Fall Is in the Air
31 Mar 2012 15 Comments
in Humor, kids, Life, marriage, Pets, Women Tags: Birkenstocks, clogs, daughters, headers, Humor, husbands, marriage, mothers, sleep walking, stairs, wives
I guess I come from a long line of “fallers.”
As you know, my mother has fallen several times since the one that landed her in the nursing/rehab facility in October. The last time was in the dining room of The Hotel (retirement center) where she’s living now.
In that fall, she went over backward and conked her noggin on a table or chair on her way down. Amazingly, nothing bad resulted from that except a goose egg on the back of her head. The bump disappeared after a couple of days.
Now, my daughter has carried on our tradition by falling headfirst down the steep flight of stairs in her home.
(I had promised her in the past that I wouldn’t blog about any personal stuff of hers, so I’m just keeping to the bare facts here as they relate to our family propensity for not maintaining verticality.)
She and her husband had recently sold their home in town so they could move out to a place in the country on two acres. The buyer wanted a short escrow, so they had been working like maniacs getting the water, electric and septic connections hooked up, all the while packing their stuff for the move.
Needless to say, they were pretty exhausted.
And when that happens, my daughter has a tendency to sleep-walk.
Or, in her case, sleep-fall. Down the stairs of their two-story home.
At 2:00 am my son-in-law phoned to tell me she’d gotten up from bed (while still asleep) and taken a header down the stairs. She was pretty banged up, with a cut upper lip (thankfully no broken teeth) and painful bruises on her chest and scrapes on her legs.
I drove into town as fast as I could and stayed at their house with the grandkids until around 4:00 when they got back from the ER. She had a mild concussion and contusions, but nothing broken. Whew.
In an effort at full disclosure here, I will repost my own episode of falling down some stairs that I posted on this blog a couple of years ago.
It didn’t involve sleep-walking, but it did center around Birkenstock clogs, rain, two little dogs who needed to pee, and a husband who’d warned me that Birkenstocks were the work of the Devil.
Enjoy.
http://youcallthatart.wordpress.com/2009/11/21/death-by-birkenstock/
It’ll All Pan Out in the End
03 Dec 2011 9 Comments
in Family, health care, Humor, kids, Life, marriage, Politics Tags: Christmas, frying pans, G.O.P., Ginger White, hell hath no fury, Herman Cain, Humor, husbands, kids, marriage, Politics, Republicans, scorned women
We went to the annual Christmas parade in town last night with the grandkids and had a great time. All the entries had to be decked out with lights and they did not disappoint.
We had some light rain at times during the hour or so the parade lasted, but nobody seemed to mind. A year long drought of epic proportions does that to you.
Afterward we high-tailed it over to McDonald’s and had dinner. When my husband (known from here on as Pappy) took his cap off, he revealed a somewhat black and blue area near his left eye. He’d had some minor surgery at the dermatologist’s office a couple of days before.
Now he wears a cap…not so in the sun-kissed days of his youth.
Our granddaughter (also known as Eagle-Eye Fleegle) asked what had happened to cause the bruise.
Pappy and I simultaneously (and facetiously) answered that I’d hit him over the head with a frying pan.
Miss Fleegle knows us well enough to detect that we were pulling her leg and demanded and got the truth.
This morning, I checked the news online and saw that Herman Cain had postponed his “major announcement” about the fate of his campaign from 11:00 to a little later in the afternoon.
You’ll remember that he had returned to Atlanta to face his wife for the first time since Ginger White came forward and said Herman had had a thirteen year affair with her and that Mr. Cain had admitted to giving money to Ms. White without his wife’s knowledge.
I mentioned the postponement to Pappy and he started to say:
“That’s because he had to go to the emergency room…”
which I finished for him with:
“…to have a frying pan removed from his head.”
Great minds do indeed think alike.
An Uplifting Tale of a Man and His Colon
20 Nov 2011 4 Comments
in health care, Humor, Life, marriage Tags: Andy Borowitz, doctors, ERs, health care, Humor, husbands, marriage, triage, twisted colons, wives
A message from humorist Andy Borowitz:
Hello everyone,
May I be serious for a minute?
