Window Shopper

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I noticed that it’s been a couple of days since I wrote something here. Usually, I have a few things to talk about. Mostly, it has to do with getting good deals online or at the store, saving money and the pain at the pump that is a constant problem. Today, I am sitting here trying to come up with something to write and it just is not happening. Writer’s block is something I have dealt with before on another blog that I have. But here, this is an unusual situation. And I am certain that it will not stay this way but for now, I am blocked. Nada. Nothing happening. Sigh.

Perhaps I could give you a touch of the old time stuff. I love to share music, especially for the Boomers. That might work.

I found one that I know is really old since it was out there when I was in high school. That makes it the 60’s though I do not have a date on it. The singer is Marcie Blane. And by the way, for those of you who have no clue what that round thing is…it’s a real record on a turntable. Yes, there really is such a thing as a turntable. The song is “Bobby’s Girl”. Hope you like it.

Yes, I did like that song then. Kind of like it now too. It wasn’t all sad. That makes it okay for me right there.

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Why do I call it a fiasco? Because that’s what it ended up being. I have been in the hospital recently for a blood clot in my leg. Since then, I got a really strange rash that our doctor said was bad enough that I needed to be in the hospital or at the least, get to a doctor that knows about this thing. He sent me on to a hematologist. She told me that as far as her medical knowledge, I was healthy…blood-wise. But that she agreed with my doctor that something needed to be done. She called a couple of doctors, none of whom was willing to admit to admitting privileges at the local hospital. The hospital itself was not about to admit me with an unknown origins rash. Interesting right?

So, the docs decided I should go to another facility. We did that. Bearing in mind that I have a blood clot in my leg, we traveled by car from our house to the docs, the second docs, back home to pack and on to another hospital, roughly 180 miles or more. That’s where we stayed for several hours while the ER doc decided whether I could be admitted there or not. He came in and said that I needed a better hospital than theirs and wanted to send me on to Springfield, Mo. hospital. I hated the idea because we had been on the go all day, my leg was aching badly and I was so tired, I was about to fall over and would have except I was on a narrow gurney in an exam room, leg up for once. By this time, I am entertaining ideas of going on one of those Mediterranean cruises and getting the heck out of Dodge. But it was not to be. He did want me to travel by ambulance due to the clot but we were unsure as to how my husband was going to get there if he could not get a ride. (He can’t drive at night)

The doc returns with a funny look on his face. I am getting the picture. Springfield did not want me there either. Interesting, isn’t it. We ended up staying in a motel that we got to around 1:30am. It was a pit. We didn’t argue though we should have. It was incredibly hot in that place due to the air conditioner that wouldn’t. Eventually, it did but that’s just the icing on the cake for the day. Next day we got back home. It was Saturday. On Monday, I get from the doc’s office that we went to the wrong hospital and if we had gone to the one he wanted us to go to, we would have been admitted……probably. Uh huh. And then he wanted me to go on to that one despite the fact that we were still tired from the previous situation and that he had no guarantees that we would be admitted. The capper is that this one is over a hundred miles from the house to the city..that’s one way. We had already traveled over that to do the other runaround. No thanks.

In the end, the rash is disappearing. Funny, huh? Not to me. Strange, weird, not funny. Tiring.

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For years, I had a PC which as you all know is not portable. My bro-in-law was in the hospital this spring or summer, I cannot now recall, and had his laptop with him for the first time after loads of previous trips to such places. It did help him a whole lot though he did not have an internet connection that time. Well, small steps there. At least he did have a laptop with him. I find that to be awesome. For those who have laptops, you already know all this. For those who didn’t have laptops, we have found that to be incredibly handy.

My husband was talking about something today that was strange but great. He was saying that if you had a laptop that did not have enough memory for you, then you could extend the laptop memory with a flash drive plugged into the side of the laptop. I had never heard of such a thing but you know what? That sure would help in a pinch. I doubt I would want to have it that way always. But it would be great until new laptop memory was purchased. As I understand it, vista is a bear and needs awesome amounts of memory for it just to function. That means that if you had a laptop with 1 Gig ram, you would want to add an additional 1 Gig to have enough for the program. That seems pretty hoggy to me. But then, I have heard little nice about vista anyway.

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Since I am at home for the moment, I started thinking about the fact that Labor Day is just about upon us. What does that mean? Summer is almost over. Vacations are, for the most part, in the past. Most of the schools are now back in session. Frankly, I hate the idea of summer being gone. For one thing, that means that very soon, it is going to start getting colder. I hate cold weather. My all time favorite season is spring. The time for a new birth or rebirth. Summer is pretty much too hot. Fall or autumn is a time when things start to die, like the leaves on the trees. Other things go into hibernation. Winter is too cold with snow and ice, at least on occasion here.

This weekend should be devoted to one final picnic. I can see it now. All the picnic baskets on the tables. Loads of people getting out the sports equipment. After all, got to get in that last baseball game. Did you ever notice that most of the time picnics, especially those that are coming from churches or companies always play baseball? The all American pastime. Mostly, guys are playing but there are a few gals there too. It’s about time, don’t you think? Everyone in t-shirts, most have some type of sayings on them. Some are just plain silly, others have company logo shirts or church names. All look like they are having a great time. And so, on goes the game into extra innings.

The ladies are setting up the tables with the salads…potato, macaroni, greens. Can you smell the inevitable baked beans? Mashed potatoes. I am getting hungry just thinking about it all. Not all the guys are on the diamond though. Some are at the grills getting the hamburgers and hot dogs ready to serve. Oh and the chicken. Awesome. I can smell all this right here, right now. Oh look, the food is ready. Someone starts calling all the kids and the baseball players to the tables. And with a prayer of thanks, people dig in. Well now. The ants are not getting any of this food!

Will you take a look at all those deserts? My mouth watereth. Apple pie, chocolate cake, strawberrry pie, pecan pie, angelfood cake, chocolate chip cookies, lemon bars, ice cream. There’s more but you do not need a bigger picture of all that food. Besides, it won’t be long before it’s all gone anyway.

The ladies gather up the trash and the dishes to pack away. The kids run off to play before it’s all over. The baseball game resumes for a couple more innings. Of in the distance, someone has brought some music and people are gathering around to sing along. As the songs get louder and louder, the number of people gets larger and larger, you notice that there are more folks here now than there were to start with. The sing-a-long is in full swing. A happy time for all. As the songs wind down, the people go their own ways talking about the best picnic all year.

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This may sound a tad ridiculous but right now my whole shopping thing is either online or looking out my own front window. Right now, I am home bound. It’s a temporary situation but is giving me a complex. We could do shopping for hummingbirds, I guess. We have feeders outside the window. They visit fairly often when the feeders are full. At the moment, they are getting pretty low. I must speak to my husband about that.

And then there is plantzilla. Plantzilla plans on taking over the world. We know this because it has tried it before. This plant is growing to occupy the most space available. Right now, it’s just outside the front door. There’s a bird’s nest in the middle since it is so big. The bird thought it was a whole city, I imagine. Anyway, I see that plant as wanting to take over the world because when it comes in for the winter, there really is no place to put it. We tried the table but it wants ALL of the table not just a small part of it. Plantzilla spreads her wings and would fly if she could. I believe that firmly.

You might have noticed that I could be a tiny bit bored. Yes, that is very true. What the heck. I might as well go buy some things on eBay or Amazon. I have nothing better to do but lie here and wish for more to do. There ya go!

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I am sure I mentioned that our extended family has a new member, right? She was born to my niece making Mollie Beth my grand niece or great niece, I believe. And she is absolutely beautiful, smart and all sorts of things that work for little bitty kids like her. At this time, I believe she is almost 3 months old. Since I cannot get out to see her, she will look so different to me by the time I can see her again. And so big!

Reports coming in from a proud grandma say that she is already on solids, teething, has a major preference in types of music. This kid is smart. She has learned how to get grandpa to hold her too. There are times for one and then the other. Don’t forget great-grandma either. She gets a turn at holding her majesty. And the aunts are hanging around a lot too. Of course, being teens, they are fascinated with baby Mollie.

Because I do not get to see her right now, I will not see some of her milestones and that’s sad. I would love to watch her say things (apparently she is saying a few things already. I did mention that she’s smart), see her love of music, watch her give grandpa a fit which she is apparently quite good at doing. I am blown away at the fact that this kid can talk already. Most kids don’t do that for months, just make gurgle noises.

But my problems will not last forever so I will get to see some of her firsts, I know. Say, Christmas is coming. Now that’s another first for her. She was born in May. Missed my birthday by about a month. Too bad. I can’t wait to see her get one of her first dollhouses, baby dolls and maybe Barbie. Right now, she has a ragdoll that she will not part with. I remember Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy. I had one. Do you notice how hard it is to get the really good ones anymore? Well, she will have the best of everything if it’s affordable. This is going to be one really spoiled brat!! Hahaha. Nah, she is loved and there is no question whatsoever. I love it.

Thing is, with this being the computer age, I suspect she will be on one by the time she’s 4 or 5 if not sooner. Good thing too. Kids these days seem to grow up on the computers. If they don’t get there that soon, they lose out. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. Having a kid on the computer all the time doesn’t leave much time for anything else, does it? They have to have time outside too. That was something I had a lot of, time outside. We didn’t have computers when I was growing up, just had to use our imaginations. I think kids today need that more than ever. So, Mollie Beth will need to use that imagination of hers instead of always using the computer. As a great aunt, I will have to tell her that……a lot, I imagine.

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I guess I have been pretty hot about those nasty, rising gas prices. They have been awesome in their shot at the moon. But in recent days, the price has fallen dramatically. It is with a hope for the future that I talk here about falling gas prices. Our local price was highest at $3.89. I do realize that was nothing compared to other parts of the country, but for our area it was quite high. As of the last time I saw the sign going by it today, the price was at $3.51. That is not even the lowest price I’ve seen recently. We took a trip to our west about 60 miles and spotted the price at $3.41. Fantastic! Now if only they will continue to fall.

We do believe that since most of the oil companies showed record profits for the last many months, it would only be fair that we get a break in the pocketbook. I am happy that this is happening but we have seen this before. I just hope that it continues. Frankly, I cannot believe I’m saying this but it would be great if we saw $2 gas again. See, I grew up at a time when gas was cheap, at 19 cents a gallon. It took years and all that crap in the early 70’s to get the price over 50 cents. I was horrified when it went over a buck. Wishing I had all that gas from back then, it seems to me that gas simply should not cost that much.

Since the rich oil companies do not see a need to build new refineries or that our really great government does not see the need to approve such things, I believe that the gas prices should still be somewhere under $2. The reason they are not is greed, pure and simple. The oil companies are now hoping we will shut up about the record profits now that the gas prices are down a tiny bit. Oh yeah, that’s going to happen. Ummmm, nope.

But today, I am thankful for the prices where they are but wishing for lower and lower costs so that we can get back to paying regular bills instead of having to pump it into a car tank.

gas pains, gas prices, oil companies, good gas prices, greedy oil companies

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Apparently, one trip to the hospital with a spider bite is not good enough. Last Friday, I took a trip in an ambulance to the hospital south of us about 50-60 miles away. I will not really go into the absolute circus this particular stay involved. I will tell you that it was extremely unpleasant, even for a usual hospital stay. That brings up health care in general. Where we live, there are doctors and an urgent care clinic. Other than that, we are left to our own devices. We did have what people used to laughingly call a hospital but that closed some time ago. The owner of the property and building where the old hospital was will not sell it for less than a huge amount.That means that we are not going to have one for the foreseeable future. Not good.

