I first got my driver's license, probably. I don't drive anymore.
DO YOU SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL? No, I left him two and 1/2 years ago.
STORMS--COOL OR SCARY? Too many bad things have happened because of storms, now I think they are scary.
WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CAR? We had a lime green and black Chevrolet Super Sport Impala, 1963.
FAVORITE DRINK? Strawberry steamer, diet sodas, and once in awhile, vodka and diet soda.
FINISH THIS STATEMENT, "IF I HAD THE TIME", I am disabled, and not employed, so I have all the time in the world. Still, I do nothing.
DO YOU EAT THE STEMS ON THE BROCCOLI? Yes'm, I love the whole flowerette and stems. Yum.
IF YOU COULD DYE YOU HAIR ANY COLOR, WHAT WOULD BE YOUR CHOICE? I've done my hair many colors. Now, I would just like it to turn pure white, not dingy, but pure white.
NAME ALL THE DIFFERENT CITIES/TOWNS YOU HAVE LIVED IN. Born and raised in Riverside, CA. Lived in the Eastside, the LaSierra/Arlington, and then the Hillside, areas of Riverside. Moved, as an adult, to Palo Cedro, CA. Lived in Cottonwood, CA. Lived in Red Bluff, CA. Lived in Whitmore, CA., and Anderson/Happy Valley, CA., area for a bit. then I lived in Redding, CA., and later in Orange, CA., for a short while also. Now, I'm back in Riverside, CA. (HOME). Hopefully to stay, until I die. Yes, LORD!! Amen.
NAME ALL THE STATES/COUNTRIES YOU HAVE VISITED. Nevada, to Las Vegas and Reno. I don't remember any other places.
GLASS, HALF FULL OR HALF EMPTY? In reality, my mind is forever reminded that it is both. I perfer to be optomistic, though.
FAVORITE SPORT TO WATCH? Acting.
ONE NICE THING ABOUT THE PERSON THAT SENT THIS TO YOU? Brian, he is alright in my books, he married my daughter's best friend, and they have two beautiful daughters, and he seems to be making a pleasant and comfortable, life for the four of them. I really like him.
WHAT IS UNDER YOUR BED? the bottom most of my mattresses sits right on the floor. No frame.
TOILET PAPER, OVER OR UNDER? I could care LESS. How ever it goes on the aparatus.
SEAT UP OR DOWN? Now that's a different story, we keep it down, so we don't fall in when we go in half sleep.
MORNING PERSON, OR NIGHT OWL? My three children, (all adults now), and I are night owls. I'm doing this questionaire at 3:57 a.m.
OVER EASY, OR SUNNY SIDE UP? In a restaurant, I usually get them scrambled, but at home, with toast, or biscuits, or grits, it has to be sunny side up.
FAVORITE PLACE TO RELAX? On my bed, watching SciFi, some good movie, Christian TV, or even reading.
FAVORITE PIE? When I was younger, it was my Mamma's Lemon Mirangue pie, later, it was Sweet potato pies. (especially my own with lots of broken pieces of walnuts in them)! Yummy!
OF ALL THE PEOPLE THAT YOU E-MAILED THIS QUESTIONAIRE TO WHO IS THE MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? Well, Cherokee did, on her blog. That is where I am getting the questions from right now. After this, I am going to go watch TV!!
LEAST LIKELY? EVERYBODY ELSE I sent it to.!!!!!!! No body, likes to have fun anymore, they are all too busy trying to look like their time is, "so important"! Posers!
~~~~~~~~~~Pamela~~~~~~~~~~~
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Friday, February 25, 2005
52. GOD'S spirit can't always strive with man. Read: Genesis. 6:3.
53. GOD can't deal with us according to our sin. Read: Psalm. 103:10-11.
54. GOD can't be lost. Read: St. John 14:6.
55. GOD can't make a mistake. Read: Psalm. 119:75.
56. GOD can't let you down. Read: Jude. 1:24-25.
57. GOD can't be left without a witness. Read: I Kings. 19:18.
58. GOD can't give imperfect gifts. Read: James. 1:17.
59. GOD'S power can't be stopped. Read: Daniel. 4:35.
60. GOD'S WORD can't change. Read: Psalm 119:89.
61. GOD can't lose. Read: Psalm. 98:1.
62. GOD'S Kingdom can't be destroyed. Read: Psalm. 145:13.
63. GOD can't be unforgiving to those who ask for forgiveness. Read: I John. 1:9.
64. GOD can't stop thinking about me. Read: Psalm. 139:17-18.
65. GOD'S plan for my life can't be bad. Read: Jeremiah. 29:11.
66. GOD can't break a promise. Read: Psalm. 89:34.
67. GOD can't make junk. Read: Genesis. 1:31.
68. GOD can't be impotent. Read: Revelation. 19:6.
69. GOD can't be selfish. Read: Romans. 8:32.
70. GOD can't be dispassionate. Read. Lamentations. 3:22.
71. GOD can't accept sacrifices when HE asks for obedience. Read: I Samuel. 15:22.
72. GOD can't be the author of confusion. Read: I Corinthians. 14:33.
73. GOD can't be un-holy. Read: Isaiah. 6:3.
74. GOD'S church can't be defeated. Read: Matthew. 16:18.
75. GOD can't be unfruitful. Read: St. John. 15:5.
76. GOD can't be surprised. Read: Job. 23:10.
77. GOD can't accept less than my whole heart. Read: Deuteronomy. 6:5.
78. GOD can't be worshipped enough for who HE is. Read: Revelations. 4:8.
79. GOD can't be surpassed. Read: Isaiah. 44:6.
80. GOD can't be overthrown. Read: Isaiah. 9:7.
81. GOD can't be overruled. Read: Psalm. 119:90-91.
82. GOD can't be matched. Read: Psalm. 89:6.
83. GOD can't be pleased without faith. Read: Hebrews. 11:6.
84. GOD can't be fooled. Read: Hebrews. 4:12.
85. GOD'S righteousness can't end. Read: Psalm. 119:142.
86. GOD'S burdens can't be heavy. Read: Matthew. 11:30.
87. GOD can't let HIS people's prayers go unanswered. Read: II Chronicles. 7:14.
88. GOD can't ask you to do something HE can't do. Read: Philippians. 2:13.
89. GOD can't be counselled. Read: Romans. 11:34.
90. GOD can't be unfaithful. Read: Lamentations. 3:23.
91. GOD can't be figured out. Read: Ecclesiastes. 11:5.
92. GOD'S salvation can't be earned. Read. Ephesians. 2:8-9.
93. GOD can't be given less than all of me. Read: Romans. 12:1.
94. GOD can't be superseded. Read: Colossians. 1:17.
95. GOD can't be less than gracious. Read: Psalm. 145:8.
96. GOD can't be impressed. Read. Isaiah. 64:6.
97. GOD cn't be insufficient. Read. Ephesians. 3:20.
98. GOD can't be blamed if we don't make it to heaven. Read: Hebrews. 2:3.
99. GOD can't take no for an answer. Read: Jonah. 1:17.
100. GOD can't fail. Read: Deuteronomy. 31:6.
101. GOD can't be praised enough.
Praise ye the LORD. Praise GOD in HIS snnctuary, praise HIM in the firmament of HIS power.
Praise HIM for HIS mighty acts: praise HIM according to HIS excellent greatness.
Praise HIM with the sound of the trumpet: praise HIM with the psaltery and harp.
Praise HIM with the timbrel and dance: praise HIM with stringed insturments and organs.
Praise HIM upon the loud cymbals: praise HIM upon the high sounding cymbals.
Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD.
Praise ye the LORD!! Amen. Psalm. 150.
~~~~~~~~~~Pamela~~~~~~~~~~~
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Thursday, February 24, 2005
I am maturing, and I didn't even notice for days! On February 22nd (1970), I met Richard, and we married the next year. This year is our 35th wedding anniversary, and I didn't even get nostalgic, about us being separated, on the 22nd, like I usually had been doing every year,(since I left, in 2002).!! Our actual wedding anniversary is May 9th, and now that I thought about it, I might remember it, and get melancholy again. (Just because of not being aware of it this month)! Makes perfect sense to me! Did I hear from my estranged husband? No, but then, Cherokee and I, did have our telephone service turned off. Why? Well, we were getting alot of crank calls, and there were multi-level marketers calling all times of the day and night, which both my daughter Cherokee, and I hate. That not withstanding, relationships are so strange. You can live with someone everyday for over 30 years, (well almost everyday, I was forgetting the days and nights that Richard was probably with his other girl-friends, and even his other family, (a girlfriend and two daughters), or even just out gambling)! and still not know them. I truly didn't know what to expect out of him at all, day to day. So, I just overlooked it, and kept quiet.
Now, just writing it down makes me feel sick to my stomach! Even though the daughters he fathered by this other woman, (Shirley), are both adults now!! It still sickens me, because of my own apathy, and fear of change. What would my life have been like if I hadn't, 1. Forgiven him,(both times he impregnated her), and 2. Stayed married to him? I think that this forgiving, (or really apathetic), lifestyle, had a lot to do with my bad health later on, and how negatively I always had pictured myself, as a woman, as a mother and person, in general. I felt I was getting what I deserved, Karma. My daughter, Cherokee and my niece, Michelle, think that all us brother and sisters, (because of our Goodwin side), have these personality, and health problems, stemming from when our Daddy passed away, way back in 1959. We were all so young then, and it was a scary thing for us to lose our father, and wonder what would happen to all of us in the ensuing years. When we never got any therapy, or help, we didn't deal with out feelings at all. It was as if it didn't impact us kids at all, people only helped my mother, or only seemed concerned with her, and we were just supposed to "Handle it". We had no trust in our Mother's ability to take care of us, as the bread winner!
Especially when you had never seen your mother do any kind of "out of the house" employment!! (but), She did take good care of her children domestically. Still, she just had so many kids, where would she get money?! I know I sure didn't think she would be able to financially take care of all nine of us. At that time, I didn't know anything about, "Social Security", or "personal life insurance policies". Which, thank GOD, my daddy had both. The man worked two jobs, all of our lives, at J C Penney's, in the stock-room, and at the Loring Building in downtown Riverside, as an elevator operator.!! That's probably why he got pneumonia in the first place, and died. Working to take care of all of us. (but), I was only 11, well nearly 12 years old then. Thinking about not having money enough, kept me awake at nights, for a long time, after that. It damaged me, mentally, physically, (I gained alot of weight after my daddy died), and in ways that I don't even know, or understand, to this day. Yet, one thing I do know, it skewered the way I looked at all marriage! I thought that it meant that, IF I married, I had to stay married to "whomever", I did marry, for as long as the person I married, wanted to stay married to me! To be safe, and secure, I had to marry a healthy man, who had a JOB. Still for many years, I totally was against getting married at all. I was adamant. I saw too many bad marriages, and my mother never re-married, she had boyfriends, only two, at that, but didn't marry again. Now, by seventeen, I wanted a child, but not the husband, or the married life. I was tired of school too, so I got pregnant, and I quit school. (I went and got my GED though, while he was still a baby, so I could work). So, I had my beautiful baby, by a man 12 years older than me, and one that I thought was intelligent, and handsome, but he didn't love me, and I didn't love him!! I was so happy, (my mother was disappointed and thought I was too young to have made that choice), but she loved my little boy so much!! She let the subject drop, about who was his father. Then later, she was too sick to comment, when I became pregnant the second time, with Richard as the father, he had a job, he liked my son, and he stayed around, alot. When my little boy and I moved in with him, he started bugging me, over and over to marry him, and he was working on me all the time, he even asked his "preacher father", to talk to me, to get me to marry him. His father had grown up with my parents in the same town! They started talking about me and Richard getting married, "it was the right thing to do", they both said. Then my mother died. She died before my second child was even born, and only then, did I even contemplate marriage to him. That old fear rose up again, even though I was working, and had my own income!!! She died in January, 1971. I had our baby in March of 1971. I married Richard that May. I was never happy after that, 'cause he acted like he "owned" me then. Yet, I married a man that I never really knew, and one that lied constantly. One that rarely stayed home, went out with his male cousins, whenever they came by, and who did whatever he wanted to do, regardless of how it effected me, my son, or the two daughters we eventually had together. I just didn't think about it anymore, I did it to myself, didn't I?
I was in thrall to him, and my family and friends didn't understand how I could live the way that we did. I didn't do anything that I thought he might disapprove of. I waited for him to come home, and wouldn't go anywhere, unless my baby was out of milk, or diapers, and I needed them. He was the absentee parent, when he came home, the kids acted like Santa Claus had come in, and I did everything else, I raised the kids and did all the work in the apartment. Except he did like to go to the kid's school functions. I don't know why? Parent/Teacher conferences? He was there. Open House night at school, he was there. Programs? He was there. Awards shows? He was there. That was odd, even to me, but I never questioned it at all. He probably did the same for his other two daughters also, I never asked. We had a few times all together, that were great, and we even had lots of fun, sometimes. I used to just concentrate on those occasions, and forget the bad,(and the lonely) times. Right now, my mind is in such confusion, I don't know if I am happy, to be away from Rich, or if I really feel badly, as if he has died and I am in mourning. I really don't know how to feel.
We also lost so many memories and so many personal items, because of his mismanagement of his funds! The fact that he didn't even bother to tell any of us that he had lost the ability to pay for the storage units that our things were stored in. Due to various moves we made over the years. He would never give us the information we needed to get into the storages, and get our belongings, nor did he give us the opportunity to help him pay for the storages, when he could no longer pay for them. He just didn't mention that fact to any of us at all. (Until after all the photos, furniture, our children's childhood momentos, et'c, was lost). By this time, I just chalked it up to more proof that Rich was himself, mentally disturbed, and apathetic, towards us, and our wants and needs. Rich had been down here in Riverside many times, over the seven years we worked at those group homes, and lived up North, (with me making the plans , when we came down to visited the family). yet, only once after I left him!!! (and Cherokee and I moved back here). He always had too much other stuff to do, places to be, and he wouldn't get, or let anyone else get, their posessions out of the storage units! It was strange, and LaShane, (our oldest daughter) was thinking once, that he may have sold the contents already, and that this was why he wouldn't let us go to the storage, or get anything out of them.
Oh well, I feel abit better, even if no one reads this post, it is so good to write this stuff down and re-read it. I know that I did everything I could, and was capable of, to give my children a somewhat, "normal" up bringing. Also, that I tried with all my heart to give my husband what he seemed to need, in order to be the type of man it seemed like he wanted to be. What that was, as I look back on it, though, is still a mystery to me.
~~~~~~~~~~Pamela~~~~~~~~~~~
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1. GOD can't lie. Read: Hebrews. 6:18.
2. GOD can't be given a problem HE can't solve. Read: Matthew 19:26.
3. GOD can't leave you. Read: Genesis. 28:15.
4. GOD can't forsake you. Read: Hebrews 13:5.
5. GOD can't despise a contrite heart. Read: Psalm. 51:17.
6. GOD can't allow HIS people to be ashamed. Read: Joel. 2:26.
7. GOD can't give HIS glory to anyone else. Read: Isaiah. 42:8.
8. GOD can't sleep. Read: Psalm 121:4.
9. GOD can't stop loving you. Read: Jeremiah. 31:3.
10. GOD can't go unnoticed. Read: Psalm. 19:1.
11. GOD can't stand sin. Read: Isaiah. 59:2.
12. GOD can't leave work unfinished. Read: Philippians. 1:6.
13. GOD can't forget about you. Read: Isaiah. 49:15.
14. GOD can't be shut out of anywhere. Read: Psalm. 139:7-10.
15. GOD can't neglect HIS children. Read: Matthew. 7:11.
16. GOD can't be put on a time schedule. Read: Acts. 1:7.
17. GOD can't be given a job HE can't handle. Read: Jeremiah.32:17.
18. GOD can't get weary. Read: Isaiah. 40:28.
19. GOD can't be unknown to those who want to know HIM. Read: Jeremiah.29:13.
20. GOD can't lose anything. Read: St. John. 6:39.
21. GOD can't make a loser. Read: II Corinthians. 2:14.
22. GOD can't be poor. Read: Psalm.104:24.
23. GOD can't give us a spirit of fear. Read: II Timothy. 1:7.
24. GOD can't be unloving. I John. 4:8.
25. GOD can't swear by anyone but HIMSELF, and HE swore that HE would bless you.
Read: Hebrews 6:13-14.
26. GOD'S love can't be measured. Read: St. John. 3:16.
27. GOD can't be equalled. Read: Isaiah. 43:11.
28. GOD can't be silenced. Read: Psalm. 50:3.
29. GOD'S WORD can't pass away. Read: Matthew. 24:35.
30. GOD can't be understood by Human understanding. Read: Romans. 11:33.
31. GOD'S sheep can't be plucked from HIS HANDS. Read: St. John. 10:28.
32. GOD can't be imperfect. Read: Matthew. 5:48.
33. GOD can't think like you. Read: Isaiah:55:8-9.
34. GOD can't be prejudiced. Read: Acts:10:34-35.
35. GOD can't be beaten at giving. Read: Luke:6:38.
36. GOD can't be uncaring. Read: Psalm. 103:13.
37. GOD can't be seen by the natural eye. Read: II Corthians. 5:7.
38. GOD can't be late. Read: St. John. 11:21,23.
39. GOD can't be second in your life. Read: Exodus.20:3.
40. GOD can't leave you comfortless. Read: St. John. 14:18.
41. GOD can't forget those who serve HIM. Read: Hebrews. 6:10.
42. GOD can't be divided. Read: St. John.10:30.
43. GOD can't remember sins HE'S forgotten. Read: Isaiah. 43:25.
44. GOD can't endure a proud look. Read. Psalm.101:5.
45. GOD'S mercy can't end. Read. Psalm. 107:1.
46. GOD'S NAME can't be taken in vain. Read: Exodus. 20:7.
47. GOD can't allow anything to separate you from HIS LOVE. Read: Romans. 8:38-39.
48. GOD'S peace can't be understood. Read: Philippians. 4:7.
49. GOD's WORD can't return to HIM void; it will accomplish what HE WILLS. Read:
Isaiah. 55:11.
50. GOD can't be likened to anything. Read: Exodus. 20:4.
51. GOD can't change. Read: Hebrews. 13:8.
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TO BE CONTINUED. Please check back. GOD bless you. Amen.
