Watch the 47th Grammy's and look for DVR's Wife and Producer, Andrea Vuocolo Vanronk, and our beloved Christine Lavin [who helped edit it] February 13, 2005 8PM on CBS.
William Valdez is our Son-in-Law Extrodinaire. You can support our troops via this site, and support William, personally, if you wish. His TFT ID is 1862195 Thank you!
I was watching Chris Dodd on CNN Saturday talking with Wolf Blitzer. In effect, they were having a "virtual debate" as Wolf would play a video clip, or post a statement, and Chris would respond.
As I listened to this articulate, educated ,man respond to what was put to him "off the cup" in such an easy manner, I forgot just how well people can speak, and was heartened and hopeful again. I was mentioning to Gordy that I wished Dodd was running for president, when *poof*, before signing off, they mentioned he was!!!
I also think that his appeal crosses enough ages, political parties, and education levels to be a viable winning candidate. I'm truly excited and look forward to more Dodd messages and appearances.
I am thrilled by the news and plan to support him. His CV is also wonderful; he acts what he believes, such as having served in the Peace Corps. I'm tickled to feel good about a candidate again.
Below is a YouTube sound bite
Stop by his site to learn more about this gentleman.
A complete turn-around when I phoned Apple Tech Support yesterday re: my MacBook Pro.
I had the most wonderful experience. Prior to this, I was basically told I was S.O.L. when I sent my laptop in for repairs. I had purchased the extended warranty, and did everything "right", but the Genius at the Genius Bar, Chris, blew me off and set me on a bad path, and the tech support falsely accused me of having had an "accident" with the computer, and they were really unpleasant, and I have been sitting here, w/out my new laptop, contemplating going to the "dark side" for a PC since there was no satisfaction to be had.
But, I phoned again yesterday, and spoke to a caring gent named Adam. He didn't "read off a script", he let me give him the background story, and he listened!
Next he got Dave on the phone, and *he* listened, and he is sending a box to me to send it back for repair, no cost to me (as it should be, but to date, I was stuck with a broken laptop and no where to go).
Bravo, and standing ovation to these two gentlemen at the Tech Support center!!! The other people need to learn from them on what customer service is about.
I hope I get it back from them before I go to Clear Passage, toes and fingers are crossed. I'm nervous about the trip, and keep trying not to put too much hope in this basket, but how can I not?
I have had another bad bout with the tummy the past couple days. I know part of it is lack of sleep. My brain won't stop the chatter and worry, and Gordy's snoring, well, he's good at it to say the least , and then, the first time in a long while, I experienced waking up to a sore jaw. I had been clenching and grinding, aka bruxism when I did fall to sleep. Ugh.
I'm pretty much fasting again. Dammitall. I hurt and it is so uncomfortable. I hope the trip is fruitful. I really really need this to help me...!
Another all-nighter and I hope I don't suffer for it, i.e. the tummy acting up. It's been soooooo stressful trying to play catch up from a long time of no to low activity. Bills, bills bills, and coordinating and pricing and piecing together the trip to Clear Passage coming up way too fast.
It's crazy-making. The price of this trip is huge, and that's not including the care. Holy crap.
The logistics are reminiscent of when I was building my house, it seems as if it's make up your mind all at once, but not yet, because "this" depends on "that" which depends on "this" yet again....argh. And with my brems [a Gerry-ism instead of brains] broken and burnt out, well, it is hard to make it all happen.
The cost is close to prohibitive. It's a huge gamble, but if it should work, it's priceless. I'm afraid -- very very afraid of the cost of energy, time, money, and hope, or more succinctly, the price of hope going if this doesn't work.
I'll be leaving with Kim (thank you dear friend) on the Saturday the 10th, probably the shuttle flight out of Oak Harbor [Gordy prefers it, and I dont blame him one iota, but more $ and one more thing to go wrong, but it's wisest, and my idea actually].
We get to Jacksonville at about 10:15pm Saturday [a call last night to Delta, gave me much needed data; I do have to deplane and go to another gate, not the same plane as first told by cheapseats...caveat emptor]. Next is a drive to Gainesville, about 1 hour 45 minutes. Yawn already.
We're staying at the Best Western, but they are booked for a soccer tournament, so Friday and Saturday the first week will mean a hotel change. I reserved the Hilton...the price per night is about 200 with taxes et al...sheeeiiit.
Sunday we check out, and it's back to Best Western. More realistic pricing.
Due to flight availability and pricing and a slew o' stuff ad nauseum, we're returning home on Monday the 26th. It impacts car rental prices in a huge way, daily is out of whack price-wise, but I think it's better, to get a flight in JAX on Sunday would mean about a 3:00am check out. NFW.
