HALLOWEEN

Well, Halloween is over for this year.....We had about 60 beggars at our doors today. Most of them were little and with their parents. I usually get some teenagers with no costume and a pillow sack. None of them today, guess they grew up and decided not to come....

The toddlers were sooooo cute.. Most of the girls were princesses and the boys were super heros.... There was one kid who had made a costume of one of those machines where you waste money trying to get some cheap stuffed animal. That was really great, it looked good and was so inventive.

Tomorrow I will being on my way to Williamsburg VA to got to my yearly conference. This is such a good meeting. It has all the latest and practical things that I can use in my practice. It is an eight hour drive from my home, and the weather is suppose to be good, although chilly.

I am feeling better. I have had this URI and heavens knows what for the past month. I got a script for Zithromax and am starting to feel bette. I hate being sick, I do not do well with illness. I just want to get better and go on with my daily routine.

I will leave when the sun is up, I do not like driving in the dark, and hopefully have an uneventful drive.

THURSDAY

Just sitting here and I realized that I have not written much for about a week. The week has been uneventful, except for work, work, and more work.

Next week I am going to a conference in Williamsburg VA. This is the third year I have gone to this conference. It is four whole days and the topics are good, and useful in my practice.

The trip will take about eight hours to get there. The leaves will be at peak down in Virginia and I will get to visit my brother and his wife and daughters. One daughter is studying OT in College and his other daughter is a senior in high school, his wife is an RN. That runs in the family of mine.

I a off tomorrow and have a list of things to do and the first one is to go to Med Express. This is the fifth week I have been sick. At first I thought it was just a cold and then I had a sinus infection. But the runny nose, sniffing and chronic, hacking non productive cough is making me crazy……I am suspicious that I have bronchitis. I am sick of feeling sick.

THOUGHTS WHILE AT THE PHIPPS

I took a trip to the Phipps Conservatory yesterday, my aim was to take pictures of the Fall Flower show.   I was disappointed because there weren’t too many fall flowers.   But I did walk around taking pictures.

The one above gave me a thought.   Not the glass clowns, but the date on the brick was behind.   It say 1892, it started me thinking.   I wondered if my ancestors came here to enjoy the flower 107 years ago????

PHIPPS CONSERVATORY   This link shows some of the Conservatory but not too much in the way of history.   Guess I will have to search deeper for that information.

The next show will be Christmas and it will be spectacular with the flowers and colors of the season.

Olive Stephens still eludes me,  I posted a question of Roots Web and someone sent me the link for WV marriages, seems they have an index that you can peruse.   With the twenty five year difference in their ages I feel fairly certain that Robert Stephens and Olive eloped.

 

IRKED AGAIN

Today I decided to look for a annuity from a hosptial which I had worked for 10 years and had, sort of, lost track of. (I know never to end a sentence with a preposition, but could not think of anything but "of which I had lost track???")

The last correspondence was a change of address when I had moved to Texas in 1984 (WOW). So, my being off today I decided to track that annuity. The main reason was the fact that the hospital was to be closed as of January 31, 2010. That prompted me to look for the money.

The paper work I had stated that it was with CIGNA. I called CIGNA and they no longer had the annuity but it had been sold to Prudential. I called Prudential and had had to jump thru 20 hoops with the mechanical bitch telling me to enter my SSN and pin. She did not understand my SSN, and I would have liked to rip out her throat at that point in time..... I must have entered my SSN five times, and she told me she did not understand it five time. After arguing with her, telling her I wanted to talk to a human, the voice said she would connect me to help.

I REALLY HATE THE FREAKING MESSAGES TELLING ME TO PRESS ONE OR WHAT EVER...WHAT I WANTED TO DO WAS TALK TO A HUMAN, PREFERABLY ONE WHOSE NATIVE LANGUAGE WAS ENGLISH.

Honestly, I was on the damn phone and using up my minutes for 45 of them.....After much aggravation I talked to Peter who was able to send me to Melissa who helped me with the problem.....As it goes the fund was sent to Prudential and they had no record of my annuity, but they did have the records of the hospital in question. They called them and no one answered the phone (NO BIG SURPRISE THERE), but Melissa followed thru, took my information, and they have to research it and it will take 20 days.

How in the world did CIGNA miss sending me the information that it was sold to Prudential??? If I had not followed up on this, they would have written it off and the money lost......How do they lose track of someone???

My Alma Matter from college never loses track of me. AHA perhaps only the people who want to collect money from you are really on the ball with your latest address.....what a surprise that is no doubt. Well, I gave Melissa my address, two phone numbers and I did receive a Case Number of this so I can follow up. The money is not great, I worked 10 years for this organization and hopefully it will be enough to pay the taxes on my house when I retire.

Never the less I feel there is more aggravation to follow. Will keep posted here.