~~~~~~~~~~Pamela~~~~~~~~~~~
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Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Today is wednesday, 02/23/2005. I got up early, for me. Around 2:30 p.m., but I didn't go to sleep until nearly 11:00 a.m. I laid up in bed, and watched "Harry Potter", (the first one, about the Sorcerer's Stone). I still wasn't sleepy, so I watched the second included DVD, about the special effects in the movie, and some games. That was fun. I hate going to bed, but then I hate getting up, too. Dam-it!! I am too young, (at only 57!!!!!, to hurt 24/7). I cry for young, and little, kids, that have chronic pain!!! Yes, I really do, and hey, I did this to myself, I know. Diabetes, is (an ugly), and a sometimes "self-caused disease". Even though, I knew that several people in my mother's family had what they called, "sugar", I didn't know what the hell that even meant. They must not have known either, 'cause not one of them, (during the time I was adult enough to understand, that some illnesses ARE genetically more possible to contract), mentioned that, "bad diet choices", and even being moderately overweight, were some of the leading causes for it. Why didn't they know? My great-grandfather Strickland, had to have his leg amputated. My Aunt (also a Strickland) is in her 70s, and she has had it for over 25 years. She was a sister to my deceased mother, and two of their sisters also died relatively young, and both were diabetic. Sometimes, I just cannot talk to her, I don't even know why? I just can't. I think that she could have warned me long ago, I guess. My own parents died kinda young too. My Dad, at 41 years old. He was born with a Rheumatic heart, and lived long past the time it was thought he would live, and he fathered 7 children, to boot. My Mom, at 49 years old. She had cancer, (all over), skin, lung, breast, cervical, name it, she had it, and we didn't even know if she had diabetes. She was so sick, why even look for it??! Still she gave birth to 10 children altogether, all healthy, and bouncing babies. The only one who died before her, was our brother, Robbie, who was killed in VietNam, at 21 years old, in 1966. The rest of the nine of us are still kicking, yet, some kicking stronger than others.
Besides being anti-doctor, and pro-stupid, I just don't want to bother with my health care any longer. Maybe that sounds apathetic, (yeah, it is). I've already asked GOD to forgive me. but, I can't work up any kind of enthusiasm anymore, on getting as "healthy as I can be". I started out doing it. I worked hard at it. I took the vitamins, and the minerals, (from Dr. Julian Whitaker, who sends out these daily packs of vitamins, for the whole month in this big canister), at $50.00 a pop too. Then, I started passing kidney stones!(yes, plural)! The first thing the urologist asked was, did I take this, or that? Yes, I took this, and that, and the other, too!!, everyday! Plus at that time, I was eating strictly vegetarian, drinking diet everything, plus green tea, water by the gallon, I was working at taking care of Ryder and Malachi, so, I was exercising daily also, still I got kidney stones. 11 in four months. Then, I had to have "Extra-corporeal shockwave Lithotripsy" 'cause I had a stone in my kidney, "the size of a fifty cent piece, dense as a peach pit"!!! Lovely pain, terrific experience! No more vitamins, or minerals, though. Thank you very much. Oh no, the doctor wasn't 100% sure that they had caused the kidney stones, but, I had never had any BEFORE I started taking the packets of various vitamins and minerals. Gymna Sylvestra, Taurine, B4,B6,B12, L-Carnatine, some stuff I can't remember! Plus, I was taking liquid oxygen, (drops, in water), vitamin C, and E. I WANTED TO TAKE CARE OF MYSELF!!! You know?
For awhile, after all the stones. I couldn't walk. Let me clarify, I couldn't walk without pain. To this day, my groin hurts constantly. the urologist had to put a "stint" in my duct from my kidney to my bladder, to keep it from collapsing, that may have started that pain. I tell myself, it is all in my head. Now, there is neuropathy, 'cause I, not any doctor, stopped taking my medication, at first it was glucophage, (along with insulin, that was after I got a kidney infection right after I had been diagnosed, and I waited three weeks before I went to the hospital, 'cause I figured it was food poisoning), and I thought it was making me sick. By the time I got to the hospital, I was running 875 blood sugar readings (Md/dl).
The doctor said I should have come in in a diabetic coma. Nah. I lived. Yet that infection made me have to start using insulin. Later, a doctor in Northern CA., prescribed me some Rezulin. I refused to take it. It was recalled. People died. I tested, I took my insulin. I gained 60 or so pounds!!! Then a dietician up North, told me that I could take the insulin an hour before I ate, or two hours after I ate. I started losing the weight again. When I went to a doctor in Riverside, he put me on Actos, and in a few months, I gained back like 40lbs.,or more. I have stopped taking that stuff too. Well, I have stopped taking all of the medication he prescribed for me. Except the insulin! I know I still need that. I just balked at being this "trial and error" experiment to him. I once went to an alternative practicioner in Grand Terrace, CA., around 2001, and had the "drip", (it was just hydrogen peroxide). And he gave me vitamin B12 shots, and sugar buster pills, but those treatments cost so much!!! Before I knew it, I was over $400.00 in debt, and making "only $15.00 a month", payments was keeping me there! I don't know if it helped me anyway? I lost alot of weight, 'cause his diet didn't let you eat anything!!! No potatoes, no bread, (except 7th Day Adventist Sprouted Wheat Bread, which I had never heard of), no carrots, no tomatoes, everything was, in his opinion,
"too much starch, too much sugar"!!! I quit going to him, but I did pay off my debt!! Yaah, me!!! Anyway, now I travel over the internet, 'cause, it hurts to walk, to ride in my wheelchair, to sit, to stand, everything! Yet, I don't give up. I still get to travel everywhere!!! (and read foreign people's blogs), I comment on some, others I just read and shake my head at, some people will even answer me back, which I find sooooo cool! I like that, and, I have met lots of CRAZY folk too. Smile. Hey y'all Everybody.
~~~~~~~~~~Pamela~~~~~~~~~~~
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Sunday, February 20, 2005
Read MATTHEW. 24: (The whole chapter).
Part of this scripture tells of rumors of war, and pestilance, plagues, all sorts of nasty stuff! This story caught my eye, on MSN.com news site.
THOUSANDS FLEE AS PLAUGE KILLS HUNDREDS IN CONGO. Nothing much just a highly contagious disease, spreading among mine workers in the far off land of Africa. Nothing for us over here in the Great Land of America, to worry our safe little heads about, right? One never knows. This has been going on for at least two months. The WHO, World Health Organization is just now, (this weekend) dispatching a team of people/experts, to try and contain the spread of the disease. Wonderful news, right? Of course it is. They didn't even have to tell us, except that of the 7,000 workers in the mine, (located in Zobia, which is located 186 miles north of Kisagani, the third largest city in the Congo), many had already fled the work place.
They are though asking around to various hospitals to alert them if anyone comes into their care with a highly contagious illness.
So, it would seem that they are "right on top", of it! Kisangani is also a major trading center, right on the Congo river. We'll pray that none of the infected workers made it that far though. This is just something we will have to learn to live with hearing in the news. "Wars, rumors of wars. Pestilance, plauges. Earthquakes, in diverse places". These are said to be, "the beginning of birth pains". Not quite the end of the world, as we know it, but more or less, the beginning of the end of the world as we have heretofore known it. I thank GOD, that I know that the only way we can be secure in the days ahead is to have accepted JESUS the CHRIST, as my own personal SAVIOR and LORD. HE told us over and over, "HE is the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE". HE is the LIGHT of the world. Amen. The things that have been happening lately have been horrible, and they have happened to christians, as well as to those who aren't. You have to know, just becoming christian doesn't keep you from the same troubles as the rest of the world. It just let's you know that when all the troubles are over there will still be somewhere for us all to be. That there will be LIFE after this life. I know, because I have read it with my own eyes, that unto every living human there is death to face, and after that death, still comes a judgement. Some to everlasting life, and some to a separation from that after life, which is GOD/JESUS/HOLY SPIRIT, in ONE. That is the awfulness of dying without having given your life to HIM WHOM will make those of us that have given our lives to HIM, live again. What JOY!! There will be no tears, no pain, no illness, none of the stressfilled events of this world, that make us the hurried, harried, unfulfilled, angry, inhumane, sad, murderous, depressed, people that we look into the mirror and see everyday on earth.
Even those people who see themselves and happy and without care, would do well to give their lives to "the ONLY SON of THE MOST HIGH GOD and CREATOR of Heaven and Earth, and all the UNIVERSE that is, to continue their blessed lives with HIM, without end. Infinity. I love the fact that I was allowed to even live to the age that I am, and to have had the beautiful, and even some of the painful experiences that I have had. I wouldn't have realised that I needed a SAVIOR, without them. Now, as I still am able to look around and see the events that are unfolding right now, at this time in history. I shake my head in awe, that every intelligent human being living, that is capable of understanding the everyday news, in each and every country around the world, isn't running towards salvation with every bit of energy in their bodies! It's like reaching to pick up a glowing white hot ember, with the completly mistaken idea that it would not burn, because you DO NOT believe that it IS hot! OPEN YOUR EYES!!!!!! People, the beginning of the end, of the world as we have known it, is here. Not because of a few incidences of events, happening in far and widely separated places. It is just time. Because the 6,000 years is almost up.
~~~~~~~~~~Pamela~~~~~~~~~~~
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Saturday, February 19, 2005
Here I am with Gio (Stuart), the MC of Domino Effect. Which is the thursday night "Open Mic" event. He is also Irene's boyfriend. We have kinda adopted him into our family also. He is so funny, and he can rap! I mean off the top of his head! He is also serious about evangelising, and getting people "saved", through his talent. He is an all around good guy, and totally crazy with talent. There would not be any "Open Mic", night without Gio. (Short for Giovanni). He's hecka cute!!!!! Hmmmmm?
~~~~~~~~~~Pamela~~~~~~~~~~~
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This is Cherokee and Irene Rodriguez, a christian singer, and good friend of ours. She often performs at Plush, and let me tell you she has a great voice! She is just a tiny little cutey with a HUGE voice! When she first sat down at the piano, to play and sing, and that voice came out of her? We all said, "WOW"!!! We have kinda adopted her into our own family. She's one of the "Plush celebs." By the way, Cherokee should have shown the T-shirt she has on! It was an "IDWEEB", design! (Individuals Deemed Worthy of Elevated Existence and Beyond). These are T-shirts that Cherokee,(Michelle and Charlene) designed, and sell. ($12.00). All sizes, (except childrens). Three different designs, so far: Sun, BarCode and Logo. Many colors available, yellow, pink, green, black, et'c. I'll ask her to take photos of all three designs, and post them. Maybe next time?
~~~~~~~~~~Pamela~~~~~~~~~~~
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This is Michelle again! So, Cherokee is taking this picture, and trying to hide behind her is her little sister, Charlene. Michelle works as a Residential manager at OliveCrest Group homes, but she, and the rest of us, still like putting in time at Plush. Yeah, it is that much fun! Charlene is so funny, and makes the time that we spend there that much more fun. She also does most of the cleaning up at the end of the Thursday night "Open Mic", event! Yaaaah, Charlene.
~~~~~~~~~~Pamela~~~~~~~~~~~
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This is a photo of Gil, and Michelle at Plush. (The hand belongs to Jeff, Gil's good friend). We go up there on thursday's and the girls work behind the counter, and give Ann and Gil (Geno), some time off. There were alot of people there, but Cherokee, and then Charlene took photos of us, as we are so photogenic! (Remember, Fullerton, CA. 207 N. Harbor Boulevard. PlushDesignLabandCafe). Visit. Open seven days a week. You won't regret it. :=)
~~~~~~~~~~Pamela~~~~~~~~~~~
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Wednesday, February 16, 2005
I've been looking at blogs on blogclicker, and bloggercrowd, and I have noticed that many of them are political! I think that that is all right, but that isn't what I want to read. I wonder about the people that only write political blogs. Do they want to have something to say, but know that they won't be heard by any of the people in politics? So they blog here, just to get the things that they feel off of their chests? I won't read them. Soon as I see any name that smacks of political position, I click away. Don't get me wrong, I do care about the condition of the minds of our leaders. The president, vice-president, even the governor of the state of California, Ahhnold S.
I pray for them, because that is my job, as a christian. I pray for them to get saved, and to do things that will help people, not just themselves! I think that realistically, none of them are going to make any difference, and isn't it funny that no matter how many people made fun of George W., he still got re-elected? I just don't believe that voting makes any difference, yeah, I heard about the electoral college. Who runs these things? We're lied to about everything else, but they're going to really tell you the honest truth about who gets elected, or how?
We don't know what is going on in the government, and by we, I mean the people who are NOT "elected officials."! Once you're in, you get to be on a different level of society. You change, "you're one of them". If you're very rich, you're already "one of them". From birth. Money does not see any colors, either. It's just who's got it, and how much you can be controlled by the "powers that be". Who are the "powers that be"? I don't know. I'm not "one of them". We see so much stuff on TV, and in movies. Like "X-file". Some of it could be true, some of it could be put out there to keep humanity in the dark, as to what is really happening. So, why get so upset about any and everything that is going on? I say, (if), there is a GOD, and HE did create heaven and earth, (and all the rest of the universe), let HIM deal with it. HE, (as the HOLY SPIRIT), says in "The WORD". "Pray for those that are in authority over you, that you may have peace". Well, obviously we aren't doing our praying. It's obvious that we think that we know better than HE does, about what should be going on! We are all one species, yet, we kill each other because of things that don't even belong to us. Like the oil, in the Mid-East. We set ourself up as Kings and Queens, and have people serve us!!! (which I think is the most idiotic thing in the world)!!! We are all just human beings, people!!!!! What makes people think that they have different, that automatically makes them ROYALTY? I know that GOD sets up Kings, and Princes. But are any of the Royals less full of crap, than any of the rest of us, who are not royalty? I get so well, actually, it is, frustrated, by all the bowing and scraping that is expected to be done in the presence of "Royalty". Most of them are addle pated as it is.
Something like what those people who are called "celebrities", expect also. No, not all of them, but we all kiss more ass for them, than for anybody else. We make jobs around celebrities, magazines devoted to their lives, their "work", their love-lives, their matings, we even make their children celebrities before they DO anything. It's sickening! I happen to love some celebs, but I won't call them "STARS". (Like my pastor, Matt Brown, of Sandals Church, says), "STARS? Those beautiful things that shine up in the night sky? Why do we call them that."? Celebrities are just, "Big bags, full of gaseous emissions."!
You know, I can act, I've been doing it all of my life! I've been one person, then another, whenever it suited me. Most people that think that they know me, don't. I don't know myself. You, too, probably act alot!! Once in awhile, I just go around hating everything!!!, and that with a smile on my face. Another time, I love everybody and enjoy everything! Yet, I will act depressed, as if I am ready to commit suicide. Just because I am skewered like that. I don't want people to know what is going on inside my head, ever. I think that I am insane!! Is it because of inbreeding? Maybe. Or, do I have Royal blood running in my veins too? Some distant royal ancestor, diddled in the "maids", or rather, (EXCUSE ME), "slaves", quarters? Then did he double diddle, in his own offspring's (of that slave's), quarters? You never know, huh? Those people diddled in their own gene pool. So, I sure don't know, 'cause I don't know my "way back" ancestors, like some Americans do. I can't trace my lineage back to the "Mayflower", or "someplace in Europe", or even "a country in Africa", or "Scotland", or "Ireland". I just look in the mirror, and see a fair complectioned Black woman, and oh yeah, I know the names, Goodwin, Strickland, Hopkins, Boswell, Davis, Cole, Dumas, where did those names come from? Why isn't there one African name in the bunch? Since they call us African-American, why don't I know where that part of my family lineage was from? Why don't I know any of their names, or what they went through to get to the "New Land"? I really just want to know "who", took away my heritage? I don't know who laid with the first of my grandparents, (before my mother's grandparents, and my father's grandparents). Who were those people that made me who I am today.
Only GOD knows. I, or anyone, could be one of the King's,(of some foreign country), illegitimate git! My Mamma used to joke and say, "Mamma's baby, daddy's maybe". 'Cause who knew, unless you're DNA was tested? I don't think that that happened much back then. Female African's wombs just got full of other nationalitie's babies, and no one thought to get the names of the various males, that had put them there. Well that is, nobody but the LORD!!! Amen.
I got way far off from politics, but to me, those themes are all in the same category, Politicians, Movie Actors, and, The Royals. People who live "off the sweat of other people's brows". Parasites. (Much loved parasites in most cases). I don't say that lightly, You know we do this to ourselves, we make them "larger than life." I make myself love them, 'cause the same SAVIOR who died for me, died for them. I pray for all of them, whether, in politics, acting, or born royalty. GOD bless their souls. HE also knows that I have done some things that would make spicy, just as much read, articles, in the Enquirer, or the Globe, or the Sun, or the Star, whatever!!, but alas, I'm just an ordinary mortal, "normal", un-news worthy. (and), I say, "Thank YOU FATHER GOD"!!!, for that. I'd much rather buy those rags to read about some other "news worthy", events, than have anyone read something bad about me, or my next door neighbor, or any member of my family, to tell you the truth. Like politicians, actors, and royals, aren't going to have to answer for all of the things that they did, and do, and never made ammends for? Oh, I think that they will. That is, unless they get saved, and honestly give their lives to JESUS. Amen? Amen!!
I sure wouldn't mind if, they asked for forgiveness, repented, changed, and being forgiven, lived good Christian lives there after. Would you?
~~~~~~~~~~Pamela~~~~~~~~~~~
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Monday, February 14, 2005
This is a photo of Richard and me. Yes, believe it! These two people conceived the two beautiful women that are in the photo with me to your left, of this blog! I look at this photo and I think, "what will happen next," with us? Richard is in Northern CA., and I am here in the "garden spot of the world", Southern CA., and there are many miles, and it seems so much more, separating us. Do we look as if we belong together? It's okay, be honest! Neither of us is 100% human! Yet, I think that I am the only one who will admit that I am from Outer Space!! I have never been "normal", so how in the world did I expect to meet and marry a man that was? (but), I know that this union was necessary, to make LaShane who she is, and Cherokee who she is, and in a somewhat different way, even though I already had my son when I met Richard, (and Geno's father, Michael R. Wormac, was just as alien as Richard is), it helped to make Geno who HE is now too. I must admit all three of them turned out great, despite our childish stupidity, and constant screw-ups, while they were in their formative years. That relationship, and marriage, was nothing short of fantasy island, without Mr. Rourke, or Tattoo! That is just something else to totally let me know that there IS a GOD in heaven, and HE does have a purpose for all of our lives. Thank YOU JESUS!! Hallelujah, Amen. :)
~~~~~~~~~~Pamela~~~~~~~~~~~
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Today is a day for "Lovers". I hope that people who have someone that loves them, realise what a wonderful thing that love is. Why does it sometime turn to something so fearful and awful? You can love someone, yet hate the person that they are, or have become? That is so sad, isn't it? GOD loves us with an "everlasting love". Why can't we as HIS children, do the same? People don't really change, do they? Isn't it just that they stop making you feel the way you used to when you were first together? When I first met my husband, Rich, he made me feel as of I were the olny person in the world. We would talk for hours, on the telephone, and he would ask, what I wanted to do with my life, what I wanted to be when I got older. Of course I did the same for him. I can remember telling him that I didn't care where we lived as long as we could be together! How naive that sounds now! I remember him making me cry, often, because he said he had met someone new! He would just do it to tease me! Why are some people so cruel? We eventually married, and I should have known better, but I didn't. I have to confess, that even after 34 years, I still love him. We were not good together, but we decided to stay together, for the long haul, and even though we are separated by many miles, I don't feel any different towards him. I think about him every morning, and every day through, and every night. The thing is, I don't think he does the same about me. He is a very independet person, and doesn't seem to need people, even relatives in his life, as long as he has a chess set, and a TV? He's set. I guess you could say, we were exact opposites, which is suppose to be the idea couple? I don't think so. When I was younger, my own Mother, told me that it is better when the other person loves you more than you love them. It's harder to get hurt that way. Why would anyone spend their time with someone that they don't love with their whole mind, soul, heart and body? I think that is a total waste of time. Like so many "soap operas", which I hate!!! Marrying someone you don't love, 'cause the person that you really love, loves someone else? (On the soaps, it's usually your own sister)!!! Then you go through the roof, trying to make the other person jealous, and treat your spouse like trash, due to the fact that you don't feel any love for them in the first place?
