Odd Thgs

40 odd things about me . . . 

Play along! If u wanna.

I abbr alot, that's odd.

I like reading them when bored!

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1. Do you put ketchup on hot dogs? Yes, with bread, mustard, relish and baked beans

2. Choice of soda? Had to quit. I like drinx Ginger Lime when I find it.

3. Do you own a gun? I have a whole collection of water pistols. Be afraid... 

When I get rich, a nice little 9mm will do. I am good at video shooting.

4. Can you swim? Like a fish underwater since 18 mos old! 

5. Hot dogs or cheeseburger? Just the burger, with bacon, onions, and green peppers please.

6. Favorite type of food? Edible, but fresh watermelon is preferred 

7. Do you believe in ghosts? There are spirits everywhere. Stop following me! 

8. What do you drink in the morning?  Red Rose black tea

9. Can you do 100 push ups? Not today, but used to do 12 before I mangled my wrist in '85.

10. Favorite time of year? All of it

11. Your favorite hobby?  Artistic accidental discoveries of any kind

12. Tattoos? Allergic to metal in needles, just say none.

13. Do you wear glasses? For reading teeny text only. Used to need thick ones.

14. Do you have a phobia? Things I am allergic to that can't be avoided 

15. Do you have a nick name? Ev 

16. Three favorite types of drinks? Peach tea, cranberry, Kahlua 

18. Rain or snow? Hurricanes and blizzards are fun to walk to work in...

What I hate is slushy road splash from vehicles!

19. Can you change a tire? Yup, with a hand jack and tire iron

20. Favorite flower? Purple and pink super petunias

21. Can you drive a stick? Yes, thanks Ruthie! 

22. Ever gone skydiving? No. But Ziplined last year. Cheaper

23. Kids? Mine, theirs, and adopted many others. 

24. Favorite color? All of them, but especially tertiary purple and green juxtaposed

25. Employed? Yes

26. Can you whistle? Only with an Irish tin whistle, need a new one

27. Favorite vacation? Last year's Pokinos trip was the first vaca trip away without a funeral attached. I love visiting family and friends.

28. Siblings? Had 5 down to 3

29. Surgeries? My eyes in 2020, and now they are 2020.

30. Shower or bath? Shower, but miss the claw foot tub soaks.

31. Last song you listened to?  

Katrina and the Waves- Walking on Sunshine

Shared by Paul Geoffrion , cheers me up everytime I hear it

32. Broken bones? Fingers, toes

33. How many TVs in your house? 2 small,  one stored in closet

35. Do you like to sing? I used to sing more than now

36. Are your parents still alive? None, Dad and Gramps 32 years ago, Mom 23 years ago. 

38. What do you enjoy binge watching? Film series like Star Wars, LOR, Marvel, Xmen, Star Trek, Back to the Future All seen many times

Tv -Outlander, Greys Anatomy, NCIS New Orleans with Scott Bakulla on late nights not in binge habit.

39. Pumpkin or Pecan Pie? CranApple!

40. Someone who would play? 

Bored folks

Taxing Times

 

I recently commented this on G.B. Miller's post about procrastinating doing taxes... :

I used to play Taxman on the guitar,  but I shouldn't waste time trying to remember now, cause I have to read all those tax instructions and get it done myself!  Plus, what happens to retirement ss with working too (for) taxes next year...? Still need to figure it out, and then what happens with MA HC premium help from Commonwealth Care after I sign up to not pay a penalty for the full price of a private plan. What a twisted set of instructions I read.. 

And so blogging is procrastinated due to tax time, just a few weeks left...

Groundhog Day

This day always reminds me of my brother Donald. He passed away from Cancer in late 2018. 

Back in 2000 when I was staying in the city to care for my Mother at the end of her life, Don would pop in every morning to say "Hi", Sometimes bring coffee and donuts, always mentioned "It's GroundHog Day." referring to the film with Bill Murray, and go about his workday. Apparently when my Dad was ill on the way out, ten years earlier, Don had likened the experience of repeating the same day over and over like in the movie. of course finally getting what to do correct would mean life was over.

Sadly, he went through the same thing, a  losing to cancer ending. And just a few days ago, his brother-in-law, family friend since grade school, same age Don got to, did the same thing. 

Last night I had a vivid dream, in bright colors, including Don for the first time since he has been gone. We were going to buildings in a Newton like place, knocking on doors. It felt like upper Walnut St. but full of buildings like West Newton Square. Of course, he is buried on upper Walnut St. 