BIRTHDAY

This past week has gone by slowly....Today is my birthday....What is your most far back memory that you have??? I do not know.....I can remember being at my grandmothers and playing with some kid with a metal toy car. This was large enought to sit in and it was a dark reddish brown color. I saw pictures of it and did I really remember it or did I formulate memories of this car?

I have pictures of this car but can not find it at this time. I also remember the blizzard of 1950. I was four at the time; it began to snow and I was watching for my father to come home from work. The bus service had stopped and he had walked about 3 to 4 miles home because of that. It was dark and we kept looking out the window for him. I think it was a Friday and the next few days it still snowed. It was so deep, I wondered if it was really deep or it seemed so because I was a child. It was much taller than I, I read later that it had snowed about three feet that weekend. My mother told me later that it had snowed about three feet, I suppose this was not my imagination after all.

I remember a pot bellied stove in the basement of our house. My parents were building a house and I remember sleeping there. I remember all the work but not actually when it was finished.

SUNDAY

I can honestly say that this weekend nothing happened, at least at my house. I was suppose to be off this week, but somehow the powers that be have decided if my work is done and I leave early I can not take it without pay. If I leave early I MUST take vacation time and that left me without enought time to take the entire week off.

So, I will sit at work with the proverbial thumb up my --- and do nothing so I do not have to use my vacation time. It does not make a bit of sense to me, or anyone else.

Really, I have such little down time, what would matter a few hours that I clocked out without pay?????

Tomorrow I am off for sure, it is my and Shawnna's birthday. I have made it a policy of mine to take off on my BD. Shawnna, however has to work......take the day off next year and we will go to lunch Shawnna......

Emily and I are going on a fall foliage trip, if it is sunny. Chuck has chosen to stay home, as usual. I will take the camera and post if any pictures are good.

I will be 63, I look in the mirror and wonder where the time goes. I feel the same as I did many years ago.

DSL IS OUT….

And I do not know when it will be back.   The lights flickered and went out for a few seconds and then the wireless was gone.   I tried to reset it to no avail.   Emily then called Windstream and they said that the modem  was bad and they tried to reset and then turned the power off and on.   Not working.   Seems the trouble lies in the DSL line.  A new wireless is ordered but someone (???) will come out and supposedly fix from the outside of the house…..Now how can it be fixed from outside and still me our fault because we don’t have INSURANCE ON THE DAMN THING. 

The insurance can be purchased for a mere $5.00 per month.  How freaking nice of them.    I told Emily to check into Comcast and see what their communication trifecta will cost.    I think the old switcheroo may be in the future and I didn’t need a crystal ball for that…..

So, you might ask, exactly what have we been doing this evening?  Well, first I made some chili and then Emily made an apple pie.  The first ever, I might add.  It is bubbly and still in the oven and has about two minutes to go…..Now we just have to wait for the 425F pie to cool. 

When ever the cable is back on this will be published.

 

LIONS AND TIGERS AND BEARS

 

 

OH MY

This morning started out rainy and miserable, but not as much as snow.   I checked the forecast and it said it would clear up by 11 AM.   Emily and I went to breakfast and then to the Zoo.

It was a nice day after all.  The sky was brilliant and the temperature was in the 50’s  So with a sweater and jacket we went.   

The animals today are all in their natural habitat.  The zoo is divided up into areas and they live in natural surroundings.

The tiger was separated from the visitors by a very thick sheet of glass.   Pittsburgh Plate Glass had donated to the zoo, so I suppose it was their glass.   It appeared to be about 1 1/2 inches thick.    Tiger took no interest in the visitors.

I was telling Emily how the zoo looked when I was a child.   It had cages for the cats, and they paced nonstop every time I saw them.   The chimps were on a rocky island that had a moat around it so non of the chimps could escape, there was actually water in the moat.     I can recall as a child not getting too close to monkey island because the chimps would throw feces at the visitors.   Guess they were really bored.

There were hippos, rhinos and elephants also in cages, at least the hippos had a water pool.   What I remember was the size of the metal bars used to contain the large, powerful animals.   It must have been five inches in diameter.

The only things that remained from the fifties are the bear dens.   They were as pictured behind the Kodiak bear above.    It must have been getting close to feeding time because they were all gathered at the gates and scratching the doors.   Sounds hungry to me……

 

There were two elephants born this year.  The father is Jackson, he must be really studly.  I know they send him, or perhaps his life fluids to other zoos around the country.  The elephants were in the elephant house because the keepers were cleaning the outside yard.   I would not want that job, cleaning elephant poop.

 

Giraffes and zebras out in their environment.

SATURDAY MORNING AND CLOUDY

Woke up when I heard Chuck leave for work.  He tells me hears me when I leave so this is a nationwide statement that I also hear him.  There you go Chuck.

I have been checking the weather forecast.   So far, at 07:43 it is very cloudy.   On the weather map and what they guess the day will be like is seems that it should clear up about 10 AM.   I think we will go to breakfast so we have the energy to climb the hills at the  PITTSBURGH ZOO  Guess I should use the inhaler before I go....