Sickening stuff. Until I met my husband. I thought that I was "n love", with someone else! I told myself, that I wouldn't ever marry anyone, because the guy that I loved didn't feel that way about me. I had already had a child by someone else, whom I didn't love, but whom I thought would be an excellent choice of a father, because he was so incredible,intelligent, (and handsome), I was right about that, our son is also incredible,intelligent and handsome!!! Yet, I was so clinical in my operations! I never thought I would marry, I told Rich so. I saw marriage as a farce, and too much trouble! Which it did turn out to be, for us. Love, however is still pure and true. Love doesn't mean that the person does whatever you want them to do. Love doesn't mean that someone spends all their time and energy making you happy, and comfortable. I truly believe that love is,when you want the other person, that you think you love, to be happy and content, safe and comfortable, even if it doesn't have anything to do with you! It would be magic, if they felt that same way towards you. Yet, it doesn't have to be reciprocal! When there is love, it just wants the best, hopes for the best, and seeks the best, for the other person. When you feel that the other person should do for you, what you want to do for them, that is just desire, not love. Selfish desire. Most people are so confused, I include myself in that statement also. I thought when my husband said he loved me. That he meant the person that I was. He really meant that he loved the person that I allowed him to be, when he was with me. The one in charge, the one who made the plans, and set the tone of the date, the tone of our lives together. I had nothing to do with that, I was just there, as his "yes-person". When I tried to assert myself, and have my own opinions, he forbade that, and punished me accordingly. Love is still the same sweet emotion, though. It never changes. Valentines day is still a day for lovers. Whether people understand the meaning behind the word, now, that is a totally different story. Love is a verb.
~~~~~~~~~~Pamela~~~~~~~~~~~
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Sunday, February 13, 2005
I missed saturday by four minutes! I hadn't even gone to Neopets once yesterday. I first got on the computer earlier, but then Cherokee had "Catwoman". (It just came today). So we had to watch that. Next AVP is coming, and I can't hardly wait,(Seth Green), :=) for that to come. I love those two SciFi movies (Alien and Predator), so much! That is the only thing I like Arnold in, movies! (I hate his governorshipness). Then later while we were watching "Lakawanna Blues", by Ruben Santiago-Hudson, on HBO. Michelle and Charlene stopped by. They brought Teri Flatt's kids, (well three of them anyway), Robert, Brandi, and Sherri, (who seem like relatives to us), to say "hi". They only stayed a few minutes though. Teri has Trinity and Mariah with her also. Mariah, the baby, is a Daniels, so we are pretty sure that Mariah's daddy is a relative of Rich's, so therefore she is a real relative of LaShane and Cherokee's. Teri has the prettiest children! We just love them all, and Michelle is their godmother, too. So, that makes them even more like relatives. The three middle girls' grandmother is Barry Bonds'(of baseball fame), aunt. (Teri has another darling little girl, Tiffany. She is with JESUS now, as she was taken to HIM by an automobile mishap a few years ago). I don't like baseball, but it is an interesting fact, isn't it? We cared for their mother, (and their other grandmother, Donna), before we even knew that they were related to Barry, so that piece of intelligence, didn't even figure into the equation. Matter of fact, my family grew up with Bobby Bonds, and the rest of the Bonds family, Robert, Rosie, David, in all of our home town. I also went to school with Barry's mom, Pat. Those things are regular happenings, if you live in my home town. Dusty Baker (also a ball player) went to school with some of us too.
We are not celebrity hounds, in my household. People are just people. You know?
Now, if I had grown up with someone like, ummmmmmmmmm, Vin Diesel? Brad Pitt? Different story. Just kidding. they would just be " hi, Hunk", instead of "hi, Mr. Hunk", in any case. :) Anyway, what I started to talk about was, movies. I want to see so many of them. All of them really. If possible, I would like to see every movie Mickey Rourke ever made! I want to see every new movie that is out now. Aviator, Finding Neverland, Million Dollar Baby, Fat Albert, and on, and on, and on. I like my own opinion better than anybodies I know! In fact, when any critic says a movie is junk, or crap. That makes me want to see it all the more. Critics are a cancer on the body of the movie industry! What do you listen to any of them for, (if you do)? You have a brain, you know what you like, and what you don't. How dare they try to make choices for us? I just want to know who pays them? I need a job like that! I watched Napoleon Dynamite, and I am still acting like him, some of the things he did were hi larious, I looked that kid up on IMDb (www.IMDb.com), and he so didn't look at all like his character in that movie! I saw this movie one morning, "TwinFalls Idaho", it was weird, but I really liked it. These twin brothers, (I have a thing for twins, you know), con-joined twins, fall in love with one girl, one twin is weak, and one is strong, and the ending is a tear-jerker! Mark and Michael Polish are good actors, and they aren't con-joined, just twins, very cute, too. I also like strange and quirky scifi movies like, "The Day the World Ended", where this young boy thought that his father, (his "real" father that is, Randy Quaid played his earth father), was an alien? Cool, huh? Except that the alien that came to earth was a face eating monster!!! Usually when I have the choice between a comedy or an odd quirky or scifi, movie? It is odd, quirky or scifi, movie everytime! Man, it is only 12:30am, but I am wiped out! I am going to go to bed and watch some movies. Fact is, I don't feel too good today, and sitting up is torture right now. So, I'm signing off for now. Remember, "tomorrow never comes, because when it gets light again, it's always today". Please wake up and do something good for someone, even if it is yourself.
~~~~~~~~~~Pamela~~~~~~~~~~~
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Saturday, February 12, 2005
Hey,
What is ALL this blog business? Is it SUPPOSED to take up all your time? I now find www.BlogClicker.com. Where you click on other people's blogs, and you get credit for it? The only thing is. I don't know what all this credit is for? I haven't even been playing on Neopets for awhile. Because of going on all of these people's blogs. I tell you it's addicting, for me. I am sure glad that my Pet, (Kikiakaa, a cute little blue kacheek male.), is in a motel for awhile, so I don't have to stop looking at blogs to go and feed him!! I DO still go and collect my interest for all my neopoints in the Neopian bank. Hey!! I'm a millionaire in neopoints, (though I don't do anything with them, but go to other people's shops in Neopia, and buy stuff to give away, to my daughters, LaShane, Cherokee, my niece, Michelle, and my granddaughter. Sometimes to my neofriend, Dustor. He is so nice. We are pen-pals now also). I may play a game or two, but that's it, then I rush back here to read blogs!!! It's too much fun, (at times).
Anyway, I have seen some crazy blogs, and some very interesting ones too. There is one advantage to being on the Blogclicker site, (so they say), that more people get to read your blog also. I have a counter on my blog site, "From my hands to your eyes", and there have been quite afew stop-bys. I don't know if people actually read all of MY posts, but when I find an interesting or just a "cute", blog, I read all of their posts!! Then sometimes you'll click the icon, (that you are prompted to click), and there will be a game to play. The last one I played, I won 16 credits! Cool. I still haven't read what the credits are for. The site is free, so it says. So, WHAT am I collecting credits for? If anyone that knows, happens to read this post, please e-mail me, and tell me, (in layman's terms), what you do with the credits, please! please!! thank you. (In advance). Today, Cherokee, Michelle, Charlene and I, went out in the pouring down rain, (well, it WAS drizzling). To shop. We went to two of our favorite stores. Target, and Wal*Mart. It is so much fun to spend money! I dream sometimes that, I don't have to pay any BILLS, (including rent). WHOO HOO!!! Then, I just take my whole check, and spend it on stuff that I look at (most of the time), and go, "no, I can't get that this time"! I wake up, knowing full well, that I ain't gonna get none of it at all! (Ever)! Well, maybe I will? I just put buying things off for so long, then I HAVE to buy SOMETHING I actually want!
I will buy something just for myself, like perfume, (which I love). Oh, every third check or so. Just to keep my "wanting to stay alive feeling" charged up. I didn't buy any this time though, Cherokee and I still have quite abit left from Christmas! So I wasn't even tempted! I just got some pants and a blouse, this time. Oh, yeah. We went to Plush Cafe this thursday, (yeah, it was raining in Fullerton, too), whoa, there was some great music going on there!! This girl sang, and I'm sorry I don't remember her name, but, she was from San Bernardino, and she is preforming there tuesday nights at this place called, Ray's Downtown Deli. It's at 168 South "E" Street. I don't know where that is exactly myself, but if you'd like to, go and check it out.The telephone number is: 909 (area code) 855-9913, call for directions. There is a $3.00 cover charge, but that is cheap!!!, for the amount of good music and all around fun that you would certainly have. Gil and Ann have a "two drink", minimum. Or rather a "two item" minimum, 'cause they offer such good stuff at Plush. Food, drinks, (well just check out their site, the link is in that little box to the left of this post)! Then with Cephus Love, (of "Cephus Lovesound" band), and Wyll, and Gio, of "Domino Effect", aka "the rapmiester", and Marcus Omauri, "Host", and the rest of the regular crowd, there is no way you wouldn't have "mad fun" there, I guarantee you!!! Try it, you might like it. By the way, Plush is open 7 days a week, and there is always something going on, cool.
Last year Al Maculey, of "Fat Albert" fame was around quite abit. He thought he would be back in January of this year. GOD blessed him to get another movie though, "Glory Road". So, we are praying that he gets as much work in films as he can handle, and even though we might not get to see him "in the flesh", so to speak, we will keep up with him on the "big screen". He is a really cool guy, and a great comedian also. We miss him there. Okay, now it's after three in the morning! I gotta go take my medication, and go to bed. I don't usually get to sleep until around 10:00 am or so, but I have seen some good films on HBO and Cinemax at that time. Like "Digging to China" with Kevin Bacon and Evan Rachel Wood. (That made me cry),and "Scorcher", with Rutger Hauer, and Marc Dacascos! Good movies, both. Anyway, "Good day"........, I SAID, "GOOD DAY"!!!!!!!!!
~~~~~~~~~~Pamela~~~~~~~~~~~
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Wednesday, February 09, 2005
This is an old photo. First, this was taken by Gracie Zimmerman, who at the time was like our third daughter, and it was while we were visiting Rich's mother, Gloria Daniels, and his sister Pam Champ, up in Los Angeles. Cherokee was 14, and LaShane was 16 years old!!! Look at the eyes on those people, they're just alike, all three of them!!! Or, maybe it was just the sun shining in their eyes, that made them all squint alike? You know, now that I think about it, I don't know where Gloria, Pam, or I, was when these pictures were taken? Maybe we were just off to the side, waiting our turn? Ummmm,? We used to take alot of pictures when the kids were younger, and I still have alot of them, but I just haven't scanned them onto the computer yet, (or honestly). I haven't asked CHEROKEE to scan them onto the computer, yet. As a whole, we are a "picture taking family" That includes all my brothers and sisters, too! By this time, Geno was around 21 or 22 years old, so he didn't go too many places with us anymore. He had his own agenda by then. He still took alot of photos, though, I have some of his, and his "brother" Bob, all over the place! Gilbert, and Bobert! Funny, I used to call them that. Ebony and Ivory! I miss Bob! Gracie, too. Damn, all of the Zimmermans! We all grew up together! Where ARE you guys? :)
~~~~~~~~~~Pamela~~~~~~~~~~~
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Here are the rest of the kids, watching Jr., play Zelda. we're waiting for Cherokee to finish frying the chicken! Samuel, with his broken wrist! Jack, Jr.,'s twin, with the big grin! He is looking forward to the chicken and rice, nix on the veggies, far as he is concerned!, and then there is Samantha, Samuel's twin, that gorgeous little lady is usually singing her heart out for us, and she has a great voice too! I don't know what Kiara is doing, dancing maybe? Or helping Cherokee with dinner? Ummmm? As you can see on the wall there, I just stick pictures up with tape. I have too many to buy frames for all of them! Both Cherokee and I have millions of photos, and really we have them and posters, up all over the apartment. The grandkids like to ask their Aunt Cherokee or me, "who is this"? Over and over. Well, now they know pretty much who everyone is, but you know kids, they just like to ask. We have a couple of Geno's masterpieces up too, from when he was still painting. He is such a wonderful artist, his are truly works of art! He just doesn't have time to paint anymore, too busy with other projects, like renovating Ann and his cafe. Usually by now, Jack, Samuel and Samantha are off in my bedroom, watching Cartoon Network on my smaller TV, or jumping on my bed, or Samantha is in the closet trying on all our shoes, but if you can make it out, in his hands, he's holding one of Cherokee's Nintendo gameboy players, so he was content playing that, while Jr., was occupied on the Nintendo 64. (Once Cherokee had an X-Box, but after she had played the Buffy the Vampire Slayer video game on it a few times, she took it back). I don't remember why? I personally think that the games cost too much money, not the systems, but the games themselves! I don't think that kids realise how much their parents spend on toys and stuff for them! Especially how much Garth and LaShane spend, since they have 5 children to buy for! Damn!!! That's mucho change-o!!! What is so costly, is that ALL five of their children have birthdays in the last months of the year. Kiara, Jr., and Jack!!!, in October. Samuel and Samantha in December! But, I wouldn't have it any other way! (Get it, I wouldn't)? hahahahahaha.
~~~~~~~~~~Pamela~~~~~~~~~~~
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This is my beautiful teen-aged granddaughter, Kiara. At school, now, she is taking cosmetology. Just about everytime I see her, her hair is different! These are self potraits, she was outside of Cherokee and my apartment, with Cherokee's new digital camera, trying to take some artsy photos of herself. She is a fairly good photographer, too. I have some photos that she took of the family when she was much younger, and they are great! I remember when I was fifteen. I wished I had of had a camera! With me, it was the mirror! I took over an hour at a time to put on make-up, and I didn't mind if I messed up. I would wash it all off, and start over again. I remember my Mamma yelling, "you're only going out to get the mail"!!! (and the box was on the front porch, right next to the door)! I didn't care, one never knows whom they might run into, even on your own front porch! Right? She is so much like her mother, but what they don't know is that they both are so like me at that age. I don't think that I'll tell them though.
~~~~~~~~~~Pamela~~~~~~~~~~~
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This is Garth Jr., he and the rest of the grandkids, with their Mamma, LaShane, came over to visit Cherokee and me. Jr., loves to play Cherokee's Zelda game, and so she had to surprise him to get him to turn around to take this photo. He is really good at all the video games. I guess all the kids are, but he seems the most passionate about them. Later, when Cherokee had finished frying chicken for us, for dinner, he didn't want to get off of the game!!! He's nine years old, so you can probably guess he has been playing these games for years. Me? I don't even know how to put the games into the Nintendo player, or how to turn them on! I've seen countless children play, that includes Cherokee, and my husband, Richie Rich, (who, by the way was addicted to this one space game, with the twins?), but I just never had the desire to play. Now, if they were free?, and on the computer? I have wanted to play one. I want to play Sims.
~~~~~~~~~~Pamela~~~~~~~~~~~
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I found this article on www.beliefnet.com to be very interesting. Maybe you will also?
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Tangents
Gregg Easterbrook
Fasting Chic?
Has fasting become a fad? In an age of over-abundance, people of all faiths are fasting as a spiritual path.
You might not have guessed it from the lines at your local Mega Burger drive-through, but fasting is chic. Americans, who are increasingly thinking about spiritual matters, are at the very least talking about fasting, and many are following through.
For example, just after President Bush's first inauguration, an evangelist named Bob Sjogren started a campaign to sign up enough Americans so that someone was always fasting and praying during the president's first term. The idea was so popular that Sjogren re-upped his efforts for Bush's second term. This development is part of the rise in fasting among evangelical Christians, not previously a fast-conscious group. The late Bill Bright, a prominent evangelical and founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, decided in the late 1990s to make promotion of spiritual fasting his life's final work. Well into his 80s, Bright went on several 40-day fasts. In 1998, he and Pat Robertson persuaded several million evangelicals to fast (or at least, say they were fasting) for 40 days in hopes of national religious renewal.
But most Americans know about fasting because of Ash Wednesday, the day many Christians begin their Lenten fasts. Adult Catholics, for instance, are asked to fast on Ash Wednesday and on Good Friday, with "fast" in this case being defined as eating a single meal on each of these days; additionally, Catholics are not to eat meat on Fridays during Lent. Informally, there is also the tradition of giving up something you like for the entire Lenten period. Many Christians choose a favorite food, such as chocolate or beer, as a sort of quasi-fasting.
Fasting isn't limited to Christians, of course. As the U.S. Muslim population increases, more and more Americans follow the Ramadan fast--one lunar month per year without food or drink during daylight hours. Jews continue to fast once a year--on Yom Kippur--to repent for their sins. Mormons fast the first Sunday of each month and then give the money saved on uneaten meals to the poor. Occasional fasting is advised by some interpretations of Buddhism and Hinduism, both growing in the United States. Traditional Methodists observe a weekly mini-fast, from Thursday evening until midday Friday. And, of course, some people fast for general spiritual purposes or in connection with political campaigns.
Is the upsurge in fasting a response to flush economic times in which it seems there is too much self-indulgence, to say nothing of--if national waistlines are any indicator--too much food? Or is this development spiritual in nature? Surely, some of both.
Many Americans are dismayed by runaway consumerism and indulgence, but you don't have to fast to reject the materialist lifestyle--just buy and consume a little less. Fasting makes a stronger statement. Muslims fast to develop self-control, show adherence to their faith, and so that as each Ramadan day ends and food is served, they will have a keener appreciation of the bounty God has offered Earth. Jews participate in the Yom Kippur fast on the theory that deliberately causing yourself mild discomfort shows respect for the great suffering of the faithful of the past. For Christians, a 40-day fast recalls Christ's 40 days without food in the wilderness as he prayed to be shown his mission.
For anyone who is spiritual, fasting redirects the mind away from physical urges--after the first few days at least, when food is the only thing you can think about.