Health care in Arkansas can be good, depending on where you live. In our area, the doctors try to do it all. That cannot work simply because they are human and need time off too. Most of the time, however, health care here is as bad as my trip to the hospital south of us. I do want to mention one thing here. And this is specific to this particular hospital. I am on several meds that are needing to be taken at specific times….every 8 hours. But this place is much different in how it gives out meds. For one thing, despite the fact that you might have your own with you, it is policy for them to hand them out. I can understand that. They want to know everything you are taking.

This hospital has also a policy or rather the pharmacy at the hospital does. If you specify every 8 hours on a med, they will give it to you with a “2 hour window” every 8 hours. What does that mean anyway? However, if your med says that it has to be taken 3 times a day, that is a different kettle of fish. Frankly, that does not compute to me. 3 times a day works out to every 8 hours. Not so. According to this pharmacy, if it states 3 times a day, you will find your med being given to you at 9am, 1pm and 5pm regardless of what it might do to you. That is simply nuts, in my not-so humble opinion. I have never heard of such drivel until I went there. In fact, it was in a hospital that I learned that you cannot take those meds in less time than that. I used to take meds every 4-6 hours and go to bed. Nope. That’s why you find yourself getting awakened at the hospital to take a med. They are on the 8 hours schedule. Usually. This whole thing makes me want to look up those Brazil vacation packages and just take off and forget I ever heard of Arkansas and the beautiful way they treat people.

You know, this is one of the most prosperous countries in the world. You would think that it would then include adequate to superior health care. But I have heard too many stories of how this place and that place are too horrible to return to. This particular facility is now in that category for me. Unless there is no other way to do it, I do not think I will end up there again. That was too much of a circus. Oh it was more than the med policy. I do not have enough energy to go over it all right here. Just believe me when I say that I do not want to go there again!!!!

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There is a bit of good news for once. I have noticed that the price of gas has dropped and that is such good news. As you are likely dealing with the same thing, I can tell you that our limited income is getting sucked away by the gas prices that have been hitting of late so it is with a grateful heart that we pull to the pump and see a little less pain. I do not know how long this will last since predictors indicate that we are going to have a really hard winter, price wise. They could have said a lot of things besides that.

But it is great to see some price coming down so we celebrate! Of course, the usual celebration would be to go out to dinner or something like that. Uh no. That would spend all that we have already saved at the pump. I am simply not looking forward to anything during the winter. I do not like winter in the first place. It was always too cold for me. Well, not true. When I was a kid, it was fantastic. When it snowed, we could get out of school. Uh yeah right. Not in Iowa. I stayed home from school one day when it has snowed over 2 ft. total. They did not close the school. My parents allowed it. The next day, I found out that only a few kids had stayed home. The rest showed up the day before. Bah!

So, I do not like winter. I do not like high prices. I don’t like snow and ice. It’s just not fair. I should be able to live in the climate I like and still live in the area I want to as well. Not gonna happen. So, I will live in the ice and snow should it show up. I still do not like it, no matter what.

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I told you before that I hate moving. Frankly, it seems that I hate doing anything to change stuff. Even if it would make things better, I just hate to change because it means that my ordered world is in flux. Does that make sense? Probably only to me. But that’s all right. There was a time when everything was new and exciting. I think I was 6 years old. After a while, I did not want to change anything. Too much work? Probably. And then I figured out that it was going to take time to learn the new whatever. That was the problem. Its always a problem for me. If nothing changes, I can live in my nice little world and relax. If things change, there is no relaxing. Okay, I am very lame here.

So you can see what kind of difficulty it was when we started changing banks. We had checks from the old. We had to order checks for the new. New tellers to meet, new accounts to start. Getting known at a new bank when you are known very well at the old. It was all about getting the balance transfers done with as little problem as possible. I know. You are thinking, “What the heck is wrong with this woman?” She acts like the world would end if anything changes. That would be sort of right. I enjoy things staying the same. That’s a world I know. The unknown is out there but I want someone else to go look at it first. Captain Kirk, I am not.

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