Jib Jab's 2007 Review

glumbert - In 2007

Roll With the Changes

I knew it had to happen
Felt the tables turnin'
Got me through my darkest hour
I heard the thunder clappin'
Felt the desert burnin'
Until you poured on me
Like a sweet sunshower

"Roll With the Changes" by REO Speedwagon

Usually I do a year-end retrospective and review the major events of the year, but I think I'll skip it this year. Let's just say it's been a real roller coaster year, literally and figuratively. If I tried to go over all the losses and traumas of the year it might sound like I was trying to write a Book of Job Lite (50% less heavy than the original). ;-)

Of course, it all hasn't been bad. And focusing only on the hard times isn't a healthy perspective anyway. If I had to concentrate the lessons of it all into one word, I think that faith is it. I've learned a deeper meaning to faith than the one that its critics like to use (believing blindly or some such thing). Faith is an intellectual decision to be satisfied with knowing something without a physical sign of it. There are many physical things that are fleeting and ultimately unnecessary for us to know what they symbolize. The physical world is sometimes only a symbolic representation of our ideas and feelings, or even our very existence. If those symbols disappear it does not mean that our ideas and feelings never existed or don't continue to exist. This is what I mean by faith. A true knowing without the need for 'evidence'. I don't see this as a weakness or whatever else certain types of people call it. I see it as a strength and maturity and trust.

I know you're an emotional girl
It took a lot for you to not lose your faith in this world
I can't offer you proof
But you're going to face a moment of truth
It's hard when you're always afraid
You just recover when another belief is betrayed
So break my heart if you must
It's a matter of trust

"A Matter of Trust" by Billy Joel

Indeed, faith and trust go hand in hand. And without them we can't roll with the changes, which is essential to survival. So fasten your seat belts, make sure your lapbar is securely in the locked position, hang on, and enjoy the ride!

And Happy New Year 2008!

Friday Fluff

Borrowed from Friday Fiver:

1. Tell us something you love: My family of soulmates.

2. Tell us something you know to be true: Life is precious, even when it hurts.

3. Tell us about someone new in your life: The newest person in my life is my 5 month old nephew who reminds me so much of my youngest when he was a tiny baby.

4. Who can you never please? People who disagree with me. ;-)

5. Friday fill-in:
You know I ___. believe in miracles.

Making My List and Checking It Twice

This year I'm happy to report that unlike last year the Christmas spirit is pretty strong even though I lost two weeks of shopping time. I'm just pacing myself and getting the shopping done a little bit each day. Maybe it's because I'm thankful to even be shopping at all. :-)

So no "ba humbug" this year, but more "God bless us every one!"

Merry Christmas to all, even the atheists. ;-)

Lord Have Mercy

A Tsar Is Born

Time's Man of the Year is Russia's Vladimir Putin. When I first heard it I was a little puzzled, but after reading and thinking more about it I see that it is a fair choice. He certainly has the power that many men wish for, especially the wannabe world dictator, Al Gore. ;-)

Interesting facts from the Time article:

He has never sent an email in his life.

Despite growing up in an officially atheist country, he is a believer and often reads his Bible.

He comes from a very modest, poor background.

He has a black belt in judo.

He is quick to aggitation and has little patience for small talk, jokes, and social niceties. He is generally ruthless and cold.

He complains about how he thinks America treats Russia as "an uninvited guest at a party."

"We want to be a friend of America," he says. "Sometimes we get the impression that America does not need friends" but only "auxiliary subjects to command." Asked if he'd like to correct any American misconceptions about Russia, Putin leans forward and says, "I don't believe these are misconceptions. I think this is a purposeful attempt by some to create an image of Russia based on which one could influence our internal and foreign policies. This is the reason why everybody is made to believe...[Russians] are a little bit savage still or they just climbed down from the trees, you know, and probably need to have...the dirt washed out of their beards and hair."

But at the end of the article the writer explains:

Back at the dacha, with snow falling lightly outside, our dinner and discussion continue. Putin has been irritable throughout, a grudging host. Suddenly, at 10 o'clock, he stands and abruptly ends the evening. "We've finished eating, there's nothing more on the table, so let's call it a day," he declares. Actually, the main course (choice of sturgeon or veal) and dessert ("bird's milk" cake)—lovingly printed in gold ink on the prepared menu cards—haven't yet been served. The Russian President's brusqueness is jarring. Have our questions angered him? Bored him? Does he have another appointment? It's not clear. "Bye bye," says Putin—in English—as he walks briskly out of the room.