The development of fasting as a component of evangelical belief is somewhat unexpected, because fasting has at best moderate biblical support. Jews often fasted in ancient times, especially to show sorrow, and as a result the Torah and Hebrew scriptures are rife with fasting references. Jesus and John the Baptist fasted as well, though they did so either as part of Jewish observance or for purely spiritual reasons. There isn't anything in the New Testament that directly instructs believers to fast, and it's thought that Christian fasting did not become common until the early Middle Ages--a time when, as now, there was often over-indulgence in food, at least for those of privilege or in the monastery movement.
Whether a person needs to fast in order to fix his or her thoughts on the spiritual is a question each must answer alone. But this much is certain--for all but a few Americans, it can't possibly hurt to go without food once in a while--and it may help if it focuses the mind and reminds us of our blessings when meals resume. That, and the lines at the Mega Burger drive-through, may be all that's required to inspire a fasting fad.
~~~~~~~~~~Pamela~~~~~~~~~~~
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Tuesday, February 08, 2005
I love......, (in no particular order),
Being alive!!!
Being loved
The TRINITY, (GOD, JESUS and the HOLY SPIRIT)
Cherokee
Geno and Ann
LaShane and Garth
My five Grandchildren, (Kiara, Garth Jr., Jack, Samuel and Samantha)
Richie Rich
Michelle
Charlene
Children
My family members
Family get-togethers, with food
Birthday parties, with food
Good Friends getting together, with food
Food
Watching Movies
Writing
Reading
Babies
Little animals
Surfing on the computer
Going out to eat
Getting stuff for free
Being comfortable at home
Having money
Spending money
Having all my bills paid
Great singing
Giving things to other people
Meeting people
Thursday nights at Plush
Fairys
Beautiful things
Good Poetry
Getting attention from strangers
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I don't love......, (in no particular order),
GETTING OLDER!!!
Forgetting information
Not being loved
Being separated from Rich
Thinking too much
Frustrating people
Needing things
Not being able to "heal" the world
Bad news
Stupidity
The act of being mean
Being sick
Not having a car
The act of being selfish
The act of being prejudiced
Inequality
The emotion of being scared
getting angry
Having to ask for favors
Pain
~~~~~~~~~~Pamela~~~~~~~~~~~
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Monday, February 07, 2005
This is my son Gilbert (Geno) and his wife, SeungEun (Ann), in front of their Logo wall at Plush Design Lab and Cafe, in Fullerton, CA. Drop in, if you are out their way. In any case, click on the title Plush Cafe to your left, and take a look see at their place. Ain't they lovely?
~~~~~~~~~~Pamela~~~~~~~~~~~
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This is a photo of the "Four Musketeers". To your left, our right, there is Michelle, my niece, who is taking the picture. Next is "the baby" of that Goodwin family, Charlene, Michelle's sister. (No one can ever tell her right age). Next to those cuties is me, Pamela, and yes, I have no eyebrows, really! No, they're just really light brown. Last but not least, is Miss.Cherokee, my beautiful BABY, she is a wonderful daughter! (and yes, she has no nose, smile). Just joking!!! Michelle is bad at taking self-portraits, or maybe it was the lighting, I don't know, but Cherokee does have a nose. That's her in the photo on this blog, to the far left, and you can see it (almost) at her blog spot. Click her name to the left, and you can see it for yourself! HaHaHaHa. This photo, of the four of us, was taken back in 1994 or '95. We've grown-up since then, you bet cha. Well, almost. :=)
~~~~~~~~~~Pamela~~~~~~~~~~~
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Yeah, it is. I watched Carnivale yesterday, and I didn't get to go to church either, (because), I went out with my nieces and daughter, (Michelle, Charlene and Cherokee), friday, grocery shopping for the group-home, (and for us, too), and some other places. I don't really remember now, but after being out all night thursday (at Plush Cafe)! I just couldn't go any where saturday, or sunday!!! Is it old age? THE PAIN, THE PAIN. Nothing helped, so while the three, under 35 year olds, went out and looked around at EVERYTHING, I had to sit here on the computer, ignoring the telephone, (it wasn't anyone I knew, must have been telemarketers, after Cherokee's voice asked them to leave a message, they hung up!! I was so glad, 'cause I didn't feel like getting up)!, and generally wishing that I was 27, instead of 57. Then I would be 1 year older than Charlene, four years younger than Michelle, and 5 years younger than my youngest child, Cherokee. That would serve her right! Where is the magic when you need it? I want to be a real live Fey, Sidhe, Seelie or Unseelie, I don't care! They look great, beautiful, and at hundreds of years old. Thanks Laurell K. Hamilton, for opening me up to yet another world that I cannot be a part of! I'm such a child of fantasy! When I watch, "Harry Potter", I want to be at Hogswarts, when I watch, "Matrix", I want to be with Neo, (just in the quiet times, not during the war). When I watch, "Carnivale", I want to be with Ben Hawkins, and tell him, "use your powers, Ben"!! I get absorbed, I get lost, I don't want to be just me. Then I try to write my own story, yes, I mean about my own life. I may get to two or three pages, and I stop. I think, I can't write that! It may be true, but I don't want to think about it myself, let alone let someone else read it!!! I did some stupid stuff as a youngster, and now when I think about it, I say to myself, "Thank YOU FATHER GOD, for JESUS dying for my sins, I accept"!!! They weren't bad for today's standards, but, whoa, for the mid 60s, when I went WILD? I think that it was the "Make Love Not War", sentiments that were flying around everywhere, and the fact that my Daddy had died around six years before. I just didn't care about anything, especially myself, or my future. Until I got pregnant, and had this extraordinary, wonderful, beautiful, special, handsome, little baby boy, (I was two months shy of 18), and I changed. My whole outlook on life shifted. I had to be "Mamma", to this sweet little miracle. I almost didn't make it! I died on the delivery table, honestly, but the doctor, (well, GOD working through him), saved me! Dr.Bronco Borazon, the instrument of THE ALMIGHTY! (even though "William Patterson", is the doctor whose name is on the birth certificate, I still don't know why, was he even in the room)? Oh, The reason I stopped breathing, and my heart stopped beating? I had "Eclampsia Toxemia", (blood poisoning), and I had never gone to any doctor for pre-natal care! Yeah, I know. STUPID, (years later, my cousin Carol Turner, died from the same condition, her little boy lived). We, Geno and I, stayed in the hospital for 10 days, and they drained all the poison out of me. When we left, I was feeling clean and refreshed! Then I went back for my six week check-up, and the doctor told me I was a "real beauty", but a bit ignorant for almost killing myself, and my baby! He was totally right, and very handsome, himself!! Anyway, we are fine now, (well, at almost 40, Gilbert Eugene, nicknamed Geno, is), I have major health problems, nowadays! Still, GOD allowed me to go on to be a married woman and a mother, twice again, and those little girls were both SO beautiful, I thought that they were gifts to the entire world, not just to me and their daddy, Richie Rich! They're pictured here on my blog, so you know what I mean. I felt so blessed too. Grateful, also. I think that I am a pretty good mother, despite my trying to kill myself, with neglect, as a kid. Now, as a Grandmother, I have these incredible second generation kids, that I adore! Two sets of outrageously attractive twins, boy/boy, & boy/girl, and a very gorgeous teen-aged granddaughter, all brilliant, and unique!!! With stellar personalities. So, "The devil can mean a thing for bad, and GOD can turn it around for good"!!! Whew! I'm good, even if it IS still monday!!
~~~~~~~~~~Pamela~~~~~~~~~~~
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THIS SITE IS ONE OF THE BEST SITES I HAVE FOUND ON THE INTERNET. IF YOU WANT TO HAVE FUN, PLAY GAMES, AND MEET PEOPLE. (WHO MAY SHARE YOUR INTERESTS) THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF GUILDS, (JUST FOR FUN, NOTHING SERIOUS). THIS SITE IS FOR YOU, (AND NO! I'M NOT GETTING PAID FOR THIS!!!). I just got through playing: SPELL or STARVE, CARNIVAL of TERROR, WORD POKER, ULTIMATE BULLSEYE, SUTEK'S TOMB. OH, there's so many more fun games, most are so easy, young kids can play them. (I don't think any one under 14 can play though, I am not sure). Check it out.
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Neopets® is the greatest Virtual Pet Site on the Internet. With your help, we have built a community of over 70 million virtual pet owners across the world! Neopets has many things to offer including over 160 games, trading, auctions, greetings, messaging, and of course, pirate eating contests. Best of all, it's completely FREE!
www.neopets.com. Join us.
~~~~~~~~~~Pamela~~~~~~~~~~~
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Sunday, February 06, 2005
To Thine Own Self be True
*To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
William Shakespeare
To be true to ourselves is a challenge of integrity. Do we follow the group,
association or political party? Do we do things for others because it is
expected of us or are we giving of our time and supply because we truly love our
neighbor? These are just a few of the many things we consider when it comes to
being true to ourselves.
We on this spiritual path have our worldly selves and our spiritual selves that
we must keep in tight rein if we are to stay comfortable and at peace within. My
"worldly self" often wants to take over and go with the crowd. If I succumb, it
makes me feel uncomfortable. Sometimes, it is such a small thing that I have to
dig deep, being really honest with myself to find what it is. Maybe, I was
untrue to my true self and didn't say "no" to a request that was made of me and
resentment followed for allowing myself to be "sucked in." It may be a
commitment I didn't keep, or some little thing I neglected to do. Again, being
untrue to myself.
Left to my own ego devices, I spend time searching within for the object of my
discomfort or resentment. However, when I take time to consciously acknowledge
God in all of my affairs, I am being true to not only my human, ego self, but to
my spiritual self as well. Then, I am intelligently governed because God is the
divine law of my being, Acknowledging and being at one with God always gives me
guidance and direction in all of my affairs, making it impossible for me to be
untrue to myself.
Affirmation:
I am true to myself through my conscious connection with God.
Barbara Taylor
www.agapelive.com
~~~~~~~~~~Pamela~~~~~~~~~~~
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Saturday, February 05, 2005
It's saturday, 3:21am. Here I am at the computer. I just got through playing some cool games at www.neopets.com and I am just about ready to go to bed. We did alot yesterday, well for Cherokee and myself. Got up at 9:30 or so in the am. Showered, dressed (cute), and Michelle and Charlene came by to pick us up to do some chores. We didn't get home until dark. This is on top of us going to Plush Cafe thursday evening, and staying there until nearly 3:00am! The place was jumping! I bought this CD from this really great singer, named Kevin Sandbloom. He was wonderful! There was another fabulous singer, by the name of Jacob G. and his band was terrific also! I cannot wait until he has his CD out. Besides the Open Mic, there is the thursday night group, called "Domino Effect", and our usual DJ/host then is, Gio (Stuart), the house band is compiled of: Mike, Clif, Cephas (Love), Wyll, Jason, Allan, and Jeremy. Those guys can rock your socks off!!! Cephas sings like nobody's business also, and sometimes his cute girl friend Jasmine will back him up. Jason's brother, Justin (twins) gets on the mic, and let me tell you, he makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck! His voice is that smooth and mellow sounding! Oh, I cannot forget to mention regular musicians like Dr. Pepper, and this very attractive young man, named Joshua, who is native on those congo drums!!! He can really beat them solid! Old school term for YEAH GOOD!
If you are ever in Fullerton, CA. You just gotta stop by 207 N. Harbor Boulevard, and check out the haps. You won't be sorry, any night, but Thursday is the day me and the Ladies three, Cherokee, Michelle and Charlene are there behind the counter. We party!
So, anyway, after we came home and put up our groceries, and noshed on a salad, we watched, "The Grudge". Yeah, with the actress supreme from the now cancelled, TV show, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", Sarah Michelle Gellar! Or aka, Mrs. Freddie Prinze Jr., to her close fans, (like us) she may be gone from the TV, but she is ever in our hearts and thoughts, plus she has been in alot of other things, and she is just a great actress, 'nuff said!!!! Just let me say, from the bottom of my heart that, "The Grudge", is a freaky but, very scary and good movie"!!!!!!! I give it 9 out of 10 stars. I am sure that we will watch it over and over, as we so often do movies that we really like. Every time "Harry Potter", comes on, I have to watch it again. Same with the "Matrix", (all three of them), even though Cherokee has the DVDs! I am like that with Mickey Rourke movies, and Stephen Baldwin's too!!! "Absense of the Good", and "Dead Awake", oh yeah, "Mr. Murder", being among my favorites of his. As far as MR goes, there are too many of his movies that I love, and I mean LOVE, to really mention here. Oh well, maybe just one or two. "Rumble Fish", being a classic! "AngelHeart", "The Last Outlaw", "Bullet", "A Prayer for the dying", "Diner", not to mention how fine he looked in "DoubleTeam", he is the BEST thing about that movie!!! Just go and rent some of his movies, you'll see what I mean, "Johnny Handsome"!!! I am waiting on pins and needles for "Sin City", and "Domino"!!!!! MICKEY, I LOVE YOU!!! I really don't know, I think my daughter LaShane loves him even more, if that is possible. Anyway, that doesn't take away from how I feel about Keanu Reeves! Oh my gosh, I am getting so silly. 57 years old, and I act like a high-school girl, with a crush on the star basketball player!! I must be tired. I usually try to talk about more serious matters. These are the subjects of my dreams! So, here I go to bed, perchance to dream? Oh yeah!
~~~~~~~~~~Pamela~~~~~~~~~~~
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Thursday, February 03, 2005
My gorgeous daughter, LaShane, her wonderful and hunky hubby Garth Sr., and their 5 kids!!!!! Kiara, who is a very beautiful 15 year old high schooler, who loves doing hair, (cosmetology). Garth Jr. the video game master,and Jack the artist, are 9 year old twins, (as you can see they're fraternal. They are so sweet and terrific! (Genusis', all of them). Last but not least, twins again, Samuel and Samantha. He is the best dancer, and they both know "Buffy the Musical" word by word, Samantha sings like a Diva, too. Oh the talent in our family! 2005.
~~~~~~~~~~Pamela~~~~~~~~~~~
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Thursday again already? Yeah! I didn't post on my blog at all yesterday, I wasn't feeling well. It happens. Anyway, nothing happened earthshaking, (oh, wait), yes, it did! My husband, the kids dad, called me. He is sick. I mean really sick, Still he left the warmth of his apartment to go out into the awful weather in Northern California, to call me. So is the life of a person who does not have a telephone in their apartment. How archaic! Anyway, when I was talking to him, he was so vocally altered, in my mind's eye, I saw him almost the same, except that his nose was horribly bulbous, and covered the bottom half of his face! I tried not to, but I couldn't help it, I laughed at him, then I had to tell him why. We talked almost an hour, and I was glad to hear his voice, he has claimed to be trying to visit us here in Southern California since November of 2004, and he hasn't made it yet. GOD willing he will make it down before our six year old grandchildren graduate high school. We are still friends, though we can't live together, and after 34 years of marriage, he IS like a member of the family. Tonight, we are going to go over to Plush, Ann and Geno's (Gil's), cafe. GOD willing. I must clarify, I don't do anything, I am the PR person. I "meet and greet". That's what I am good at. I love to talk, yet, my memory isn't what it used to be, so, usually I see someone and they say "hello", and I say, "hi there, glad to see you here, have you been here before"? They say, "Yeah, last week". Oops. One thing, it is fun with movies, whenever I see one, I ask Cherokee, "Have we seen this one before"? She'll either say, "Yes, mother". Or she'll say, "No, mother". It's like going to the 99 cents only, store, and some sweet little old lady will say, "I wonder what this costs"? I haven't said that, yet, 'cause I keep looking up at the walls, and it says in Big Blue Letters, "ALL ITEMS 99 CENTS ONLY". Good idea, too. I love those stores, I want to visit them all over California! I did get to go to one in Reno, Navada. IT WAS AWESOME! Richie Rich (my husband), went gambling, I went to their 99 cents store. They had things that I had never seen offered here in CA., Tiny dice in little capsules! Miniture cards in little boxes! All 54! (two Jokers). I got a Sake set. It was like a miniture tea set, except it had a tiny jar for the Sake, (Japanese rice wine), and four cute tiny handeless cups, and a tray that was black with enamelled red flowers on it. I wonder what happened to it? I can't remember! Oh, I wish I could find that again! I don't, and have never (that I remember), drunk Sake. Maybe I have. I have known alot of Airmen, (from March Air Force Base, here in So., CA.), and they used to bring lots of foreign stuff back with them from their overseas trips. As a matter of fact, my son's father, was an Airman, and both of my sisters, Billiejean and Anna, married Airmen. Billiejean is still with hers. Ahhh, the memories, fun times. Back to the present. I also love, Wal*Mart, Target, (the girls call it Tar zjay with a french accent), and Big Lots!!! Any discount stores where you can "get things for less". Yeah! It's the American Way!!! 'Bye for now, we gotta jet!
~~~~~~~~~~Pamela~~~~~~~~~~~
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Tuesday, February 01, 2005
Hey class,
This is some very interesting American History. Some of you may have heard it before, many may not have. Read, and enjoy....., or not.
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Just A Question Of Standards:
Does the statement "We've always done it that way" ring any bells?
The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches.
That's an exceedingly odd number.
Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the US railroads.
Why did the English build them like that?
Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge
they used.
Why did "they" use that gauge then?
Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.
Okay! Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?
Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long-distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.
So who built those old rutted roads?
Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.
And the ruts in the road?
Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. The US standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. And bureaucracies live forever.
So the next time you are handed a spec and told we have always done it that way, and wonder what horse's ass came up with that, you may be exactly right, because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses.
Now the twist to the story...when you see a space shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRB's. The SRB's are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRB's would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRB's had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRB's had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.
So a major space shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass.
And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important?
~~~~~~~~~~Pamela~~~~~~~~~~~
<
MSNBC.com
Texas senator proposes ‘obesity reports’
Law would notify parents of kids’ body mass index
By Jim Cummins
Correspondent
NBC News
Updated: 7:34 p.m. ET Jan. 31, 2005
AUSTIN, Texas - Experts say more than a third of Texas schoolchildren are overweight or at risk for obesity. That figure alarms Leticia Van dePutte, a state senator from San Antonio, who is also a practicing pharmacist.
"[It amazes me] to see the number of 8- and 9-year-olds that are coming into the pharmacy to get the insulin, or 12-year-olds that take more blood pressure medicine than my grandmother," says Van dePutte.
So Van dePutte is proposing a state law requiring schools to weigh students, compute their body mass index, and send that information home on their report cards.
A similar law was implemented in Arkansas last year, where 38 percent of the students were found to be overweight. But unlike the plan proposed in Texas, Arkansas sent that information directly to parents in a health report, not in students' report cards.
Some parents in Texas are outraged.
"They don't need to tell us that to realize your kid is overweight," says parent Rosa Medellian.
Dr. Stephanie Setliff, who treats kids with eating disorders at the Children's Medical Center in Dallas, also believes the proposal is a bad idea.
"We know that eating disorders like anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa can be triggered by one comment made from a peer or a coach," says Setliff.
The state's largest teacher group also opposes the bill, saying teachers should just teach.