He knocked on a door of someone I did not know, an old friend of his, yelled and argued with him until he let us in. we walked through the place out the back door, and observed a woman, I took to be this guy's wife, in the back yard, playing with things that looked like fluffy, bright pink, pinecones, some single and some in bunches. So bright and vivid! I had never seen things like this before, and I took photos of them. 

Then Don took off and I tried to go after him, through colorful rooms, hallways, and doors, but had no clue where he had gone.

After awhile I came to a huge, round, funnel shaped slide, and rode down and through it (Weeeeeee--!) Until it became small and I popped out the end of it, and woke up, remembering all the pretty color.

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Here are some dream definitions from petrix.com:

Door:

Access. Ready to enter or something to keep private. Happiness and long life

Hall:

Access. Privacy. Trying to find a connection with someone or something.

Pink:

Associated with tenderness and love. You can expect interesting developments in relations with opposite sex.

 

Orange:

The color orange in dreams indicates passion in every aspect of your life.

Purple:

Great aspirations and understanding of visible and invisible realms. Take advantage of your creativity.

Photograph:

Image. Record. Past. The way you see the world.

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Not sure what it really means, but running through old home town with my brother Don felt fun. I have missed hanging out with him. 

Not a thing like GroundHog Day...

Unique and Original

 From Old ESR January 2006

A totally drawn on computer with mouse in paint Unicorn pic used as a Gravitar. Would be my little profile pic in convos and comments on certain non-blogger places such as WordPress, Tumbler, and chats. Wonder what happened to that site... Cause it is gone now. Lost forever... 

This took like a whole day to draw that way... Then I went nuts resizing it to 75 pixels square. Drew my nic-name, "Snag" in it too. Yep, gone! 

Erica posted in a FB memory that she deleted her MySpace page. I never did, nor Live Journal, or Tumbr, or the  WordPress Blog, or several other alternate identity blogs. Or mine and Mom's AngelFire page with recipes on it. Never know when you need those, or want to see her pics. 

I don't mind leaving breadcrumbs to follow after I am gone. Don't know why others try to delete their work! I try to keep saving mine! 

People may try to figure out who I was someday... And it's been out there since 1991.

Blues

 

I am just getting over a nasty cold. The covid test said negative, at least , But I was waylaid for days. Still coughing.

The Avatar film is on tv now, distracting my focus. The last time I watched it, my eyes were so bad I didn't see the details like I can now. 

I'm having a broke Christmas. The Grandkids will have to deal with not getting their normal Money gift. In the past I have been generous and given away several paychecks of giftcards. Not this year with the inflated cost of everything. I have started a new job, and later than I wanted. 

Hopefully I will make the January bills. Most companies are not hiring here to avoid paying out more funds before New Years. Everyone is buckling down on spending. Groceries have been costing an arm and leg around here, along with rents, autos, repairs, and fuel. Minimum wage in MA will be up to $15 per hour the first of the year, and cost has been passed on to consumers in wild price inflation, so the increase is helping no one. I have been spending very little cash, getting it to stretch longer. 

Luckily, I have saved up nonperishable food for such an occasion. The food problem for me, is being unable to keep myself gluten-free and low-carb to use my stored goods. I have been eating that way since early last year, so I expect to put some of the weight I'd lost back on in order not to go hungry. Also, the food we're making at work all has high carbs and gluten, so I shouldn't have very much, even if it's free. 

In 10 days I'll go off diet at Christmas anyhow, just to eat the dinner at my daughter's. I will have the Xmas day off instead of the Eve for once. At least I won't be forced to work on that day, as the business will be closed. Then my other daughter will be visiting for a few days. She is low carb too. I'm very proud of her weight loss over the past year. She is back to her HS size. She even ran a 5k marathon this month. 

As the year 2022 winds down so much has changed for me. I may not have much time for assessment, but I am putting in effort to get back to what is important to me, instead of feeling helpless to do that.

Tanx

The food was prepared for days, weeks ahead if you count the shopping. I don't have a car now and all those elements must be carried. Someday I hope to be thankful for a car again. I really miss my Little Truck, and the funds to get another one.

I hope to be thankful for hitting a lottery jackpot soon. A new place to live where I am not fighting for a turn in the bathroom in my old age would be great. Living is getting so expensive, and my funds are not stretching far enough.  

Normally I would be thankful for all my blog readers, but I have to settle to only having one, once in a blue moon. Better than none, but really is this worth the effort?  I am thankful to have a new laptop I can barely operate, wasting hours trying to do a simple thing like keying in text without it deciding to insert itself into the front of the sentence instead of completing the word I am doing. I don't know why it is doing that. 