Well, I have to say that if one acts like that then it's rather natural to assume that Russians "are a little bit savage still." You see, even we backwards Tennessee hillbillies know better than to end a dinner before the dinner is even served. In fact, we would be very insulted if a guest up and left before the main course was served, and we would expect a guest to be equally insulted if we kicked them out too soon.

Runs In the Family

Britney Spears' 16 year old sister, Jamie Lynn, has announced that she is pregnant. You would think that she might have learned what not to do by watching her big sister's series of screw-ups. And what about their mother? Has she never explained to her daughters what happens when you have unprotected sex? I was about to give their mother the benefit of the doubt with one daughter that didn't turn out so great, but now that both daughters appear to be defective one must place some blame on the mother, genetically and environmentally. Actually, I think that Mrs. Spears probably sold her and her daughters' souls to the Devil in order to gain fame and fortune. But as most of us know, when the Devil makes deals they aren't as good as you think they will be.

Cool Christmas Tree

Dear Quentin Tarantino,

I'm sure you get all kinds of kooky letters from crazy freaks with their 'brilliant' movie ideas. Well, I'm pretty kooky and crazy and maybe a little freaky and I do have a movie idea, but I'm not promising anything brilliant. ;-) Just so you know, I'm a hometown girl from Knoxville, just in case that might help a little. :-) I really love some of your movies that I've seen, especially the Kill Bill movies, Sin City (your influence as guest director is obvious), and Pulp Fiction. I'm sorry to admit that I haven't seen all of them. Maybe someday I'll get caught up on some movie watching.

Anyway, if you sex it up a lot and fictionalize most of it, you could make a really funny and quirky movie based on my life. Just a few of the real elements to start with are my status as a vicious momma who drives a red Corvette convertible (when I'm not driving a bunch of kids around in an 'evil', full size SUV - Ford Expedition). Well, that's kind of a good start, don't you think? ;-) For some of the fantasy elements you could have me involved in torrid affairs with Lubos Motl and the Pope. Okay, just for a disclaimer to make sure no rumors get started I must tell you that in actuality Lubos Motl has only ever shown the utmost impeccable integrity towards me, and of course the Pope doesn't even know me. But let's get back to the fiction. Another plot twist possibility could involve all this global warming garbage and how me and my cohorts form a secret alliance to stop the evil AntiChrist who is leading the world astray, and so on.

Kate Winslet would be the best choice to play me. She's much prettier than I am, but that's how it's supposed to be in movies.



These pictures from Romance and Cigarettes capture some of the vicious momma spirit, I think.

Maybe Jude Law could play Lubos, or even you. I know you like to show up in your movies. And maybe Anthony Hopkins could play the Pope. We could throw in Viggo Mortensen as a mystery man without whose aid we couldn't succeed in our mission. Probably Alec Baldwin would be good as the AntiChrist. I really dislike him anyway. He's a true cad so it might not be too much of a stretch for him to play that part.

So there you go. There are lots of cool music ideas too, but I won't get too carried away. I do think that you would have the vision and humor to create a fun, interesting story with these elements. And maybe you could even ask Michael Crichton to collaborate on some of the scientific aspects of the story. I like his movies too, though they are much different from yours. It might be a very strange but complementary mixture to have you two working together. But maybe you two hate each other and it is a terrible prospect? I have no idea. I'm just throwing around some wild notions.

Have a nice holiday.

Sincerely,
Rae Ann

PS How could I have been so thoughtless? I should have mentioned my best friend's brother, Walt Foreman, who is a novelist and filmmaker in California. I think he might have some good ideas too.

Mellow Yellow

Electrical banana
Is gonna be a sudden craze
Electrical banana
Is bound to be the very next phase

They call it mellow yellow
(Quite rightly)
They call me mellow yellow
(Quite rightly)
They call me mellow yellow

Donovan "Mellow Yellow"

Just changed the background to a nice mellow yellow. Yellow has become one of my favorite colors lately. It is associated with the solar plexus chakra. I'm not sure about the other blog colors, but at the moment I'll leave them as they are.

Look at the stars,
Look how they shine for you,
And everything you do,
Yeah they were all yellow,

I came along
I wrote a song for you
And all the things you do
And it was called yellow

So then I took my turn
Oh what a thing to have done
And it was all yellow

Your skin oh yeah your skin and bones
Turn into something beautiful
You know you know I love you so
You know I love you so

I swam across
I jumped across for you
Oh what a thing to do
Cause you were all yellow

I drew a line
I drew a line for you
Oh what a thing to do
And it was all yellow

Your skin oh yeah your skin and bones
Turn into something beautiful
You know for you I'd bleed myself dry
For you I'd bleed myself dry

Its true look how they shine for you
Look how they shine for you
Look how they shine for you
Look how they shine for you
Look how they shine for you
Look how they shine

Look at the stars look how they shine for you
And all the things that you do

Coldplay "Yellow"

Movie Recommendation

I just watched Madea's Family Reunion, and wow, it was great! It was absolutely loaded with humor, excellent wisdom, and very sweet romance. Very touching and poignant movie, but also laugh-out-loud funny, especially the title character, Madea. She's a great example of a hilarious vicious momma. ;-) If you get a chance to watch it you won't regret it. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

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Bali Summit

I just want to say that I think it's so very apparent what is the real agenda for Gore and his AGW religion when you see how things happen in Bali. If Gore really wanted to appear authentic and honest he would have insisted that this summit was held under big tents outside without using too much electricity for air conditioning and lighting, etc. He should have followed the lead of old-time church tent revivals that most Southerners and Midwesterners have seen at some point in their lives:



I mean really, they're having the summit in Bali. Freaking paradise, right? Why stay all cooped up in a hotel meeting area with artificial lights and air conditioning? They should have put up tents where they could have gotten natural light and fresh tropical air. It would have been better for their health as well as for the environment. But we all know that those are not the true goals of their actions. They don't really care about the state of the world's climate. They only care about their own comfort, image, and power.

So many high falutin types like to abuse religion and blame it for all the ills of the world and so on, but I think they just don't know how to discern a true, good religion from a false, destructive religion. Gore really is a kind of AntiChrist whose message and intent are not for the improvement of the world but only for his own glorification and fame. If one cannot see what a complete and evil fraud he is then I hope that a flash of revelation will come to them to open their eyes and minds to the truth.

Psalm 56

Just out of curiosity last night I opened the Bible to a random page and this was what I found:

Be gracious to me, O God, for man has trampled upon me;
Fighting all day long he oppresses me.
My foes have trampled upon me all day long,
For they are many who fight proudly against me.
When I am afraid,
I will put my trust in You.
In God, whose word I praise,
In God I have put my trust;
I shall not be afraid.
What can mere man do to me?
All day long they distort my words;
All their thoughts are against me for evil.
They attack, they lurk,
They watch my steps,
As they have waited to take my life.
Because of wickedness, cast them forth,
In anger put down the peoples, O God!
You have taken account of my wanderings;
Put my tears in Your bottle.
Are they not in Your book?
Then my enemies will turn back in the day when I call;
This I know, that God is for me.
In God, whose word I praise,
In the LORD, whose word I praise,
In God I have put my trust, I shall not be afraid.
What can man do to me?
Your vows are binding upon me, O God;
I will render thank offerings to You.
For You have delivered my soul from death,
Indeed my feet from stumbling,
So that I may walk before God
In the light of the living.

Coincidence or not, it was very appropriate for the day. I think it's funny-weird and interesting that good people have been persecuted and tormented by the Godless evil people for a very long time. But it's also a little sad that even after all these centuries and technological, educational, "rational" and other advances, there are still mean, rotten pitchforks in the world who just can't resist being hateful to those who actually try to be good and moral, and especially to those who try to instruct others about goodness and morality. Well, it's just too bad. I guess evolution hasn't been any more successful at cleaning up the human population than religion or any other pillars of civilization.

Divine Infusion

The other day I was looking through the TV channels for something interesting since I wasn't really able to do much of anything else. Sometimes I stumble upon a really good sermon on one of the religious channels, and on that day I really got lucky. I missed the beginning of it but probably only about 25% at most, so I got most of the points. It was one of the absolute best sermons I've ever heard. The delivery style was engaging and entertaining while the message was very logically pleasing, timely and relevant to recent events. It was exactly what I needed to hear. Funny how that happens sometimes.

The preacher was Fredrick Brabson, the pastor of the New Covenant Baptist Church here in Knoxville. I was hoping that there was a video online of his sermon, but I couldn't find one. But I did find that he has a website called Relevant Word Ministries that offers tapes of his messages.