"The school has a place to provide nutritional food and nutritional information in health class, but they're not doctors," says Eric Allen with the Association of Texas Professional Educators.
But Van dePutte says many Texas kids don't have health insurance and rarely see a doctor. She's hoping health reports from school will motivate their parents to do something.
"When parents see something written about their child's health status, they will intervene in the same way they do when they get that report card on the academic side," she says.
As another Texas official puts it, report cards on obesity in children "cant' wait, because their lives are literally at stake."
© 2005 MSNBC Interactive
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6890798/?GT1=6190
~~~~~~~~~~Pamela~~~~~~~~~~~
PLEASE COPY AND COMPLETE THIS QUESTIONAIRE!
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LAST MOVIE YOU SAW IN A THEATER? Elektra. I loved it, too.
BOOK YOU ARE READING? I'm reading a Science Fiction Magazine with various stories by different authors.
FAVORITE BOARD GAME? I don't play them anymore, but when I did, I liked SORRY.
FAVORITE MAGAZINE? I like so many! The STAR, and the ENQUIRER, are in the top 10.
FAVORITE SMELLS? I like roses, vanilla, musk mixed with jasmine.
FAVORITE FOODS? Well, I adore all Asian food, (just about). Second has to be Mexican, and then Italian main stream.
FAVORITE SOUNDS? The sound of money crisp and abundant. No, really it's my grandkids, playing.
WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD? Losing family or friends to death. Especially when they are young.
WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE UP? I thank GOD, for the day, and then I pray for the whole family and my friends.
FAVORITE FAST FOOD PLACE? Several really, Panda Express, Alberto's, and Jose's.
FUTURE CHILD'S NAME? I already have three. Gilbert, LaShane and Cherokee.
FINISH THIS STATEMENT. "IF I HAD A LOT OF MONEY"? GOD knows what I'd do with it, so this isn't necessary to discuss here.
DO YOU DRIVE FAST? When I first got my driver's license, probably. I don't drive anymore.
DO YOU SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL? No, I left him two and 1/2 years ago.
STORMS--COOL OR SCARY? Too many bad things have happened because of storms, now I think they are scary.
WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CAR? We had a lime green and black Chevrolet Super Sport Impala, 1963.
FAVORITE DRINK? Strawberry steamer, diet sodas, and once in awhile, vodka and diet soda.
FINISH THIS STATEMENT, "IF I HAD THE TIME", I am disabled, and not employed, so I have all the time in the world. Still, I do nothing.
DO YOU EAT THE STEMS ON THE BROCCOLI? Yes'm, I love the whole flowerette and stems. Yum.
IF YOU COULD DYE YOU HAIR ANY COLOR, WHAT WOULD BE YOUR CHOICE? I've done my hair many colors. Now, I would just like it to turn pure white, not dingy, but pure white.
NAME ALL THE DIFFERENT CITIES/TOWNS YOU HAVE LIVED IN. Born and raised in Riverside, CA. Lived in the Eastside, the LaSierra/Arlington, and then the Hillside, areas of Riverside. Moved, as an adult, to Palo Cedro, CA. Lived in Cottonwood, CA. Lived in Red Bluff, CA. Lived in Whitmore, CA., and Anderson/Happy Valley, CA., area for a bit. then I lived in Redding, CA., and later in Orange, CA., for a short while also. Now, I'm back in Riverside, CA. (HOME). Hopefully to stay, until I die. Yes, LORD!! Amen.
NAME ALL THE STATES/COUNTRIES YOU HAVE VISITED. Nevada, to Las Vegas and Reno. I don't remember any other places.
GLASS, HALF FULL OR HALF EMPTY? In reality, my mind is forever reminded that it is both. I perfer to be optomistic, though.
FAVORITE SPORT TO WATCH? Acting.
ONE NICE THING ABOUT THE PERSON THAT SENT THIS TO YOU? Brian, he is alright in my books, he married my daughter's best friend, and they have two beautiful daughters, and he seems to be making a pleasant and comfortable, life for the four of them. I really like him.
WHAT IS UNDER YOUR BED? the bottom most of my mattresses sits right on the floor. No frame.
TOILET PAPER, OVER OR UNDER? I could care LESS. How ever it goes on the aparatus.
SEAT UP OR DOWN? Now that's a different story, we keep it down, so we don't fall in when we go in half sleep.
MORNING PERSON, OR NIGHT OWL? My three children, (all adults now), and I are night owls. I'm doing this questionaire at 3:57 a.m.
OVER EASY, OR SUNNY SIDE UP? In a restaurant, I usually get them scrambled, but at home, with toast, or biscuits, or grits, it has to be sunny side up.
FAVORITE PLACE TO RELAX? On my bed, watching SciFi, some good movie, Christian TV, or even reading.
FAVORITE PIE? When I was younger, it was my Mamma's Lemon Mirangue pie, later, it was Sweet potato pies. (especially my own with lots of broken pieces of walnuts in them)! Yummy!
OF ALL THE PEOPLE THAT YOU E-MAILED THIS QUESTIONAIRE TO WHO IS THE MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? Well, Cherokee did, on her blog. That is where I am getting the questions from right now. After this, I am going to go watch TV!!
LEAST LIKELY? EVERYBODY ELSE I sent it to.!!!!!!! No body, likes to have fun anymore, they are all too busy trying to look like their time is, "so important"! Posers!
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52. GOD'S spirit can't always strive with man. Read: Genesis. 6:3.
53. GOD can't deal with us according to our sin. Read: Psalm. 103:10-11.
54. GOD can't be lost. Read: St. John 14:6.
55. GOD can't make a mistake. Read: Psalm. 119:75.
56. GOD can't let you down. Read: Jude. 1:24-25.
57. GOD can't be left without a witness. Read: I Kings. 19:18.
58. GOD can't give imperfect gifts. Read: James. 1:17.
59. GOD'S power can't be stopped. Read: Daniel. 4:35.
60. GOD'S WORD can't change. Read: Psalm 119:89.
61. GOD can't lose. Read: Psalm. 98:1.
62. GOD'S Kingdom can't be destroyed. Read: Psalm. 145:13.
63. GOD can't be unforgiving to those who ask for forgiveness. Read: I John. 1:9.
64. GOD can't stop thinking about me. Read: Psalm. 139:17-18.
65. GOD'S plan for my life can't be bad. Read: Jeremiah. 29:11.
66. GOD can't break a promise. Read: Psalm. 89:34.
67. GOD can't make junk. Read: Genesis. 1:31.
68. GOD can't be impotent. Read: Revelation. 19:6.
69. GOD can't be selfish. Read: Romans. 8:32.
70. GOD can't be dispassionate. Read. Lamentations. 3:22.
71. GOD can't accept sacrifices when HE asks for obedience. Read: I Samuel. 15:22.
72. GOD can't be the author of confusion. Read: I Corinthians. 14:33.
73. GOD can't be un-holy. Read: Isaiah. 6:3.
74. GOD'S church can't be defeated. Read: Matthew. 16:18.
75. GOD can't be unfruitful. Read: St. John. 15:5.
76. GOD can't be surprised. Read: Job. 23:10.
77. GOD can't accept less than my whole heart. Read: Deuteronomy. 6:5.
78. GOD can't be worshipped enough for who HE is. Read: Revelations. 4:8.
79. GOD can't be surpassed. Read: Isaiah. 44:6.
80. GOD can't be overthrown. Read: Isaiah. 9:7.
81. GOD can't be overruled. Read: Psalm. 119:90-91.
82. GOD can't be matched. Read: Psalm. 89:6.
83. GOD can't be pleased without faith. Read: Hebrews. 11:6.
84. GOD can't be fooled. Read: Hebrews. 4:12.
85. GOD'S righteousness can't end. Read: Psalm. 119:142.
86. GOD'S burdens can't be heavy. Read: Matthew. 11:30.
87. GOD can't let HIS people's prayers go unanswered. Read: II Chronicles. 7:14.
88. GOD can't ask you to do something HE can't do. Read: Philippians. 2:13.
89. GOD can't be counselled. Read: Romans. 11:34.
90. GOD can't be unfaithful. Read: Lamentations. 3:23.
91. GOD can't be figured out. Read: Ecclesiastes. 11:5.
92. GOD'S salvation can't be earned. Read. Ephesians. 2:8-9.
93. GOD can't be given less than all of me. Read: Romans. 12:1.
94. GOD can't be superseded. Read: Colossians. 1:17.
95. GOD can't be less than gracious. Read: Psalm. 145:8.
96. GOD can't be impressed. Read. Isaiah. 64:6.
97. GOD cn't be insufficient. Read. Ephesians. 3:20.
98. GOD can't be blamed if we don't make it to heaven. Read: Hebrews. 2:3.
99. GOD can't take no for an answer. Read: Jonah. 1:17.
100. GOD can't fail. Read: Deuteronomy. 31:6.
101. GOD can't be praised enough.
Praise ye the LORD. Praise GOD in HIS snnctuary, praise HIM in the firmament of HIS power.
Praise HIM for HIS mighty acts: praise HIM according to HIS excellent greatness.
Praise HIM with the sound of the trumpet: praise HIM with the psaltery and harp.
Praise HIM with the timbrel and dance: praise HIM with stringed insturments and organs.
Praise HIM upon the loud cymbals: praise HIM upon the high sounding cymbals.
Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD.
Praise ye the LORD!! Amen. Psalm. 150.
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I am maturing, and I didn't even notice for days! On February 22nd (1970), I met Richard, and we married the next year. This year is our 35th wedding anniversary, and I didn't even get nostalgic, about us being separated, on the 22nd, like I usually had been doing every year,(since I left, in 2002).!! Our actual wedding anniversary is May 9th, and now that I thought about it, I might remember it, and get melancholy again. (Just because of not being aware of it this month)! Makes perfect sense to me! Did I hear from my estranged husband? No, but then, Cherokee and I, did have our telephone service turned off. Why? Well, we were getting alot of crank calls, and there were multi-level marketers calling all times of the day and night, which both my daughter Cherokee, and I hate. That not withstanding, relationships are so strange. You can live with someone everyday for over 30 years, (well almost everyday, I was forgetting the days and nights that Richard was probably with his other girl-friends, and even his other family, (a girlfriend and two daughters), or even just out gambling)! and still not know them. I truly didn't know what to expect out of him at all, day to day. So, I just overlooked it, and kept quiet.
Now, just writing it down makes me feel sick to my stomach! Even though the daughters he fathered by this other woman, (Shirley), are both adults now!! It still sickens me, because of my own apathy, and fear of change. What would my life have been like if I hadn't, 1. Forgiven him,(both times he impregnated her), and 2. Stayed married to him? I think that this forgiving, (or really apathetic), lifestyle, had a lot to do with my bad health later on, and how negatively I always had pictured myself, as a woman, as a mother and person, in general. I felt I was getting what I deserved, Karma. My daughter, Cherokee and my niece, Michelle, think that all us brother and sisters, (because of our Goodwin side), have these personality, and health problems, stemming from when our Daddy passed away, way back in 1959. We were all so young then, and it was a scary thing for us to lose our father, and wonder what would happen to all of us in the ensuing years. When we never got any therapy, or help, we didn't deal with out feelings at all. It was as if it didn't impact us kids at all, people only helped my mother, or only seemed concerned with her, and we were just supposed to "Handle it". We had no trust in our Mother's ability to take care of us, as the bread winner!
Especially when you had never seen your mother do any kind of "out of the house" employment!! (but), She did take good care of her children domestically. Still, she just had so many kids, where would she get money?! I know I sure didn't think she would be able to financially take care of all nine of us. At that time, I didn't know anything about, "Social Security", or "personal life insurance policies". Which, thank GOD, my daddy had both. The man worked two jobs, all of our lives, at J C Penney's, in the stock-room, and at the Loring Building in downtown Riverside, as an elevator operator.!! That's probably why he got pneumonia in the first place, and died. Working to take care of all of us. (but), I was only 11, well nearly 12 years old then. Thinking about not having money enough, kept me awake at nights, for a long time, after that. It damaged me, mentally, physically, (I gained alot of weight after my daddy died), and in ways that I don't even know, or understand, to this day. Yet, one thing I do know, it skewered the way I looked at all marriage! I thought that it meant that, IF I married, I had to stay married to "whomever", I did marry, for as long as the person I married, wanted to stay married to me! To be safe, and secure, I had to marry a healthy man, who had a JOB. Still for many years, I totally was against getting married at all. I was adamant. I saw too many bad marriages, and my mother never re-married, she had boyfriends, only two, at that, but didn't marry again. Now, by seventeen, I wanted a child, but not the husband, or the married life. I was tired of school too, so I got pregnant, and I quit school. (I went and got my GED though, while he was still a baby, so I could work). So, I had my beautiful baby, by a man 12 years older than me, and one that I thought was intelligent, and handsome, but he didn't love me, and I didn't love him!! I was so happy, (my mother was disappointed and thought I was too young to have made that choice), but she loved my little boy so much!! She let the subject drop, about who was his father. Then later, she was too sick to comment, when I became pregnant the second time, with Richard as the father, he had a job, he liked my son, and he stayed around, alot. When my little boy and I moved in with him, he started bugging me, over and over to marry him, and he was working on me all the time, he even asked his "preacher father", to talk to me, to get me to marry him. His father had grown up with my parents in the same town! They started talking about me and Richard getting married, "it was the right thing to do", they both said. Then my mother died. She died before my second child was even born, and only then, did I even contemplate marriage to him. That old fear rose up again, even though I was working, and had my own income!!! She died in January, 1971. I had our baby in March of 1971. I married Richard that May. I was never happy after that, 'cause he acted like he "owned" me then. Yet, I married a man that I never really knew, and one that lied constantly. One that rarely stayed home, went out with his male cousins, whenever they came by, and who did whatever he wanted to do, regardless of how it effected me, my son, or the two daughters we eventually had together. I just didn't think about it anymore, I did it to myself, didn't I?
I was in thrall to him, and my family and friends didn't understand how I could live the way that we did. I didn't do anything that I thought he might disapprove of. I waited for him to come home, and wouldn't go anywhere, unless my baby was out of milk, or diapers, and I needed them. He was the absentee parent, when he came home, the kids acted like Santa Claus had come in, and I did everything else, I raised the kids and did all the work in the apartment. Except he did like to go to the kid's school functions. I don't know why? Parent/Teacher conferences? He was there. Open House night at school, he was there. Programs? He was there. Awards shows? He was there. That was odd, even to me, but I never questioned it at all. He probably did the same for his other two daughters also, I never asked. We had a few times all together, that were great, and we even had lots of fun, sometimes. I used to just concentrate on those occasions, and forget the bad,(and the lonely) times. Right now, my mind is in such confusion, I don't know if I am happy, to be away from Rich, or if I really feel badly, as if he has died and I am in mourning. I really don't know how to feel.
We also lost so many memories and so many personal items, because of his mismanagement of his funds! The fact that he didn't even bother to tell any of us that he had lost the ability to pay for the storage units that our things were stored in. Due to various moves we made over the years. He would never give us the information we needed to get into the storages, and get our belongings, nor did he give us the opportunity to help him pay for the storages, when he could no longer pay for them. He just didn't mention that fact to any of us at all. (Until after all the photos, furniture, our children's childhood momentos, et'c, was lost). By this time, I just chalked it up to more proof that Rich was himself, mentally disturbed, and apathetic, towards us, and our wants and needs. Rich had been down here in Riverside many times, over the seven years we worked at those group homes, and lived up North, (with me making the plans , when we came down to visited the family). yet, only once after I left him!!! (and Cherokee and I moved back here). He always had too much other stuff to do, places to be, and he wouldn't get, or let anyone else get, their posessions out of the storage units! It was strange, and LaShane, (our oldest daughter) was thinking once, that he may have sold the contents already, and that this was why he wouldn't let us go to the storage, or get anything out of them.
Oh well, I feel abit better, even if no one reads this post, it is so good to write this stuff down and re-read it. I know that I did everything I could, and was capable of, to give my children a somewhat, "normal" up bringing. Also, that I tried with all my heart to give my husband what he seemed to need, in order to be the type of man it seemed like he wanted to be. What that was, as I look back on it, though, is still a mystery to me.
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1. GOD can't lie. Read: Hebrews. 6:18.
2. GOD can't be given a problem HE can't solve. Read: Matthew 19:26.
3. GOD can't leave you. Read: Genesis. 28:15.
4. GOD can't forsake you. Read: Hebrews 13:5.
5. GOD can't despise a contrite heart. Read: Psalm. 51:17.
6. GOD can't allow HIS people to be ashamed. Read: Joel. 2:26.
7. GOD can't give HIS glory to anyone else. Read: Isaiah. 42:8.
8. GOD can't sleep. Read: Psalm 121:4.
9. GOD can't stop loving you. Read: Jeremiah. 31:3.
10. GOD can't go unnoticed. Read: Psalm. 19:1.
11. GOD can't stand sin. Read: Isaiah. 59:2.
12. GOD can't leave work unfinished. Read: Philippians. 1:6.
13. GOD can't forget about you. Read: Isaiah. 49:15.
14. GOD can't be shut out of anywhere. Read: Psalm. 139:7-10.
15. GOD can't neglect HIS children. Read: Matthew. 7:11.
16. GOD can't be put on a time schedule. Read: Acts. 1:7.
17. GOD can't be given a job HE can't handle. Read: Jeremiah.32:17.
18. GOD can't get weary. Read: Isaiah. 40:28.
19. GOD can't be unknown to those who want to know HIM. Read: Jeremiah.29:13.
20. GOD can't lose anything. Read: St. John. 6:39.
21. GOD can't make a loser. Read: II Corinthians. 2:14.
22. GOD can't be poor. Read: Psalm.104:24.
23. GOD can't give us a spirit of fear. Read: II Timothy. 1:7.
24. GOD can't be unloving. I John. 4:8.
25. GOD can't swear by anyone but HIMSELF, and HE swore that HE would bless you.
Read: Hebrews 6:13-14.
26. GOD'S love can't be measured. Read: St. John. 3:16.
27. GOD can't be equalled. Read: Isaiah. 43:11.
28. GOD can't be silenced. Read: Psalm. 50:3.
29. GOD'S WORD can't pass away. Read: Matthew. 24:35.
30. GOD can't be understood by Human understanding. Read: Romans. 11:33.
31. GOD'S sheep can't be plucked from HIS HANDS. Read: St. John. 10:28.
32. GOD can't be imperfect. Read: Matthew. 5:48.
33. GOD can't think like you. Read: Isaiah:55:8-9.
34. GOD can't be prejudiced. Read: Acts:10:34-35.
35. GOD can't be beaten at giving. Read: Luke:6:38.
36. GOD can't be uncaring. Read: Psalm. 103:13.
37. GOD can't be seen by the natural eye. Read: II Corthians. 5:7.
38. GOD can't be late. Read: St. John. 11:21,23.
39. GOD can't be second in your life. Read: Exodus.20:3.
40. GOD can't leave you comfortless. Read: St. John. 14:18.
41. GOD can't forget those who serve HIM. Read: Hebrews. 6:10.
42. GOD can't be divided. Read: St. John.10:30.
43. GOD can't remember sins HE'S forgotten. Read: Isaiah. 43:25.
44. GOD can't endure a proud look. Read. Psalm.101:5.
45. GOD'S mercy can't end. Read. Psalm. 107:1.
46. GOD'S NAME can't be taken in vain. Read: Exodus. 20:7.
47. GOD can't allow anything to separate you from HIS LOVE. Read: Romans. 8:38-39.
48. GOD'S peace can't be understood. Read: Philippians. 4:7.
49. GOD's WORD can't return to HIM void; it will accomplish what HE WILLS. Read:
Isaiah. 55:11.