Moving from Chrome on a Chromebook to Win10 on ThinkPad has made all I was doing obsolete. Truely, I detest Windows 10 OS! But hey, at least I have one! 

Decidedly I'm not as grateful as before. I need to find a new job, easier to get to even if paid less. The old one not only became psychologically unbearable, but I was out 12 to 14 hours per day only getting paid for 8 or fewer hours. What a big waste of time due to the bus situation through the pandemic on a Saturday schedule, even though only 5 miles away. To be there by 4pm leaving at 12:45pm, returning home via delivery truck about 2 am. I got too chronically fatigued to keep it up.

Sleep always suffered every time something else had to get done, each thing was a missed day of sleep while working nights. Town buses quit going to my section of town by 4 pm, so to shop on Day Off I still had to not sleep or miss the ride home.

No one at home will respect my sleep time, and I am punished even more with loud noise for disturbing them. Home has me hiding in my room so others do not ruin my mood for the day. I don't do things like other people, and they don't get it, that they are upsetting to me. Makes me not want to play guitar or draw pictures. Makes me grumpy and not inspired, only pissed off. 

I would like to get back to who I am, not so unhappy. Now during the turkey holiday, I went off my low carb, no gluten diet for a couple days, and suddenly feel terrible, having caught a cold, despite mostly wearing a mask all night. Dinner got done super late. Then the pies got put out and we got quickly stuffed, then went home about 11:30pm. I have felt exhausted ever since. Big sugar crash. 

No one ever got to say what they are grateful for, and my list is decidedly short. I am still alive, able to see and read again, and have a roof over my head. I got some food to take home, and will be okay for a little while. Everything else needs work... but is do-able. I have not lost hope...

Fair Weather Friends

For years online it seemed I had a good friend, who used to also phone call and chat with me often. It was great to have some company on the phone, especially since I was feeling so isolated, stuck in this one room since I moved, and when the pandemic started cutting off all outside interaction. 

I had started doing Facebook in 2017, however, and at least got to reconnect there with some youth-time peeps I was missing, and great school comrades. They will always be my friends no matter what. We all have similar beliefs and come from similar circumstances.

 When this online buddy would call, I'd drop everything to spend that time with them. I was a good listener, and allowed alot of opinions I did not actually agree with to go with my points un-argued, or tried to agree to disagree. They did always think their opinion was the only correct one.

Through my parents and Parochial school, I was raised to be tolerant of all different culture ethnicities and religions. I was taught diversity was an asset to finding solutions, and found many friends from other ethnicities to be wonderful people. Also I accept people who have different sexual orientation. Everyone is an equality deserving unique person to me.

So many things this friend person expressed about others were not taken well by me, that if I were actual in person hanging out with them, would have caused me to break off that friendship. But I kept an open mind, that this person needed someone to hear what they said validated, and had little other emotional support. Also they had found out a life-altering medical problem.

Add on top of all that some deeply emotional political viewpoints supporting many conspiracy theories. Oh yes, every story needs to be pulled apart and disproven with online sources at our fingertips. Kennedy's assassin was not who they said, men faked that moon landing scene on a stage set, and Jewish bankers were responsible for the 911 crashes and the towers tumbling down were from demolition bomb charges to collect insurance funds. 

I have a cousin with similar views, like JFK Jr is still alive...

But I disagree about the moon thing. And definitely do not think Jewish, Black, Indigenous, or homosexuals deserve to not be treated as equals, or spoken badly about as a group. This guy thought the white man race and place he was born into was better. I broke up with guys over the type of things this one would say.

 Also he was old-fashioned about women's place in society, and gender roles. Females should be subservient. It so happens I have been a tomboy libber doing men stuff my whole life, and being underpaid for it to boot. 

Point being that I listened to all this high and mighty BS and disagreed with it all, but allowed the person their opinion for many years, while mine was not even considered. Friendship is supposed to be a give and take situation, and I did my part by listening. When I got to a point where I was having problems dealing with people who live here, really needed to tell someone, he didn't want to hear about anything that was troubling me. The call was over. 

Then he didn't want to call anymore, and hasn't. So after all the caring about his problems and struggles, he couldn't listen to one of  mine at a very low point I got to. I have no idea how he is doing, and guess I shouldn't even care. Of course to him, only his issues matter. he can't be bothered to listen or help about mine. Better to just disconnect and stop being a friend who really knows you. 

Well if you are reading me old, one-way friend, I disagree with what you think about politics, different types of people, women, and what you think friends are for.

 I should have ditched you way back there...