Basically, the sermon was about weathering the storms of life. The first point was that God never abandons us during those hard times and that God never promised that life would always be easy and carefree. Every single person on Earth has the voice of God inside them, even sociopaths, that tells them the right things to do. We don't always listen to that voice because it often conflicts with our selfish desires or demands made on us by the world. Some people even completely deny and ignore that voice of God inside them, but it is still there, waiting for acknowledgement. I think that is the simplest way I've ever heard God explained. God is the good in us. God is that knowing what is the best choice. Anyone who doubts that God exists only needs to look within his own soul and heart and see that God is what tells us how to be good people instead of doing whatever animalistic things we might want to do. It is that Free Will thing I've talked about before. That choice we all have, to do right or to do wrong. That comes from God. How can that not make sense? Anyone who says he doesn't have that inner voice or moral compass that lets him know what is right or wrong is the basic definition of evil. Sorry, but that is the truth, and even some who call themselves atheists acknowledge that they know right from wrong although they are confused as to how they know. ;-)

Another point of the sermon was about those things that keep us from listening to God's voice that guides us to the best way of living. Brabson used a ship in a storm analogy, related to a Bible story that I can't recall now. Anyway, one of the ways of helping oneself get through the storms is to lighten your load. That means tossing overboard all those useless things that weigh us down and impede our progress. That baggage can be material possessions, feelings, addictions, toxic relationships, or any other thing. Get rid of it. It has no value. You can live without it and will be better off without the extra worry. Makes sense, right? Good psychological advice often comes from the Bible. There is a lot of wisdom there if you really listen and think about it.

The final point of the sermon was to never forget your blessings that often come in unexpected forms, even as storms. Be thankful for God's voice in your heart that helped you get through those tough times. God does not throw us into anything that he hasn't equipped us to handle. We just have to listen and use ourselves wisely.

Well, I certainly didn't do Brabson's sermon justice with my short summary. I really do wish his sermon was available online, and maybe someday it will be. It made an impression on me that I wanted to share.

But now I'll add a little something of my own. Last night I was doing a little Bible study and ended up reading about the betrayal and crucifixion of Jesus as described in Mark 14 and 15. Even Jesus allowed himself to be overcome by sorrow and feeling abandoned by God at the same time as his being let down by his closest friends, his disciples. Not even his foreknowledge of these events lessened the experience.

32 They came to a place named Gethsemane; and He said to His disciples, “Sit here until I have prayed.” 33 And He took with Him Peter and James and John, and began to be very distressed and troubled. 34 And He said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death; remain here and keep watch.” 35 And He went a little beyond them, and fell to the ground and began to pray that if it were possible, the hour might pass Him by. 36 And He was saying, “Abba! Father! All things are possible for You; remove this cup from Me; yet not what I will, but what You will.” 37 And He came and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? 38 “Keep watching and praying that you may not come into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” 39 Again He went away and prayed, saying the same words. 40 And again He came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy; and they did not know what to answer Him. 41 And He came the third time, and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? It is enough; the hour has come; behold, the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. 42 “Get up, let us be going; behold, the one who betrays Me is at hand!”

Mark 14:32-42

Judas, his biggest betrayer, arrived with the mob to arrest Jesus. Jesus was at his darkest hour and his friends lay sleeping. What kind of friends are those? Then some even deny knowing him just to save their own skins. All those men disappeared when things got bad. They were the ones who abandoned Jesus, not God. Just before he died on the cross, Jesus says, "ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI? which is translated, MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?" Do you really think he was asking why God had forsaken him or if he was asking why all his disciples had forsaken him? My bet is on the disciples. He truly felt abandoned and forsaken and betrayed by those who had been closest to him. Humans will always fail each other, but God never fails us. Not if we truly listen and follow his guidance.

And unfortunately there are those evil people who are so removed from God and his guidance that they torment and abuse those who are already hurt, just as many tormented Jesus as he was being crucified. Do they have no conscience? If they have one it's so weak and feeble that it can't overcome their animalistic cruelty. What voice do they listen to? Not the one that tells them how to be a good person and do the right things. They listen to their own selfish drives and desires. They think they will impress others with their clever insults or skillful jabs. But what they do is not right. It is wrong. And it does nothing to make the world a better place, which is what God wants. You know who you are. I have no time for you. I'm tossing you overboard with all the other garbage I don't need.




A somewhat related article about Why Secular Liberals Are So Uncharitable.

Today In History

December 11

1844 Nitrous oxide was used for the first time in dentistry.

1936 King Edward VIII abdicated the throne of Britain for the woman he loved, Mrs. Wallis Simpson.

Stubbed TOEs and Other Pains

This was the post I was working on before my appendix blew. Obviously, even more pains worse than stubbed TOES and dead hard drives were lurking in the near future, little did I know. ;-) (no "seer" is 100% accurate due to the probabilistic nature of our world) These words are no longer really timely or relevant, but what the hell, here they are anyway:


11/07

Let me do the other pains first.

The last couple of weeks have been full of all kinds of annoyances and disasters. The source of the worst and still continuing pains has been the dead hard drive in my old desktop. I did manage to recover my Quickbooks and some percentage of my Paintshop files before it completely died, but because I'm a jack of all trades but master of none it has been somewhat challenging.

Well, what do you expect from a $15,000 employee whose titles and jobs range from bookkeeper to human resources to payroll processing to IT manager? I mean really, according to this website the average Information Technology Manager earns about $100,000 dollars annually. Check the links of the other jobs and you'll see how much I should be making. ;-)

Okay, so, since the Quickbooks on the old computer was the 2002 version I thought I'd go ahead and upgrade to the 2008 version since I had to get a new computer anyway. Well, I really kind of hate Quickbooks and Intuit because they are constantly bringing out new versions and making it difficult to continue using the older versions. It's accounting. How much new stuff can there be every year? Not enough to keep "upgrading" software. Jesus. It's a rip-off. And they want you to subscribe (means pay for) all these other services like online backups, payroll updates, etc. blah, blah, blah. And it's really disturbing that all of your business information that you put into "their" software that you're only paying for the "use of" (license) ends up being inaccessible to you without certain codes and whatnot. Hey fuckers, it's my information in there and you can't steal it from me. I've exceeded my f-bomb quota for the entire year in the last few hours. ;-)

Anyway, I did successfully install the upgrade, but when I was trying to register it ends up that I have to call a number to get a validation code. What? You can't fool me. I know that's just another one of their ploys to get me talking to one of their salesmen who's going to try to sell me a bunch of their shit that I don't need. Is it not enough that they got $200 out of me already?

And get this. In my old Quickbooks I could manually enter paychecks and do all my own payroll processing, but now in this new one they won't even let me do that. I have to pay at least $99 more per year just to be able to track my two employee payroll! This is enough to make me go postal on them. Where is the Intuit headquarters where I can go and tell them in person just how disgusted and outraged I am about their evil business practices? If you read about some crazy woman going postal at the Intuit headquarters it might be me!

Okay, I'll leave that rant and move on to the Stubbed TOE. The big buzz in the science news has been a surfer dude's Theory of Everything. Well, he did make a pretty picture of it, but just because we can create vivid images of things doesn't make them real.




While watching that video I keep thinking intuitively I can see that this "simple" explanation just cannot 'evolve' into the complex universe that we see today. There is no universe in those pretty pictures. It looks to me like the surfer dude has just created a system of explaining how to move those points around in certain patterns. But how that translates into a Theory of Everything just isn't clear at all. He and his advocates call themselves "seers" but as you know, I'm a seer too. ;-) And I ain't seein' anything in this "theory." Well, actually, what keeps coming to my mind is "snowflakes." (If that means anything to anyone then please let me know.)

Other than the scientific aspects of this story, I have to say that this surfer dude seems like a typical slacker who's looking for an easy way to make it. Lubos perfectly summarizes my thoughts too in response to a comment about the recent passing of Sidney Coleman:

LM: Unfortunately, it's not just irony, it's another example of great minds being systematically replaced by cheap crap. What do the media do? For many days, they don't even report about one of the greatest theoretical physicists of the last 50 years - it is much more important to refer a politically correct story about a "poor" imbecile whose main result is a "theory of everything" - a textbook example of a childish proposal that can't work according to a theorem known for several decades. I am irritated by the breathtaking hypocrisy of those proponents of the "right" thinkers. For example, crackpot Lisi is promoted because it is poor. Tell it to most guys in Africa or even Europe - offer them to be poor so that they can surf for whole days on Hawaii. I think that most of them will instantly accept this kind of poverty. But he paints himself as "poor", so he is welcome even though his physical theory and physics knowledge is just a small piece of shit. But the media serve this shit as a yummy dinner. And most of them won't even tell you about Sidney Coleman. The world is just going to hell.