50. GOD can't be likened to anything. Read: Exodus. 20:4.
51. GOD can't change. Read: Hebrews. 13:8.
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TO BE CONTINUED. Please check back. GOD bless you. Amen.
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Today is wednesday, 02/23/2005. I got up early, for me. Around 2:30 p.m., but I didn't go to sleep until nearly 11:00 a.m. I laid up in bed, and watched "Harry Potter", (the first one, about the Sorcerer's Stone). I still wasn't sleepy, so I watched the second included DVD, about the special effects in the movie, and some games. That was fun. I hate going to bed, but then I hate getting up, too. Dam-it!! I am too young, (at only 57!!!!!, to hurt 24/7). I cry for young, and little, kids, that have chronic pain!!! Yes, I really do, and hey, I did this to myself, I know. Diabetes, is (an ugly), and a sometimes "self-caused disease". Even though, I knew that several people in my mother's family had what they called, "sugar", I didn't know what the hell that even meant. They must not have known either, 'cause not one of them, (during the time I was adult enough to understand, that some illnesses ARE genetically more possible to contract), mentioned that, "bad diet choices", and even being moderately overweight, were some of the leading causes for it. Why didn't they know? My great-grandfather Strickland, had to have his leg amputated. My Aunt (also a Strickland) is in her 70s, and she has had it for over 25 years. She was a sister to my deceased mother, and two of their sisters also died relatively young, and both were diabetic. Sometimes, I just cannot talk to her, I don't even know why? I just can't. I think that she could have warned me long ago, I guess. My own parents died kinda young too. My Dad, at 41 years old. He was born with a Rheumatic heart, and lived long past the time it was thought he would live, and he fathered 7 children, to boot. My Mom, at 49 years old. She had cancer, (all over), skin, lung, breast, cervical, name it, she had it, and we didn't even know if she had diabetes. She was so sick, why even look for it??! Still she gave birth to 10 children altogether, all healthy, and bouncing babies. The only one who died before her, was our brother, Robbie, who was killed in VietNam, at 21 years old, in 1966. The rest of the nine of us are still kicking, yet, some kicking stronger than others.
Besides being anti-doctor, and pro-stupid, I just don't want to bother with my health care any longer. Maybe that sounds apathetic, (yeah, it is). I've already asked GOD to forgive me. but, I can't work up any kind of enthusiasm anymore, on getting as "healthy as I can be". I started out doing it. I worked hard at it. I took the vitamins, and the minerals, (from Dr. Julian Whitaker, who sends out these daily packs of vitamins, for the whole month in this big canister), at $50.00 a pop too. Then, I started passing kidney stones!(yes, plural)! The first thing the urologist asked was, did I take this, or that? Yes, I took this, and that, and the other, too!!, everyday! Plus at that time, I was eating strictly vegetarian, drinking diet everything, plus green tea, water by the gallon, I was working at taking care of Ryder and Malachi, so, I was exercising daily also, still I got kidney stones. 11 in four months. Then, I had to have "Extra-corporeal shockwave Lithotripsy" 'cause I had a stone in my kidney, "the size of a fifty cent piece, dense as a peach pit"!!! Lovely pain, terrific experience! No more vitamins, or minerals, though. Thank you very much. Oh no, the doctor wasn't 100% sure that they had caused the kidney stones, but, I had never had any BEFORE I started taking the packets of various vitamins and minerals. Gymna Sylvestra, Taurine, B4,B6,B12, L-Carnatine, some stuff I can't remember! Plus, I was taking liquid oxygen, (drops, in water), vitamin C, and E. I WANTED TO TAKE CARE OF MYSELF!!! You know?
For awhile, after all the stones. I couldn't walk. Let me clarify, I couldn't walk without pain. To this day, my groin hurts constantly. the urologist had to put a "stint" in my duct from my kidney to my bladder, to keep it from collapsing, that may have started that pain. I tell myself, it is all in my head. Now, there is neuropathy, 'cause I, not any doctor, stopped taking my medication, at first it was glucophage, (along with insulin, that was after I got a kidney infection right after I had been diagnosed, and I waited three weeks before I went to the hospital, 'cause I figured it was food poisoning), and I thought it was making me sick. By the time I got to the hospital, I was running 875 blood sugar readings (Md/dl).
The doctor said I should have come in in a diabetic coma. Nah. I lived. Yet that infection made me have to start using insulin. Later, a doctor in Northern CA., prescribed me some Rezulin. I refused to take it. It was recalled. People died. I tested, I took my insulin. I gained 60 or so pounds!!! Then a dietician up North, told me that I could take the insulin an hour before I ate, or two hours after I ate. I started losing the weight again. When I went to a doctor in Riverside, he put me on Actos, and in a few months, I gained back like 40lbs.,or more. I have stopped taking that stuff too. Well, I have stopped taking all of the medication he prescribed for me. Except the insulin! I know I still need that. I just balked at being this "trial and error" experiment to him. I once went to an alternative practicioner in Grand Terrace, CA., around 2001, and had the "drip", (it was just hydrogen peroxide). And he gave me vitamin B12 shots, and sugar buster pills, but those treatments cost so much!!! Before I knew it, I was over $400.00 in debt, and making "only $15.00 a month", payments was keeping me there! I don't know if it helped me anyway? I lost alot of weight, 'cause his diet didn't let you eat anything!!! No potatoes, no bread, (except 7th Day Adventist Sprouted Wheat Bread, which I had never heard of), no carrots, no tomatoes, everything was, in his opinion,
"too much starch, too much sugar"!!! I quit going to him, but I did pay off my debt!! Yaah, me!!! Anyway, now I travel over the internet, 'cause, it hurts to walk, to ride in my wheelchair, to sit, to stand, everything! Yet, I don't give up. I still get to travel everywhere!!! (and read foreign people's blogs), I comment on some, others I just read and shake my head at, some people will even answer me back, which I find sooooo cool! I like that, and, I have met lots of CRAZY folk too. Smile. Hey y'all Everybody.
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Read MATTHEW. 24: (The whole chapter).
Part of this scripture tells of rumors of war, and pestilance, plagues, all sorts of nasty stuff! This story caught my eye, on MSN.com news site.
THOUSANDS FLEE AS PLAUGE KILLS HUNDREDS IN CONGO. Nothing much just a highly contagious disease, spreading among mine workers in the far off land of Africa. Nothing for us over here in the Great Land of America, to worry our safe little heads about, right? One never knows. This has been going on for at least two months. The WHO, World Health Organization is just now, (this weekend) dispatching a team of people/experts, to try and contain the spread of the disease. Wonderful news, right? Of course it is. They didn't even have to tell us, except that of the 7,000 workers in the mine, (located in Zobia, which is located 186 miles north of Kisagani, the third largest city in the Congo), many had already fled the work place.
They are though asking around to various hospitals to alert them if anyone comes into their care with a highly contagious illness.
So, it would seem that they are "right on top", of it! Kisangani is also a major trading center, right on the Congo river. We'll pray that none of the infected workers made it that far though. This is just something we will have to learn to live with hearing in the news. "Wars, rumors of wars. Pestilance, plauges. Earthquakes, in diverse places". These are said to be, "the beginning of birth pains". Not quite the end of the world, as we know it, but more or less, the beginning of the end of the world as we have heretofore known it. I thank GOD, that I know that the only way we can be secure in the days ahead is to have accepted JESUS the CHRIST, as my own personal SAVIOR and LORD. HE told us over and over, "HE is the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE". HE is the LIGHT of the world. Amen. The things that have been happening lately have been horrible, and they have happened to christians, as well as to those who aren't. You have to know, just becoming christian doesn't keep you from the same troubles as the rest of the world. It just let's you know that when all the troubles are over there will still be somewhere for us all to be. That there will be LIFE after this life. I know, because I have read it with my own eyes, that unto every living human there is death to face, and after that death, still comes a judgement. Some to everlasting life, and some to a separation from that after life, which is GOD/JESUS/HOLY SPIRIT, in ONE. That is the awfulness of dying without having given your life to HIM WHOM will make those of us that have given our lives to HIM, live again. What JOY!! There will be no tears, no pain, no illness, none of the stressfilled events of this world, that make us the hurried, harried, unfulfilled, angry, inhumane, sad, murderous, depressed, people that we look into the mirror and see everyday on earth.
Even those people who see themselves and happy and without care, would do well to give their lives to "the ONLY SON of THE MOST HIGH GOD and CREATOR of Heaven and Earth, and all the UNIVERSE that is, to continue their blessed lives with HIM, without end. Infinity. I love the fact that I was allowed to even live to the age that I am, and to have had the beautiful, and even some of the painful experiences that I have had. I wouldn't have realised that I needed a SAVIOR, without them. Now, as I still am able to look around and see the events that are unfolding right now, at this time in history. I shake my head in awe, that every intelligent human being living, that is capable of understanding the everyday news, in each and every country around the world, isn't running towards salvation with every bit of energy in their bodies! It's like reaching to pick up a glowing white hot ember, with the completly mistaken idea that it would not burn, because you DO NOT believe that it IS hot! OPEN YOUR EYES!!!!!! People, the beginning of the end, of the world as we have known it, is here. Not because of a few incidences of events, happening in far and widely separated places. It is just time. Because the 6,000 years is almost up.
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Here I am with Gio (Stuart), the MC of Domino Effect. Which is the thursday night "Open Mic" event. He is also Irene's boyfriend. We have kinda adopted him into our family also. He is so funny, and he can rap! I mean off the top of his head! He is also serious about evangelising, and getting people "saved", through his talent. He is an all around good guy, and totally crazy with talent. There would not be any "Open Mic", night without Gio. (Short for Giovanni). He's hecka cute!!!!! Hmmmmm?
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This is Cherokee and Irene Rodriguez, a christian singer, and good friend of ours. She often performs at Plush, and let me tell you she has a great voice! She is just a tiny little cutey with a HUGE voice! When she first sat down at the piano, to play and sing, and that voice came out of her? We all said, "WOW"!!! We have kinda adopted her into our own family. She's one of the "Plush celebs." By the way, Cherokee should have shown the T-shirt she has on! It was an "IDWEEB", design! (Individuals Deemed Worthy of Elevated Existence and Beyond). These are T-shirts that Cherokee,(Michelle and Charlene) designed, and sell. ($12.00). All sizes, (except childrens). Three different designs, so far: Sun, BarCode and Logo. Many colors available, yellow, pink, green, black, et'c. I'll ask her to take photos of all three designs, and post them. Maybe next time?
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This is Michelle again! So, Cherokee is taking this picture, and trying to hide behind her is her little sister, Charlene. Michelle works as a Residential manager at OliveCrest Group homes, but she, and the rest of us, still like putting in time at Plush. Yeah, it is that much fun! Charlene is so funny, and makes the time that we spend there that much more fun. She also does most of the cleaning up at the end of the Thursday night "Open Mic", event! Yaaaah, Charlene.
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This is a photo of Gil, and Michelle at Plush. (The hand belongs to Jeff, Gil's good friend). We go up there on thursday's and the girls work behind the counter, and give Ann and Gil (Geno), some time off. There were alot of people there, but Cherokee, and then Charlene took photos of us, as we are so photogenic! (Remember, Fullerton, CA. 207 N. Harbor Boulevard. PlushDesignLabandCafe). Visit. Open seven days a week. You won't regret it. :=)
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I've been looking at blogs on blogclicker, and bloggercrowd, and I have noticed that many of them are political! I think that that is all right, but that isn't what I want to read. I wonder about the people that only write political blogs. Do they want to have something to say, but know that they won't be heard by any of the people in politics? So they blog here, just to get the things that they feel off of their chests? I won't read them. Soon as I see any name that smacks of political position, I click away. Don't get me wrong, I do care about the condition of the minds of our leaders. The president, vice-president, even the governor of the state of California, Ahhnold S.
I pray for them, because that is my job, as a christian. I pray for them to get saved, and to do things that will help people, not just themselves! I think that realistically, none of them are going to make any difference, and isn't it funny that no matter how many people made fun of George W., he still got re-elected? I just don't believe that voting makes any difference, yeah, I heard about the electoral college. Who runs these things? We're lied to about everything else, but they're going to really tell you the honest truth about who gets elected, or how?
We don't know what is going on in the government, and by we, I mean the people who are NOT "elected officials."! Once you're in, you get to be on a different level of society. You change, "you're one of them". If you're very rich, you're already "one of them". From birth. Money does not see any colors, either. It's just who's got it, and how much you can be controlled by the "powers that be". Who are the "powers that be"? I don't know. I'm not "one of them". We see so much stuff on TV, and in movies. Like "X-file". Some of it could be true, some of it could be put out there to keep humanity in the dark, as to what is really happening. So, why get so upset about any and everything that is going on? I say, (if), there is a GOD, and HE did create heaven and earth, (and all the rest of the universe), let HIM deal with it. HE, (as the HOLY SPIRIT), says in "The WORD". "Pray for those that are in authority over you, that you may have peace". Well, obviously we aren't doing our praying. It's obvious that we think that we know better than HE does, about what should be going on! We are all one species, yet, we kill each other because of things that don't even belong to us. Like the oil, in the Mid-East. We set ourself up as Kings and Queens, and have people serve us!!! (which I think is the most idiotic thing in the world)!!! We are all just human beings, people!!!!! What makes people think that they have different, that automatically makes them ROYALTY? I know that GOD sets up Kings, and Princes. But are any of the Royals less full of crap, than any of the rest of us, who are not royalty? I get so well, actually, it is, frustrated, by all the bowing and scraping that is expected to be done in the presence of "Royalty". Most of them are addle pated as it is.
Something like what those people who are called "celebrities", expect also. No, not all of them, but we all kiss more ass for them, than for anybody else. We make jobs around celebrities, magazines devoted to their lives, their "work", their love-lives, their matings, we even make their children celebrities before they DO anything. It's sickening! I happen to love some celebs, but I won't call them "STARS". (Like my pastor, Matt Brown, of Sandals Church, says), "STARS? Those beautiful things that shine up in the night sky? Why do we call them that."? Celebrities are just, "Big bags, full of gaseous emissions."!
You know, I can act, I've been doing it all of my life! I've been one person, then another, whenever it suited me. Most people that think that they know me, don't. I don't know myself. You, too, probably act alot!! Once in awhile, I just go around hating everything!!!, and that with a smile on my face. Another time, I love everybody and enjoy everything! Yet, I will act depressed, as if I am ready to commit suicide. Just because I am skewered like that. I don't want people to know what is going on inside my head, ever. I think that I am insane!! Is it because of inbreeding? Maybe. Or, do I have Royal blood running in my veins too? Some distant royal ancestor, diddled in the "maids", or rather, (EXCUSE ME), "slaves", quarters? Then did he double diddle, in his own offspring's (of that slave's), quarters? You never know, huh? Those people diddled in their own gene pool. So, I sure don't know, 'cause I don't know my "way back" ancestors, like some Americans do. I can't trace my lineage back to the "Mayflower", or "someplace in Europe", or even "a country in Africa", or "Scotland", or "Ireland". I just look in the mirror, and see a fair complectioned Black woman, and oh yeah, I know the names, Goodwin, Strickland, Hopkins, Boswell, Davis, Cole, Dumas, where did those names come from? Why isn't there one African name in the bunch? Since they call us African-American, why don't I know where that part of my family lineage was from? Why don't I know any of their names, or what they went through to get to the "New Land"? I really just want to know "who", took away my heritage? I don't know who laid with the first of my grandparents, (before my mother's grandparents, and my father's grandparents). Who were those people that made me who I am today.
Only GOD knows. I, or anyone, could be one of the King's,(of some foreign country), illegitimate git! My Mamma used to joke and say, "Mamma's baby, daddy's maybe". 'Cause who knew, unless you're DNA was tested? I don't think that that happened much back then. Female African's wombs just got full of other nationalitie's babies, and no one thought to get the names of the various males, that had put them there. Well that is, nobody but the LORD!!! Amen.
I got way far off from politics, but to me, those themes are all in the same category, Politicians, Movie Actors, and, The Royals. People who live "off the sweat of other people's brows". Parasites. (Much loved parasites in most cases). I don't say that lightly, You know we do this to ourselves, we make them "larger than life." I make myself love them, 'cause the same SAVIOR who died for me, died for them. I pray for all of them, whether, in politics, acting, or born royalty. GOD bless their souls. HE also knows that I have done some things that would make spicy, just as much read, articles, in the Enquirer, or the Globe, or the Sun, or the Star, whatever!!, but alas, I'm just an ordinary mortal, "normal", un-news worthy. (and), I say, "Thank YOU FATHER GOD"!!!, for that. I'd much rather buy those rags to read about some other "news worthy", events, than have anyone read something bad about me, or my next door neighbor, or any member of my family, to tell you the truth. Like politicians, actors, and royals, aren't going to have to answer for all of the things that they did, and do, and never made ammends for? Oh, I think that they will. That is, unless they get saved, and honestly give their lives to JESUS. Amen? Amen!!
I sure wouldn't mind if, they asked for forgiveness, repented, changed, and being forgiven, lived good Christian lives there after. Would you?
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This is a photo of Richard and me. Yes, believe it! These two people conceived the two beautiful women that are in the photo with me to your left, of this blog! I look at this photo and I think, "what will happen next," with us? Richard is in Northern CA., and I am here in the "garden spot of the world", Southern CA., and there are many miles, and it seems so much more, separating us. Do we look as if we belong together? It's okay, be honest! Neither of us is 100% human! Yet, I think that I am the only one who will admit that I am from Outer Space!! I have never been "normal", so how in the world did I expect to meet and marry a man that was? (but), I know that this union was necessary, to make LaShane who she is, and Cherokee who she is, and in a somewhat different way, even though I already had my son when I met Richard, (and Geno's father, Michael R. Wormac, was just as alien as Richard is), it helped to make Geno who HE is now too. I must admit all three of them turned out great, despite our childish stupidity, and constant screw-ups, while they were in their formative years. That relationship, and marriage, was nothing short of fantasy island, without Mr. Rourke, or Tattoo! That is just something else to totally let me know that there IS a GOD in heaven, and HE does have a purpose for all of our lives. Thank YOU JESUS!! Hallelujah, Amen. :)
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Today is a day for "Lovers". I hope that people who have someone that loves them, realise what a wonderful thing that love is. Why does it sometime turn to something so fearful and awful? You can love someone, yet hate the person that they are, or have become? That is so sad, isn't it? GOD loves us with an "everlasting love". Why can't we as HIS children, do the same? People don't really change, do they? Isn't it just that they stop making you feel the way you used to when you were first together? When I first met my husband, Rich, he made me feel as of I were the olny person in the world. We would talk for hours, on the telephone, and he would ask, what I wanted to do with my life, what I wanted to be when I got older. Of course I did the same for him. I can remember telling him that I didn't care where we lived as long as we could be together! How naive that sounds now! I remember him making me cry, often, because he said he had met someone new! He would just do it to tease me! Why are some people so cruel? We eventually married, and I should have known better, but I didn't. I have to confess, that even after 34 years, I still love him. We were not good together, but we decided to stay together, for the long haul, and even though we are separated by many miles, I don't feel any different towards him. I think about him every morning, and every day through, and every night. The thing is, I don't think he does the same about me. He is a very independet person, and doesn't seem to need people, even relatives in his life, as long as he has a chess set, and a TV? He's set. I guess you could say, we were exact opposites, which is suppose to be the idea couple? I don't think so. When I was younger, my own Mother, told me that it is better when the other person loves you more than you love them. It's harder to get hurt that way. Why would anyone spend their time with someone that they don't love with their whole mind, soul, heart and body? I think that is a total waste of time. Like so many "soap operas", which I hate!!! Marrying someone you don't love, 'cause the person that you really love, loves someone else? (On the soaps, it's usually your own sister)!!! Then you go through the roof, trying to make the other person jealous, and treat your spouse like trash, due to the fact that you don't feel any love for them in the first place?
Sickening stuff. Until I met my husband. I thought that I was "n love", with someone else! I told myself, that I wouldn't ever marry anyone, because the guy that I loved didn't feel that way about me. I had already had a child by someone else, whom I didn't love, but whom I thought would be an excellent choice of a father, because he was so incredible,intelligent, (and handsome), I was right about that, our son is also incredible,intelligent and handsome!!! Yet, I was so clinical in my operations! I never thought I would marry, I told Rich so. I saw marriage as a farce, and too much trouble! Which it did turn out to be, for us. Love, however is still pure and true. Love doesn't mean that the person does whatever you want them to do. Love doesn't mean that someone spends all their time and energy making you happy, and comfortable. I truly believe that love is,when you want the other person, that you think you love, to be happy and content, safe and comfortable, even if it doesn't have anything to do with you! It would be magic, if they felt that same way towards you. Yet, it doesn't have to be reciprocal! When there is love, it just wants the best, hopes for the best, and seeks the best, for the other person. When you feel that the other person should do for you, what you want to do for them, that is just desire, not love. Selfish desire. Most people are so confused, I include myself in that statement also. I thought when my husband said he loved me. That he meant the person that I was. He really meant that he loved the person that I allowed him to be, when he was with me. The one in charge, the one who made the plans, and set the tone of the date, the tone of our lives together. I had nothing to do with that, I was just there, as his "yes-person". When I tried to assert myself, and have my own opinions, he forbade that, and punished me accordingly. Love is still the same sweet emotion, though. It never changes. Valentines day is still a day for lovers. Whether people understand the meaning behind the word, now, that is a totally different story. Love is a verb.
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I missed saturday by four minutes! I hadn't even gone to Neopets once yesterday. I first got on the computer earlier, but then Cherokee had "Catwoman". (It just came today). So we had to watch that. Next AVP is coming, and I can't hardly wait,(Seth Green), :=) for that to come. I love those two SciFi movies (Alien and Predator), so much! That is the only thing I like Arnold in, movies! (I hate his governorshipness). Then later while we were watching "Lakawanna Blues", by Ruben Santiago-Hudson, on HBO. Michelle and Charlene stopped by. They brought Teri Flatt's kids, (well three of them anyway), Robert, Brandi, and Sherri, (who seem like relatives to us), to say "hi". They only stayed a few minutes though. Teri has Trinity and Mariah with her also. Mariah, the baby, is a Daniels, so we are pretty sure that Mariah's daddy is a relative of Rich's, so therefore she is a real relative of LaShane and Cherokee's. Teri has the prettiest children! We just love them all, and Michelle is their godmother, too. So, that makes them even more like relatives. The three middle girls' grandmother is Barry Bonds'(of baseball fame), aunt. (Teri has another darling little girl, Tiffany. She is with JESUS now, as she was taken to HIM by an automobile mishap a few years ago). I don't like baseball, but it is an interesting fact, isn't it? We cared for their mother, (and their other grandmother, Donna), before we even knew that they were related to Barry, so that piece of intelligence, didn't even figure into the equation. Matter of fact, my family grew up with Bobby Bonds, and the rest of the Bonds family, Robert, Rosie, David, in all of our home town. I also went to school with Barry's mom, Pat. Those things are regular happenings, if you live in my home town. Dusty Baker (also a ball player) went to school with some of us too.
We are not celebrity hounds, in my household. People are just people. You know?
Now, if I had grown up with someone like, ummmmmmmmmm, Vin Diesel? Brad Pitt? Different story. Just kidding. they would just be " hi, Hunk", instead of "hi, Mr. Hunk", in any case. :) Anyway, what I started to talk about was, movies. I want to see so many of them. All of them really. If possible, I would like to see every movie Mickey Rourke ever made! I want to see every new movie that is out now. Aviator, Finding Neverland, Million Dollar Baby, Fat Albert, and on, and on, and on. I like my own opinion better than anybodies I know! In fact, when any critic says a movie is junk, or crap. That makes me want to see it all the more. Critics are a cancer on the body of the movie industry! What do you listen to any of them for, (if you do)? You have a brain, you know what you like, and what you don't. How dare they try to make choices for us? I just want to know who pays them? I need a job like that! I watched Napoleon Dynamite, and I am still acting like him, some of the things he did were hi larious, I looked that kid up on IMDb (www.IMDb.com), and he so didn't look at all like his character in that movie! I saw this movie one morning, "TwinFalls Idaho", it was weird, but I really liked it. These twin brothers, (I have a thing for twins, you know), con-joined twins, fall in love with one girl, one twin is weak, and one is strong, and the ending is a tear-jerker! Mark and Michael Polish are good actors, and they aren't con-joined, just twins, very cute, too. I also like strange and quirky scifi movies like, "The Day the World Ended", where this young boy thought that his father, (his "real" father that is, Randy Quaid played his earth father), was an alien? Cool, huh? Except that the alien that came to earth was a face eating monster!!! Usually when I have the choice between a comedy or an odd quirky or scifi, movie? It is odd, quirky or scifi, movie everytime! Man, it is only 12:30am, but I am wiped out! I am going to go to bed and watch some movies. Fact is, I don't feel too good today, and sitting up is torture right now. So, I'm signing off for now. Remember, "tomorrow never comes, because when it gets light again, it's always today". Please wake up and do something good for someone, even if it is yourself.
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Hey,
What is ALL this blog business? Is it SUPPOSED to take up all your time? I now find www.BlogClicker.com. Where you click on other people's blogs, and you get credit for it? The only thing is. I don't know what all this credit is for? I haven't even been playing on Neopets for awhile. Because of going on all of these people's blogs. I tell you it's addicting, for me. I am sure glad that my Pet, (Kikiakaa, a cute little blue kacheek male.), is in a motel for awhile, so I don't have to stop looking at blogs to go and feed him!! I DO still go and collect my interest for all my neopoints in the Neopian bank. Hey!! I'm a millionaire in neopoints, (though I don't do anything with them, but go to other people's shops in Neopia, and buy stuff to give away, to my daughters, LaShane, Cherokee, my niece, Michelle, and my granddaughter. Sometimes to my neofriend, Dustor. He is so nice. We are pen-pals now also). I may play a game or two, but that's it, then I rush back here to read blogs!!! It's too much fun, (at times).
Anyway, I have seen some crazy blogs, and some very interesting ones too. There is one advantage to being on the Blogclicker site, (so they say), that more people get to read your blog also. I have a counter on my blog site, "From my hands to your eyes", and there have been quite afew stop-bys. I don't know if people actually read all of MY posts, but when I find an interesting or just a "cute", blog, I read all of their posts!! Then sometimes you'll click the icon, (that you are prompted to click), and there will be a game to play. The last one I played, I won 16 credits! Cool. I still haven't read what the credits are for. The site is free, so it says. So, WHAT am I collecting credits for? If anyone that knows, happens to read this post, please e-mail me, and tell me, (in layman's terms), what you do with the credits, please! please!! thank you. (In advance). Today, Cherokee, Michelle, Charlene and I, went out in the pouring down rain, (well, it WAS drizzling). To shop. We went to two of our favorite stores. Target, and Wal*Mart. It is so much fun to spend money! I dream sometimes that, I don't have to pay any BILLS, (including rent). WHOO HOO!!! Then, I just take my whole check, and spend it on stuff that I look at (most of the time), and go, "no, I can't get that this time"! I wake up, knowing full well, that I ain't gonna get none of it at all! (Ever)! Well, maybe I will? I just put buying things off for so long, then I HAVE to buy SOMETHING I actually want!
I will buy something just for myself, like perfume, (which I love). Oh, every third check or so. Just to keep my "wanting to stay alive feeling" charged up. I didn't buy any this time though, Cherokee and I still have quite abit left from Christmas! So I wasn't even tempted! I just got some pants and a blouse, this time. Oh, yeah. We went to Plush Cafe this thursday, (yeah, it was raining in Fullerton, too), whoa, there was some great music going on there!! This girl sang, and I'm sorry I don't remember her name, but, she was from San Bernardino, and she is preforming there tuesday nights at this place called, Ray's Downtown Deli. It's at 168 South "E" Street. I don't know where that is exactly myself, but if you'd like to, go and check it out.The telephone number is: 909 (area code) 855-9913, call for directions. There is a $3.00 cover charge, but that is cheap!!!, for the amount of good music and all around fun that you would certainly have. Gil and Ann have a "two drink", minimum. Or rather a "two item" minimum, 'cause they offer such good stuff at Plush. Food, drinks, (well just check out their site, the link is in that little box to the left of this post)! Then with Cephus Love, (of "Cephus Lovesound" band), and Wyll, and Gio, of "Domino Effect", aka "the rapmiester", and Marcus Omauri, "Host", and the rest of the regular crowd, there is no way you wouldn't have "mad fun" there, I guarantee you!!! Try it, you might like it. By the way, Plush is open 7 days a week, and there is always something going on, cool.
Last year Al Maculey, of "Fat Albert" fame was around quite abit. He thought he would be back in January of this year. GOD blessed him to get another movie though, "Glory Road". So, we are praying that he gets as much work in films as he can handle, and even though we might not get to see him "in the flesh", so to speak, we will keep up with him on the "big screen". He is a really cool guy, and a great comedian also. We miss him there. Okay, now it's after three in the morning! I gotta go take my medication, and go to bed. I don't usually get to sleep until around 10:00 am or so, but I have seen some good films on HBO and Cinemax at that time. Like "Digging to China" with Kevin Bacon and Evan Rachel Wood. (That made me cry),and "Scorcher", with Rutger Hauer, and Marc Dacascos! Good movies, both. Anyway, "Good day"........, I SAID, "GOOD DAY"!!!!!!!!!
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This is an old photo. First, this was taken by Gracie Zimmerman, who at the time was like our third daughter, and it was while we were visiting Rich's mother, Gloria Daniels, and his sister Pam Champ, up in Los Angeles. Cherokee was 14, and LaShane was 16 years old!!! Look at the eyes on those people, they're just alike, all three of them!!! Or, maybe it was just the sun shining in their eyes, that made them all squint alike? You know, now that I think about it, I don't know where Gloria, Pam, or I, was when these pictures were taken? Maybe we were just off to the side, waiting our turn? Ummmm,? We used to take alot of pictures when the kids were younger, and I still have alot of them, but I just haven't scanned them onto the computer yet, (or honestly). I haven't asked CHEROKEE to scan them onto the computer, yet. As a whole, we are a "picture taking family" That includes all my brothers and sisters, too! By this time, Geno was around 21 or 22 years old, so he didn't go too many places with us anymore. He had his own agenda by then. He still took alot of photos, though, I have some of his, and his "brother" Bob, all over the place! Gilbert, and Bobert! Funny, I used to call them that. Ebony and Ivory! I miss Bob! Gracie, too. Damn, all of the Zimmermans! We all grew up together! Where ARE you guys? :)
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Here are the rest of the kids, watching Jr., play Zelda. we're waiting for Cherokee to finish frying the chicken! Samuel, with his broken wrist! Jack, Jr.,'s twin, with the big grin! He is looking forward to the chicken and rice, nix on the veggies, far as he is concerned!, and then there is Samantha, Samuel's twin, that gorgeous little lady is usually singing her heart out for us, and she has a great voice too! I don't know what Kiara is doing, dancing maybe? Or helping Cherokee with dinner? Ummmm? As you can see on the wall there, I just stick pictures up with tape. I have too many to buy frames for all of them! Both Cherokee and I have millions of photos, and really we have them and posters, up all over the apartment. The grandkids like to ask their Aunt Cherokee or me, "who is this"? Over and over. Well, now they know pretty much who everyone is, but you know kids, they just like to ask. We have a couple of Geno's masterpieces up too, from when he was still painting. He is such a wonderful artist, his are truly works of art! He just doesn't have time to paint anymore, too busy with other projects, like renovating Ann and his cafe. Usually by now, Jack, Samuel and Samantha are off in my bedroom, watching Cartoon Network on my smaller TV, or jumping on my bed, or Samantha is in the closet trying on all our shoes, but if you can make it out, in his hands, he's holding one of Cherokee's Nintendo gameboy players, so he was content playing that, while Jr., was occupied on the Nintendo 64. (Once Cherokee had an X-Box, but after she had played the Buffy the Vampire Slayer video game on it a few times, she took it back). I don't remember why? I personally think that the games cost too much money, not the systems, but the games themselves! I don't think that kids realise how much their parents spend on toys and stuff for them! Especially how much Garth and LaShane spend, since they have 5 children to buy for! Damn!!! That's mucho change-o!!! What is so costly, is that ALL five of their children have birthdays in the last months of the year. Kiara, Jr., and Jack!!!, in October. Samuel and Samantha in December! But, I wouldn't have it any other way! (Get it, I wouldn't)? hahahahahaha.
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This is my beautiful teen-aged granddaughter, Kiara. At school, now, she is taking cosmetology. Just about everytime I see her, her hair is different! These are self potraits, she was outside of Cherokee and my apartment, with Cherokee's new digital camera, trying to take some artsy photos of herself. She is a fairly good photographer, too. I have some photos that she took of the family when she was much younger, and they are great! I remember when I was fifteen. I wished I had of had a camera! With me, it was the mirror! I took over an hour at a time to put on make-up, and I didn't mind if I messed up. I would wash it all off, and start over again. I remember my Mamma yelling, "you're only going out to get the mail"!!! (and the box was on the front porch, right next to the door)! I didn't care, one never knows whom they might run into, even on your own front porch! Right? She is so much like her mother, but what they don't know is that they both are so like me at that age. I don't think that I'll tell them though.
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This is Garth Jr., he and the rest of the grandkids, with their Mamma, LaShane, came over to visit Cherokee and me. Jr., loves to play Cherokee's Zelda game, and so she had to surprise him to get him to turn around to take this photo. He is really good at all the video games. I guess all the kids are, but he seems the most passionate about them. Later, when Cherokee had finished frying chicken for us, for dinner, he didn't want to get off of the game!!! He's nine years old, so you can probably guess he has been playing these games for years. Me? I don't even know how to put the games into the Nintendo player, or how to turn them on! I've seen countless children play, that includes Cherokee, and my husband, Richie Rich, (who, by the way was addicted to this one space game, with the twins?), but I just never had the desire to play. Now, if they were free?, and on the computer? I have wanted to play one. I want to play Sims.
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I found this article on www.beliefnet.com to be very interesting. Maybe you will also?
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Tangents
Gregg Easterbrook
Fasting Chic?
Has fasting become a fad? In an age of over-abundance, people of all faiths are fasting as a spiritual path.
You might not have guessed it from the lines at your local Mega Burger drive-through, but fasting is chic. Americans, who are increasingly thinking about spiritual matters, are at the very least talking about fasting, and many are following through.
For example, just after President Bush's first inauguration, an evangelist named Bob Sjogren started a campaign to sign up enough Americans so that someone was always fasting and praying during the president's first term. The idea was so popular that Sjogren re-upped his efforts for Bush's second term. This development is part of the rise in fasting among evangelical Christians, not previously a fast-conscious group. The late Bill Bright, a prominent evangelical and founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, decided in the late 1990s to make promotion of spiritual fasting his life's final work. Well into his 80s, Bright went on several 40-day fasts. In 1998, he and Pat Robertson persuaded several million evangelicals to fast (or at least, say they were fasting) for 40 days in hopes of national religious renewal.
But most Americans know about fasting because of Ash Wednesday, the day many Christians begin their Lenten fasts. Adult Catholics, for instance, are asked to fast on Ash Wednesday and on Good Friday, with "fast" in this case being defined as eating a single meal on each of these days; additionally, Catholics are not to eat meat on Fridays during Lent. Informally, there is also the tradition of giving up something you like for the entire Lenten period. Many Christians choose a favorite food, such as chocolate or beer, as a sort of quasi-fasting.
Fasting isn't limited to Christians, of course. As the U.S. Muslim population increases, more and more Americans follow the Ramadan fast--one lunar month per year without food or drink during daylight hours. Jews continue to fast once a year--on Yom Kippur--to repent for their sins. Mormons fast the first Sunday of each month and then give the money saved on uneaten meals to the poor. Occasional fasting is advised by some interpretations of Buddhism and Hinduism, both growing in the United States. Traditional Methodists observe a weekly mini-fast, from Thursday evening until midday Friday. And, of course, some people fast for general spiritual purposes or in connection with political campaigns.
Is the upsurge in fasting a response to flush economic times in which it seems there is too much self-indulgence, to say nothing of--if national waistlines are any indicator--too much food? Or is this development spiritual in nature? Surely, some of both.
Many Americans are dismayed by runaway consumerism and indulgence, but you don't have to fast to reject the materialist lifestyle--just buy and consume a little less. Fasting makes a stronger statement. Muslims fast to develop self-control, show adherence to their faith, and so that as each Ramadan day ends and food is served, they will have a keener appreciation of the bounty God has offered Earth. Jews participate in the Yom Kippur fast on the theory that deliberately causing yourself mild discomfort shows respect for the great suffering of the faithful of the past. For Christians, a 40-day fast recalls Christ's 40 days without food in the wilderness as he prayed to be shown his mission.
For anyone who is spiritual, fasting redirects the mind away from physical urges--after the first few days at least, when food is the only thing you can think about.
The development of fasting as a component of evangelical belief is somewhat unexpected, because fasting has at best moderate biblical support. Jews often fasted in ancient times, especially to show sorrow, and as a result the Torah and Hebrew scriptures are rife with fasting references. Jesus and John the Baptist fasted as well, though they did so either as part of Jewish observance or for purely spiritual reasons. There isn't anything in the New Testament that directly instructs believers to fast, and it's thought that Christian fasting did not become common until the early Middle Ages--a time when, as now, there was often over-indulgence in food, at least for those of privilege or in the monastery movement.
Whether a person needs to fast in order to fix his or her thoughts on the spiritual is a question each must answer alone. But this much is certain--for all but a few Americans, it can't possibly hurt to go without food once in a while--and it may help if it focuses the mind and reminds us of our blessings when meals resume. That, and the lines at the Mega Burger drive-through, may be all that's required to inspire a fasting fad.
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I love......, (in no particular order),
Being alive!!!
Being loved
The TRINITY, (GOD, JESUS and the HOLY SPIRIT)
Cherokee
Geno and Ann
LaShane and Garth
My five Grandchildren, (Kiara, Garth Jr., Jack, Samuel and Samantha)
Richie Rich
Michelle
Charlene
Children
My family members
Family get-togethers, with food
Birthday parties, with food
Good Friends getting together, with food
Food
Watching Movies
Writing
Reading
Babies
Little animals
Surfing on the computer
Going out to eat
Getting stuff for free
Being comfortable at home
Having money
Spending money
Having all my bills paid
Great singing
Giving things to other people
Meeting people
Thursday nights at Plush
Fairys
Beautiful things
Good Poetry
Getting attention from strangers
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I don't love......, (in no particular order),
GETTING OLDER!!!
Forgetting information
Not being loved
Being separated from Rich
Thinking too much
Frustrating people
Needing things
Not being able to "heal" the world
Bad news
Stupidity
The act of being mean
Being sick
Not having a car
The act of being selfish
The act of being prejudiced
Inequality
The emotion of being scared
getting angry
Having to ask for favors
Pain
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This is my son Gilbert (Geno) and his wife, SeungEun (Ann), in front of their Logo wall at Plush Design Lab and Cafe, in Fullerton, CA. Drop in, if you are out their way. In any case, click on the title Plush Cafe to your left, and take a look see at their place. Ain't they lovely?
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This is a photo of the "Four Musketeers". To your left, our right, there is Michelle, my niece, who is taking the picture. Next is "the baby" of that Goodwin family, Charlene, Michelle's sister. (No one can ever tell her right age). Next to those cuties is me, Pamela, and yes, I have no eyebrows, really! No, they're just really light brown. Last but not least, is Miss.Cherokee, my beautiful BABY, she is a wonderful daughter! (and yes, she has no nose, smile). Just joking!!! Michelle is bad at taking self-portraits, or maybe it was the lighting, I don't know, but Cherokee does have a nose. That's her in the photo on this blog, to the far left, and you can see it (almost) at her blog spot. Click her name to the left, and you can see it for yourself! HaHaHaHa. This photo, of the four of us, was taken back in 1994 or '95. We've grown-up since then, you bet cha. Well, almost. :=)
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Yeah, it is. I watched Carnivale yesterday, and I didn't get to go to church either, (because), I went out with my nieces and daughter, (Michelle, Charlene and Cherokee), friday, grocery shopping for the group-home, (and for us, too), and some other places. I don't really remember now, but after being out all night thursday (at Plush Cafe)! I just couldn't go any where saturday, or sunday!!! Is it old age? THE PAIN, THE PAIN. Nothing helped, so while the three, under 35 year olds, went out and looked around at EVERYTHING, I had to sit here on the computer, ignoring the telephone, (it wasn't anyone I knew, must have been telemarketers, after Cherokee's voice asked them to leave a message, they hung up!! I was so glad, 'cause I didn't feel like getting up)!, and generally wishing that I was 27, instead of 57. Then I would be 1 year older than Charlene, four years younger than Michelle, and 5 years younger than my youngest child, Cherokee. That would serve her right! Where is the magic when you need it? I want to be a real live Fey, Sidhe, Seelie or Unseelie, I don't care! They look great, beautiful, and at hundreds of years old. Thanks Laurell K. Hamilton, for opening me up to yet another world that I cannot be a part of! I'm such a child of fantasy! When I watch, "Harry Potter", I want to be at Hogswarts, when I watch, "Matrix", I want to be with Neo, (just in the quiet times, not during the war). When I watch, "Carnivale", I want to be with Ben Hawkins, and tell him, "use your powers, Ben"!! I get absorbed, I get lost, I don't want to be just me. Then I try to write my own story, yes, I mean about my own life. I may get to two or three pages, and I stop. I think, I can't write that! It may be true, but I don't want to think about it myself, let alone let someone else read it!!! I did some stupid stuff as a youngster, and now when I think about it, I say to myself, "Thank YOU FATHER GOD, for JESUS dying for my sins, I accept"!!! They weren't bad for today's standards, but, whoa, for the mid 60s, when I went WILD? I think that it was the "Make Love Not War", sentiments that were flying around everywhere, and the fact that my Daddy had died around six years before. I just didn't care about anything, especially myself, or my future. Until I got pregnant, and had this extraordinary, wonderful, beautiful, special, handsome, little baby boy, (I was two months shy of 18), and I changed. My whole outlook on life shifted. I had to be "Mamma", to this sweet little miracle. I almost didn't make it! I died on the delivery table, honestly, but the doctor, (well, GOD working through him), saved me! Dr.Bronco Borazon, the instrument of THE ALMIGHTY! (even though "William Patterson", is the doctor whose name is on the birth certificate, I still don't know why, was he even in the room)? Oh, The reason I stopped breathing, and my heart stopped beating? I had "Eclampsia Toxemia", (blood poisoning), and I had never gone to any doctor for pre-natal care! Yeah, I know. STUPID, (years later, my cousin Carol Turner, died from the same condition, her little boy lived). We, Geno and I, stayed in the hospital for 10 days, and they drained all the poison out of me. When we left, I was feeling clean and refreshed! Then I went back for my six week check-up, and the doctor told me I was a "real beauty", but a bit ignorant for almost killing myself, and my baby! He was totally right, and very handsome, himself!! Anyway, we are fine now, (well, at almost 40, Gilbert Eugene, nicknamed Geno, is), I have major health problems, nowadays! Still, GOD allowed me to go on to be a married woman and a mother, twice again, and those little girls were both SO beautiful, I thought that they were gifts to the entire world, not just to me and their daddy, Richie Rich! They're pictured here on my blog, so you know what I mean. I felt so blessed too. Grateful, also. I think that I am a pretty good mother, despite my trying to kill myself, with neglect, as a kid. Now, as a Grandmother, I have these incredible second generation kids, that I adore! Two sets of outrageously attractive twins, boy/boy, & boy/girl, and a very gorgeous teen-aged granddaughter, all brilliant, and unique!!! With stellar personalities. So, "The devil can mean a thing for bad, and GOD can turn it around for good"!!! Whew! I'm good, even if it IS still monday!!
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THIS SITE IS ONE OF THE BEST SITES I HAVE FOUND ON THE INTERNET. IF YOU WANT TO HAVE FUN, PLAY GAMES, AND MEET PEOPLE. (WHO MAY SHARE YOUR INTERESTS) THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF GUILDS, (JUST FOR FUN, NOTHING SERIOUS). THIS SITE IS FOR YOU, (AND NO! I'M NOT GETTING PAID FOR THIS!!!). I just got through playing: SPELL or STARVE, CARNIVAL of TERROR, WORD POKER, ULTIMATE BULLSEYE, SUTEK'S TOMB. OH, there's so many more fun games, most are so easy, young kids can play them. (I don't think any one under 14 can play though, I am not sure). Check it out.
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Neopets® is the greatest Virtual Pet Site on the Internet. With your help, we have built a community of over 70 million virtual pet owners across the world! Neopets has many things to offer including over 160 games, trading, auctions, greetings, messaging, and of course, pirate eating contests. Best of all, it's completely FREE!
www.neopets.com. Join us.
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To Thine Own Self be True
*To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
William Shakespeare
To be true to ourselves is a challenge of integrity. Do we follow the group,
association or political party? Do we do things for others because it is
expected of us or are we giving of our time and supply because we truly love our
neighbor? These are just a few of the many things we consider when it comes to
being true to ourselves.
We on this spiritual path have our worldly selves and our spiritual selves that
we must keep in tight rein if we are to stay comfortable and at peace within. My
"worldly self" often wants to take over and go with the crowd. If I succumb, it
makes me feel uncomfortable. Sometimes, it is such a small thing that I have to
dig deep, being really honest with myself to find what it is. Maybe, I was
untrue to my true self and didn't say "no" to a request that was made of me and
resentment followed for allowing myself to be "sucked in." It may be a
commitment I didn't keep, or some little thing I neglected to do. Again, being
untrue to myself.
Left to my own ego devices, I spend time searching within for the object of my
discomfort or resentment. However, when I take time to consciously acknowledge
God in all of my affairs, I am being true to not only my human, ego self, but to
my spiritual self as well. Then, I am intelligently governed because God is the
divine law of my being, Acknowledging and being at one with God always gives me
guidance and direction in all of my affairs, making it impossible for me to be
untrue to myself.
Affirmation:
I am true to myself through my conscious connection with God.
Barbara Taylor
www.agapelive.com
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It's saturday, 3:21am. Here I am at the computer. I just got through playing some cool games at www.neopets.com and I am just about ready to go to bed. We did alot yesterday, well for Cherokee and myself. Got up at 9:30 or so in the am. Showered, dressed (cute), and Michelle and Charlene came by to pick us up to do some chores. We didn't get home until dark. This is on top of us going to Plush Cafe thursday evening, and staying there until nearly 3:00am! The place was jumping! I bought this CD from this really great singer, named Kevin Sandbloom. He was wonderful! There was another fabulous singer, by the name of Jacob G. and his band was terrific also! I cannot wait until he has his CD out. Besides the Open Mic, there is the thursday night group, called "Domino Effect", and our usual DJ/host then is, Gio (Stuart), the house band is compiled of: Mike, Clif, Cephas (Love), Wyll, Jason, Allan, and Jeremy. Those guys can rock your socks off!!! Cephas sings like nobody's business also, and sometimes his cute girl friend Jasmine will back him up. Jason's brother, Justin (twins) gets on the mic, and let me tell you, he makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck! His voice is that smooth and mellow sounding! Oh, I cannot forget to mention regular musicians like Dr. Pepper, and this very attractive young man, named Joshua, who is native on those congo drums!!! He can really beat them solid! Old school term for YEAH GOOD!
If you are ever in Fullerton, CA. You just gotta stop by 207 N. Harbor Boulevard, and check out the haps. You won't be sorry, any night, but Thursday is the day me and the Ladies three, Cherokee, Michelle and Charlene are there behind the counter. We party!
So, anyway, after we came home and put up our groceries, and noshed on a salad, we watched, "The Grudge". Yeah, with the actress supreme from the now cancelled, TV show, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", Sarah Michelle Gellar! Or aka, Mrs. Freddie Prinze Jr., to her close fans, (like us) she may be gone from the TV, but she is ever in our hearts and thoughts, plus she has been in alot of other things, and she is just a great actress, 'nuff said!!!! Just let me say, from the bottom of my heart that, "The Grudge", is a freaky but, very scary and good movie"!!!!!!! I give it 9 out of 10 stars. I am sure that we will watch it over and over, as we so often do movies that we really like. Every time "Harry Potter", comes on, I have to watch it again. Same with the "Matrix", (all three of them), even though Cherokee has the DVDs! I am like that with Mickey Rourke movies, and Stephen Baldwin's too!!! "Absense of the Good", and "Dead Awake", oh yeah, "Mr. Murder", being among my favorites of his. As far as MR goes, there are too many of his movies that I love, and I mean LOVE, to really mention here. Oh well, maybe just one or two. "Rumble Fish", being a classic! "AngelHeart", "The Last Outlaw", "Bullet", "A Prayer for the dying", "Diner", not to mention how fine he looked in "DoubleTeam", he is the BEST thing about that movie!!! Just go and rent some of his movies, you'll see what I mean, "Johnny Handsome"!!! I am waiting on pins and needles for "Sin City", and "Domino"!!!!! MICKEY, I LOVE YOU!!! I really don't know, I think my daughter LaShane loves him even more, if that is possible. Anyway, that doesn't take away from how I feel about Keanu Reeves! Oh my gosh, I am getting so silly. 57 years old, and I act like a high-school girl, with a crush on the star basketball player!! I must be tired. I usually try to talk about more serious matters. These are the subjects of my dreams! So, here I go to bed, perchance to dream? Oh yeah!
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My gorgeous daughter, LaShane, her wonderful and hunky hubby Garth Sr., and their 5 kids!!!!! Kiara, who is a very beautiful 15 year old high schooler, who loves doing hair, (cosmetology). Garth Jr. the video game master,and Jack the artist, are 9 year old twins, (as you can see they're fraternal. They are so sweet and terrific! (Genusis', all of them). Last but not least, twins again, Samuel and Samantha. He is the best dancer, and they both know "Buffy the Musical" word by word, Samantha sings like a Diva, too. Oh the talent in our family! 2005.
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Thursday again already? Yeah! I didn't post on my blog at all yesterday, I wasn't feeling well. It happens. Anyway, nothing happened earthshaking, (oh, wait), yes, it did! My husband, the kids dad, called me. He is sick. I mean really sick, Still he left the warmth of his apartment to go out into the awful weather in Northern California, to call me. So is the life of a person who does not have a telephone in their apartment. How archaic! Anyway, when I was talking to him, he was so vocally altered, in my mind's eye, I saw him almost the same, except that his nose was horribly bulbous, and covered the bottom half of his face! I tried not to, but I couldn't help it, I laughed at him, then I had to tell him why. We talked almost an hour, and I was glad to hear his voice, he has claimed to be trying to visit us here in Southern California since November of 2004, and he hasn't made it yet. GOD willing he will make it down before our six year old grandchildren graduate high school. We are still friends, though we can't live together, and after 34 years of marriage, he IS like a member of the family. Tonight, we are going to go over to Plush, Ann and Geno's (Gil's), cafe. GOD willing. I must clarify, I don't do anything, I am the PR person. I "meet and greet". That's what I am good at. I love to talk, yet, my memory isn't what it used to be, so, usually I see someone and they say "hello", and I say, "hi there, glad to see you here, have you been here before"? They say, "Yeah, last week". Oops. One thing, it is fun with movies, whenever I see one, I ask Cherokee, "Have we seen this one before"? She'll either say, "Yes, mother". Or she'll say, "No, mother". It's like going to the 99 cents only, store, and some sweet little old lady will say, "I wonder what this costs"? I haven't said that, yet, 'cause I keep looking up at the walls, and it says in Big Blue Letters, "ALL ITEMS 99 CENTS ONLY". Good idea, too. I love those stores, I want to visit them all over California! I did get to go to one in Reno, Navada. IT WAS AWESOME! Richie Rich (my husband), went gambling, I went to their 99 cents store. They had things that I had never seen offered here in CA., Tiny dice in little capsules! Miniture cards in little boxes! All 54! (two Jokers). I got a Sake set. It was like a miniture tea set, except it had a tiny jar for the Sake, (Japanese rice wine), and four cute tiny handeless cups, and a tray that was black with enamelled red flowers on it. I wonder what happened to it? I can't remember! Oh, I wish I could find that again! I don't, and have never (that I remember), drunk Sake. Maybe I have. I have known alot of Airmen, (from March Air Force Base, here in So., CA.), and they used to bring lots of foreign stuff back with them from their overseas trips. As a matter of fact, my son's father, was an Airman, and both of my sisters, Billiejean and Anna, married Airmen. Billiejean is still with hers. Ahhh, the memories, fun times. Back to the present. I also love, Wal*Mart, Target, (the girls call it Tar zjay with a french accent), and Big Lots!!! Any discount stores where you can "get things for less". Yeah! It's the American Way!!! 'Bye for now, we gotta jet!
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Hey class,
This is some very interesting American History. Some of you may have heard it before, many may not have. Read, and enjoy....., or not.
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Just A Question Of Standards:
Does the statement "We've always done it that way" ring any bells?
The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches.
That's an exceedingly odd number.
Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the US railroads.
Why did the English build them like that?
Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge
they used.
Why did "they" use that gauge then?
Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.
Okay! Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?
Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long-distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.
So who built those old rutted roads?
Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.
And the ruts in the road?
Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. The US standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. And bureaucracies live forever.
So the next time you are handed a spec and told we have always done it that way, and wonder what horse's ass came up with that, you may be exactly right, because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses.
Now the twist to the story...when you see a space shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRB's. The SRB's are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRB's would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRB's had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRB's had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.
So a major space shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass.
And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important?
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MSNBC.com
Texas senator proposes ‘obesity reports’
Law would notify parents of kids’ body mass index
By Jim Cummins
Correspondent
NBC News
Updated: 7:34 p.m. ET Jan. 31, 2005
AUSTIN, Texas - Experts say more than a third of Texas schoolchildren are overweight or at risk for obesity. That figure alarms Leticia Van dePutte, a state senator from San Antonio, who is also a practicing pharmacist.
"[It amazes me] to see the number of 8- and 9-year-olds that are coming into the pharmacy to get the insulin, or 12-year-olds that take more blood pressure medicine than my grandmother," says Van dePutte.
So Van dePutte is proposing a state law requiring schools to weigh students, compute their body mass index, and send that information home on their report cards.
A similar law was implemented in Arkansas last year, where 38 percent of the students were found to be overweight. But unlike the plan proposed in Texas, Arkansas sent that information directly to parents in a health report, not in students' report cards.
Some parents in Texas are outraged.
"They don't need to tell us that to realize your kid is overweight," says parent Rosa Medellian.
Dr. Stephanie Setliff, who treats kids with eating disorders at the Children's Medical Center in Dallas, also believes the proposal is a bad idea.
"We know that eating disorders like anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa can be triggered by one comment made from a peer or a coach," says Setliff.
The state's largest teacher group also opposes the bill, saying teachers should just teach.
"The school has a place to provide nutritional food and nutritional information in health class, but they're not doctors," says Eric Allen with the Association of Texas Professional Educators.
But Van dePutte says many Texas kids don't have health insurance and rarely see a doctor. She's hoping health reports from school will motivate their parents to do something.
"When parents see something written about their child's health status, they will intervene in the same way they do when they get that report card on the academic side," she says.
As another Texas official puts it, report cards on obesity in children "cant' wait, because their lives are literally at stake."
© 2005 MSNBC Interactive
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6890798/?GT1=6190