Thanksgiving is a weird time for some people. If you’re going through hard times, you might not feel that you have much to be thankful for.
Three years ago I had an experience I can only describe as nightmarish. But when it was over, I was thankful to be alive, and I still feel that way every day. I’m sharing my story with you this Thanksgiving week in the hopes that it might lift your spirits if they need lifting.
Warning: the story contains “strong language,” as they say on NPR. But there are laughs, too, and an ending that I hope will make you feel good. If you know of anyone out there who needs some cheering up, please share the story with them.
And have a Happy Thanksgiving. As always, I’m thankful to have you as a reader.
Love,
Andy
I Just Flew in from L.A. and Boy, Are My Arms Tired…
09 Sep 2011 6 Comments
in Aging, health care, Humor, marriage Tags: Aging, gym rats, health care, Humor, husbands, marriage, wives
Conversation between my husband and me today about the gym at the Wellness Center where I’ve been working out—
He: “It’s nice that it’s not like a lot of the other fitness places. You don’t have a bunch of people standing around waiting for you to finish up with equipment.”
Me: “Yeah, that is nice. It’s mainly old folks like us.
[Names a few names of acquaintances.]
When I go, there’s probably nobody under the age of 60. No one making moves on anyone or trying to impress.”
He: “Not exactly the singles scene, is it?”
Me: “No. More like the shingles scene.”
Ba-da-bum, ching! Thank you ladies and germs! I’ll be here all week!
Up and At ‘Em!
23 Apr 2011 17 Comments
in Aging, Biology, Humor, marriage, Women Tags: Art, artist trading cards, ATC, bathtubs, Cialis, Humor, husbands, libido, marriage, sex, Viagra, wives
Here’s an excerpt from an interesting article I found at MSNBC.com on the perils of ED drugs like Viagra and Cialis, written by Judith Newman of Prevention magazine.
She explores these drugs from the viewpoint of women on the…er…”receiving” end of their benefits.
(I always knew those bathtubs were the Devil’s playground!)
The problem can be especially daunting for older women who are widowed or divorced or just beginning to date after years of being alone or with one man. Certainly this was the case for Marjorie P., a 60-something woman who complained about the drugs on a 50+ Web site:
“Men have been saved from their middle-age sexual issues by Viagra and Cialis. They can be thirty again, while I have to deal with the sexual issues of being my age. It’s put the world on ’tilt.’”
Andrea D., a twice-divorced physician from Santa Monica, CA, and an over-50 dater, put it more bluntly. “Viagra has been liberating for men, but unless a woman is taking hormone therapy, she may have vaginal dryness and really not be that interested in the kind of driving, pounding intercourse he’s now capable of.”
There is also fallout from the erroneous belief that Viagra causes not just greater blood flow but also greater desire. The hormone testosterone is the driving force behind libido; a man with little or no testosterone will not have any desire to have sex, Viagra or no.
Moreover, even with normal amounts of testosterone, “Viagra does not just instantly give a man an erection,” says Abraham Morgentaler, MD, associate clinical professor of urology at Harvard Medical School and author of The Viagra Myth.
“You have to be in a sexual situation, you need to have desire and intent, in order for the drug to work.”
Dr. Morgentaler tells the story of a patient who was very upset because Viagra didn’t do the trick for him.
“He said, ‘Doc, I followed your directions exactly. I took the pill an hour in advance. Then I watched a baseball game on TV and waited.’ The man’s wife was in the other room, waiting too; neither of them realized that the drug would be effective only if they were together, doing what couples do.”
Adds Andrea, whose own Viagra dating experiences and the experiences of similarly aged friends have ranged from excellent to Emergency Care Needed:
“You have to be crystal clear about what works for you and what doesn’t. Because even with someone you really, really adore … sometimes you just want to get back to reading your book!”
Your thoughts, ladies? (And gents.)
Finally Kicking the Bucket
15 Feb 2011 8 Comments
in Humor, Life, marriage Tags: Arctic weather, Humor, husbands, marriage, outhouses, Texas, toilets, water wells
The unusual blast of frigid Arctic air that swept though here last week left this part of Texas, if not reeling, then at least with a new respect for the power of Mutha’ Nature. Overnight temperatures in the low teens and single digits and wind chills that reduced those numbers even further to zero or below were the new normal we were facing.
The first front that went through was followed by three days of highs (!) in the teens, which may sound downright balmy to our Northern cousins, but around here that is pretty damned cold.
There was a break of a couple of days and then a second front came through, equally North Pole-ish, and dealt us the coup de grace: many homes had frozen pipes that burst and many, many folks in the outlying countryside had water well equipment freeze up and quit working. Ours included.
No well=no running water=no showers, no flushing toilets, no water to cook with or drink, no washing laundry, no washing dishes, no washing anything that requires water coming out of a faucet.
They say you don’t miss your water ’til the well runs dry. Boy, they weren’t kidding.
However, we are nothing if not prepared. Hubby, ever the good scout, had made sure we had a good supply of drinking water on hand. And since we have a swimming pool, we had 13,000 gallons of water from which he dipped five gallons at a time each for the two buckets we used to flush the toilets.
Not very glamorous, but it gets the job done.
If I wanted hot water to wash my face, I heated up four cups of water in the microwave. Ditto with a smaller amount of water to fill a spray bottle so I could dampen my hair then blow it dry to get rid of some the bed head thing I had goin’ on. I did make a couple of trips into town to shower at my daughter’s house. Ah, sheer bliss.
Initially, always trying to look on the bright side, hubby said:
“Just pretend you’re camping.”
Yuh, huh…
Although I’m not as unhappy a camper as, say, Kate Gosselin was when she visited Sarah Palin in the Alaskan wilderness (“roughing it” with camera crew, production company and hair and makeup artists) I wasn’t about to smile and agree with him.
As Damon Wayans used to say as his t.v. character, Homey the Clown:
“Homey don’t play that.”
Then my husband offered that the early Texas pioneers and ranchers had no electricity and running water and had to use outhouses. They all survived.
I replied “Maybe so, but they didn’t have to be anywhere either.”
They were probably overjoyed if they saw someone other than immediate family once or twice a month. I loved the “Little House on the Prairie” books, but I bet when Laura Ingalls Wilder had a shot at indoor plumbing, she went for it in a heartbeat.
Today the nice young man from the well driller’s company came out and replaced the offending part in the well pump control box. He worked his magic and the precious liquid again started to flow through the pipes into the house—and most importantly—the showers and toilets.
He said he’d been so busy that he racked up over a hundred hours with overtime, which allowed him and his wife to splurge on some new furniture.
I say, good for him. He deserves it. It’s been a tough couple of weeks.
I’m just glad that I can finally kick the bucket—out of my bathroom.
I’ll Show U Mine…
06 Dec 2010 6 Comments
in Cartoons, Humor, marriage Tags: Betty White, cartoon, elder care, Humor, marriage, sexting
Where There’s Smoke…
03 Dec 2010 3 Comments
in Aging, Art, Humor, marriage Tags: artist trading cards, ATC, Humor, husbands, marriage, Nazi sympathizers
106-year-old man quits smoking — for love
Berlin — Actor and singer Johannes Heesters has given up smoking for love — at age 106.
“I did it for love, for my wonderful wife,” Heesters, who is better known as “Jopie” in Germany where he has spent most of his 90-year career, told the German entertainment magazine Bunte. “She should have me as long as possible.”
Dutch-born Heesters, who will turn 107 on Sunday, has been married to German actress Simone Rethel, 61, since 1992. Heesters said he quit smoking three weeks ago.
Heesters, who in 2008 apologised for his cooperation with the Nazi regime, is known for his roles in the film “Die Fledermaus” (1946) and the German film “The Moon Is Blue” (1953).
Modern Life
01 Dec 2010 Leave a Comment
in Cartoons, Humor, Life, marriage Tags: cartoon, cooking, Humor, marriage
“You lied to me about high fructose corn syrup, Arthur.”
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