So, it's getting pieced together bit by bit.
I just heard that William is now coming home early February, and then the family may come visit the Island while he's home, but it looks like, as of now, that I'll miss him entirely, and Jenny, Evan and Miz Robyn too. Crap again. But his being home is sooooooooo good, I'm psyched.
C'est la guerre.
So that's that to date. Gordy stop snoring so I can come to bed for some zzzzzzzzz's please?
Later y'all. Peace ## < --mumbling "miles to go before I sleep.. "
Seeing Mom on Thursday was a homecoming from my POV...I missed her so much that it was palpable!
When we entered, we were greeted by a grumpy care-giver, not the typical smiling faces we were used to, but as we walked in, we were greeted by the "usual suspects", smiles intact, and with a happy sigh, as apparently, Mom was not happy and was letting everyone know it by trying to take over the place .
When I walked around the corner, I saw her down the hall, and so I opened my arms, overhead and wide, then in a loud voice called, "Mom! MmmmmOOOooooMMMmm!" until she looked up, she didn't "know me" at first, but as she came closer, and I walked towards her, she started to turn the stern look into a more relaxed look, and with my hugging her, a smile.
It took a few more moments of my exclaiming how excited I was to see her and tell her who I was, "Your daughter, Jonni" etc. "I missed you so much, it's so good to see you" until she relaxed in full as she "got it".
Later in "the room" she knew it was me and even called me by my name! That is rare rare rare, but oh, I needed that.
When she saw Gordy, she did a recognition grin, and spent a lot of time teasing him, and saying how much she liked him, and how well he looked, she was glad to see him, big time. For me, she gave me a lot of "you look good" which could've been her "default /generic" mode of "making nice", but no, she was more than that with me, she knew me, and was loving me in the way she knows how and is able.
She had been wrestling with a cold for over a week, so it was lingering some; her cough, but she settled in the chair easily, owning it, laid back and was chatting in a relaxed mode.
She caught me off guard when I asked about Jim, her knee-jerk reply was "no she hadn't spoke to him" but then, she thought, and grabbed a memory and said, "hm, I think maybe I did.." so that was very interesting regarding memory. She wasn't posturing, she actually changed her mind and dug up a memory. It was very exciting to see that capability.
God I love her.
I also had an idea that I should have figured out earlier if brain was working, but at least I got it this time.
Mom has never liked to eat out because she's a slow eater, and doesn't like to be eating solo, so next time we'll bring 2 more plates and forks to join in with her, nibbling while, we hope, she eats. Why it never came to my mind before boggles.
I love and miss her........ Gordy snuck some more snaps of her, seeing her in a snap is quite a shocker--no twinkling of the bably blues make it to the photo, but I know I'll want 'em later, or at least the option of being able to see her in snaps documenting this time in our lives. ##
Despite comparisons with Harry Potter, I like it on it's own merit. It's easier to read, but still ok for adults IMHO. Enjoy -- it's one of 4 in the "Red King" series. ##
Awshit, my heart is with everyone who is impacted by this latest natural disaster, Derek, please write and be safe dear one....
Tsunami Watch Issued For Hawaii After Japan Quake
POSTED: 9:05 pm PST January 12, 2007 UPDATED: 9:41 pm PST January 12, 2007
HONOLULU -- The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a tsunami watch for Hawaii following a powerful 8.3 magnitude earthquake in the northern Pacific.
The center said those waves could reach the shores of the islands just after midnight local time. Japan's Meteorological Agency has issued tsunami warnings.
The agency said waves as high as 3 feet could hit the northeastern coast of Japan's northern island of Hokkaido. Officials in towns along Japan's Pacific coast issued evacuation orders to flee to higher ground.
The quake struck about 310 miles east of the Etorofu islands between northern Japan and Russia.
Tsunami waves are generated by earthquakes and are often barely noticeable in the ocean but can rise to great heights once they arrive at shore. ##
A week of pain revisited...OMG I almost forgot the pain level it gets to, and the groaning and non-stop onslaught.
The abdominal pain was excrutiating and it was also different this time.
I've been berating the phrase to death to anyone who would listen that, "This doesn't feel right. I don't feel like I've fully recuperated since my recent hospital stay -- I feel vulnerable and just 'not right' ". I really have to "re-learn" to listen to myself and my core (aka gut) feelings about everything in my life.
I got hit really hard, and if I had to pin-point reasons, I'd have to say it was stress, and, absolutely not having finished the "cycle" of pain that brought me to hospital, and also stress was a huge factor. I had never recovered from the last bout that got me to the hospital stay.