To add to that, if you want to read more of this surfer dude's confused blather about things other than physics you can find it at Bee's.

In addition to that, if you want more details about it all, you can Google it or go to The Reference Frame.

I couldn't resist putting in my 2 cents worth about it. Well, if you ask me, this theory is really only worth about 2 cents anyway. I'm sorry if I've stubbed or stepped on anyone's TOE or toes, but generally, if I'm allowed a little immodesty, my intuition about these things is pretty good. I think the main point of this entire story is that even the scientific world has fallen into the Hollywood fakery mentality that relies only on superficial and artificial prettiness and unlikely plots.

I think the perfect ending to this would be that a little old hillbilly housewife from Tennessee with no formal physics training falsifies the surfer dude's TOE with her own pretty picture:

[unfortunately I couldn't figure out how to post my pretty .gif animation]

Wouldn't that be a perfect, unexpected and unlikely Hollywood plot twist? ;-)

Demerol Daze and Zombie Nurses

Every day brings some improvement in my condition, and later this afternoon I will go to the doctor to have the staples removed from my belly and for a check-up, etc. I was going to post a picture of the three staples in my navel and call it "Temporary Triple Navel Piercing", but it was really much too gruesome to share. ;-) The surgeon did that laproscopic surgery to remove what was left of my appendix and whatever else he did in there (I'll get more details today, I hope), so instead of one large incision there are three small ones. I'm uncertain that there is any advantage to that because the pain has been equal to if not greater than the one large incision I got when having babies and a hysterectomy. Maybe it has to do with the nature of the illness/injury and other factors.

One weird irony is that when my mom was 43 her appendix ruptured, but she ended up in the hospital for a whole month because of it. I think I can thank improved surgical and antibiotic treatments for my much shorter hospital stay. Twenty-one years of medical advancements have made a lot of difference!

I'm sure the nurses hated me because I was very whiny and tearful. But I guess they are used to such things and don't think about it so much. Well, it really does suck to be in constant pain and have the other inconveniences and indignities one suffers when incapacitated in a hospital bed. My IV was in the crook of my right arm so that every time I bent my arm the IV machine beeped and beeped and beeped and beeped. Very annoying for us all, but apparently that was the best vein they could find for it. Both of my hands are bruised from where they played pin the needle to the vein to draw blood for testing white blood counts, etc. I have those 'rolling' veins that means one stick usually won't do the trick. Add to that the 30+ Demerol/Phenergan injections in my hips over the five days and it's enough to really call myself a human pin cushion. On Saturday my first IV finally blew so they had to put a new one in the soft underside of my forearm. Talk about painful! But at least I could move without that incessant beeping.

I had lots of weird dreams during my demerol daze and dozing. One was about a black hole sucking us all up and some others I just can't recall now. But they were weird for sure. At one point I was half awake and a nurse was there I and thought she was a zombie. Her hands were ice cold and smelled like a morgue, or at least what I thought a morgue would smell like. It could have been myself that I was smelling because it had been a few days since I'd had more than a slight sponge bath, but who knows? She also had on what I'd call zombie makeup: dark, exaggerated eyeliner and eye shadow. She was a fine nurse, I'm sure, but in my demerol daze she really did frighten me a little.

There are some other events that are just too graphic and gross to share. But I will say that my psyche is still somewhat bruised by that whole experience. However, I am extremely thankful for modern medicine that has saved my life again. If I were a cat, I'd have used up about half of my nine lives now. I'm also very thankful for my husband who apparently still loves me even though he's seen me at my absolute worst. I've been a lot of trouble for him over the years, but he doesn't seem fazed by it. Yet. I really hope not to ever put him through such things again.

So that's just a little summary of my last week. I hope everyone else's has been much less eventful and stressful. And let's all say a prayer of thanks for the modern technologies that we sometimes take for granted. The only worry now is how in the world are we going to pay for it? ;-)

Stronger

"That that don't kill me
Can only make me stronger"

Kanye West

Dear Friends,

Last week my appendix ruptured and I've been very ill. For now I will spare you the plentiful gory details, mainly because I'm just not up to writing that much. ;-) I am slowly recovering and hope to be back to blogging soon. When I first posted this video it wasn't really for any particular reason except that I felt bad for Kanye West losing his mother suddenly. But now it's for me too. ;-)