I also  should check the battery on the camera.....I am so excited about this trip and will write more later.

TRIP TO THE ZOO

Well, at least that is what we have planned for tomorrow. Emily has been asking if we could plan a trip to the zoo. The Pittsburgh Zoo is built on a hill and a person will get a lot of exercise walking up hill.

There have been several new babies, including elephants. The color of autumn should be good. I am taking the camera and will post them tomorrow.

If it is still raining, all bets are off. I hope it is nice, the temperature will be in the high 50's and supposedly sunny.

COLORS PART TWO

The magenta lasted for about 60 seconds, it was just too much sensory overload. I will just wait until that psychedelic color post have faded into yesterday, or last week, and then who knows what I will come up with then.

COLORS

Try as I may I can not settle on a good color for the blog. I had posted in YELLOW and found it was virtually unreadable with the pale yellow. So, I went and tried to change the color of print and even though they had a selection for the text color change it would not change on the Layouts settings.

So I decided to make it magenta and type in blue, at least until I get tired of it. I would like to have the ability to customize the colors, like on MS Live Writer but sometime, and usually to my regret, I forget to use Live Writer.
Well, yesterday and the yellow print was one of those times; I was just to lazy to delete it and type it again.

ALMOST WORDLESS

What appears below seems to be something out of LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. It is really how we went camping on the outer banks c. 1962. When I was about 13 was the first time I saw the Atlantic Ocean, or any other ocean in fact. It was an awesome sight for a land bound girl

We had to wait until my youngest sister was "out of diapers." I had a long time to wait for the first vacation. This was pre disposable diapers, what a good invention I must add.....

We took off in the '57 Chevy and my dad drove to NC, the Outer Banks to be exact. This was the days of Pre Interstates. Actually, I have no clue how we got there, but, I suspect it involved in driving around Washington DC and south on Route One. I am not sure, but I think that may be the one.

At that time we had to drive through every one horse town from PA to NC. What I remember mostly was a two lane road from Virgina down through the rural south. We passed many small farms, the houses were dilapidated and run down. The dwellings were wooden frams and the farms were behind them. It was the type of places that had furniture and washing machines on the front porches. These people were poor and trying to eke out an existence growing tobacco.

Upon our arrival there were very few houses to rent and a lot of the "Old' style beach cottages, which were weathered, dark grey and had large green hurricane shutters that would lower and cover the entire windows. Air conditioning was non existant. Very few motel/hotel existed, and the ones that did catered to fishermen.

A campsite was found at Oregon Inlet, and the nomad style tent was pitched. I do not remember the exact sleeping arrangements but I think the girls slept in the car. My father had devised window screens to fit the car and he had two level sleeping quarters in the back of the wagon. The boys slept in the tent. Over the back of the wagon was installed a mosquito net to keep the insect at bay.

One of the highlights was that they was a indoor shower, sink and toilet. The downside was there were a lot of spiders also in there. Each evening a truck would come and spray for insects. This was aerial spraying and probably DDT. Some of the other camping kids would go and run in the mist. My mother would call us and make us stay in the tent or go to the beach until the toxic mist has cleared.

There was one little grocery store and we would buy the provisions for the next days. One of the highlight of the week would to go to the fishing pier in the afternoon and watch the fishing boats come in and the men would have their pictures taken with their catch of the day.

During the day time we would go on little jaunts to explore the islands. From Oregon Inlet to Hatteras Island a ferry was taken, then another ferry went from Hatteras Island to the furthermost island where Ocracoke was located. Some plans had been made to junk the first ferry and a grandiose bridge was planned and built. It was almost finished when some hurricane (who remembers the name it had) came along and changed the shore line and most of the bridge now covered dry land. The bridge was finished and now you can drive along most of the coast.

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

SITTING HERE RECOUPERATING

The past two weeks my house has been a house of pestilence, Co-habitation will do that. Chuck got sick first.   He sounded like he was going to expire,  he said he thought he was going to cough up his lungs.  A few days later I developed the same malady.   I now feel like I am going to cough up my lungs.    It is just a garden variety of URI, aka a cold.   I was at work yesterday and the charge person said "We have two extra people tomorrow if you want to take a sick day."   Guess I really sounded bad to others, do I took that sick day.   

Last night I woke with a wicked sore throat.   I had to get up and take two Tylenol PM.   They have Benadryl in them and it took care of the sore throat, the sneezing and I got about 6 hours of sleep.   Someone suggested Niquil (I hope it is spelled correctly, I am too tired to look it up) but I did not have any of that, maybe next time I will get some.

It has been downright cold the past few days.   It has gone from needing the air conditioner to better soon  check  the furnace.    With the above mentioned illness I felt so hot that I had to open the windows and I still was not cold.  The Tylenol fixed that for me too.

The above photo was taken at the Betsy Ross House in Philadelphia.   There are a few cat sculptures in the courtyard of the house.  It sure is a skinny long legged critter.