This just started higher (belly-button area), and the "clutches" were different. Each time it "hit" it felt attached to my heart, and I thought I was having a heart attack with each pain attack. Scared the crap outta me.
Today is really the first day I'm eating again and feeling like I'm coming back to "real life", but I still have phantom "heart pain that is just on top of the clutch /abdominal-but-more-like-solar-plexus-area" which scares me and tells me I'm not out of the woods yet, but at least I'm better.
Another scary piece of this bout, is that my recollection of this pain-session is my lack of recall. I asked Gordy for specifics. I truly hope it is only a temporary symptom of the types of medicine I have to take to conquer the pain, and that we find a way out of it at Clear Passage, and I can reduce the meds and I take for the "flares".
Please send me white light, prayers, good thoughts, heart, whatever for success at my 2 week session at clear passage in February. Please. Thank you in advance for any good thoughts. ##
While looking for some goodies on Amazon, I found a gem of a comment that I think out-does what the book Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President may have offered. I think if I decide to read I'll probably get it from the library instead of purchasing it, but I will post the comment below: We are in BIG trouble., June 28, 2004 Reviewer: A reader
I'm 56, a grown woman descended from a long line of Republicans, including a multi-term Republican State Senator.
Actually I had voted for a Republican candidate in every Presidential election since I was 21 years old.
But when George W. Bush was running for President I saw a History Channel documentary during which one of "W"'s oldest friends was being interviewed. The man merrily related an anecdote he considered hugely amusing...
To make a long story short, although former First Lady Barbara Bush had suggested to her new daughter-in-law Laura that it would be unwise to ever criticize "W", Laura Bush made the mistake of doing just that.
Once.
It was during the period of time when Bush was newly entering politics. He gave a speech that Laura had listened to very carefully.
Driving home from the political rally, George asked his young wife how she thought he did.
She told him honestly that she didn't think he had done as well as he might have.
The friend relating the story laughed that Bush was so furious at Laura's criticism that he drove clean through his back garage wall and right out the other side of the building.
The friend of George Bush who related the story thought it absolutely hilarious.
I didn't find it the least bit funny.
What I did think, was that it suggested a major character flaw and a horrifying lack of self control.
And I found the very idea of that kind of flaw in a Presidential candidate to be very unsettling.
And the idea of a violent, uncontrolled response to nothing more than a minor criticism left me extremely uncomfortable with the idea of having George W. Bush at the helm of this country.
So although I HAD voted for his father, for the first time in my life I chose NOT to vote Republican when George W. Bush ran for President.
Actually, the more I saw of George W. Bush in the years AFTER he assumed the Presidency, the MORE uncomfortable I became.
And after 9/11, and the invasion of Iraq. one thought kept resurfacing....."This whole scenario just doesn't FEEL right".
I received an email from an old friend which mentioned a book by Dr. Justin A. Frank, a Washington, D.C.-based psychoanalyst and professor of psychiatry.
In his book, "Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President", Frank wrote, "....when the most powerful man on the planet consistently exhibits an array of multiple, serious, and untreated symptoms -- any one of which I've seen patients need years to work through -- it's certainly cause for further investigation, if not for outright alarm".
Clearly I wasn't the only one with the feeling that something is just not quite right.
Saturday, out of curiosity, I went to see Michael Moore's documentary "Farenheit 9/11".
Personally, I don't particularly care for Michael Moore. But to give credit where credit is due, he does do his homework.
And I was curious. So I went.
By about halfway through the movie, the entire audience had become deathly silent.
You could have heard a pin drop in that theatre.
So this is my take on the movie.
It doesn't matter whether you're a Democrat or a Republican. It also doesn't matter whether you're a Christian, a Jew, a Buddhist, a Muslim, an Athiest or an Agnostic.
Do yourself a favor and leave your political and religious affiliations at home.
Walk in the theatre door as simply an average American citizen.
I believe that you will emerge every bit as shaken as each and every person in that theatre did Saturday afternoon.
Do you consider yourself a reasonably intelligent human being?.
Presented with fair and unbiased information, do you think you can analyze a situation and draw your own conclusions?.
Occasional sardonic movie commentary from Moore aside, there's MORE than enough fair and unbiased historical video in that film to scare the living hell out of
ALL of us.
Because much of what you're going to see has been edited out of our evening news.
You're also going to see candid interviews with our duly elected officials. From BOTH political parties.
Read the book. Go see the documentary. Make your own decision.
We salute the Grammy nomination of the late great
Dave Van Ronk's final concert album: 
may have offered. I think if I decide to read I'll probably get it from the library instead of purchasing it, but I will post the comment below: