On an earlier post I mentioned that I saw some deer on my way home from work the other day.  Well today there was only one but I had my trusty camera with me and stopped to take a picture.  You can see the road at the bottom of the picture … but behind the clump of trees sits Lyondell-Citgo Refinery.  See?  The deer looks perfectly normal.  No mutant looking stuff from all those “bad refineries” ….

Boudreaux and his wife were arguing while touring Paris.  They were hardly speaking to each other after being seated in a fancy French restaurant for dinner.   When the waiter arrived, Boudreaux said,” I’ll have a BIG THICK PORTERHOUSE STEAK.”

The waiter replied, “Monsieur, what about Ze Mad Cow? “

He said, “She’ll have a salad.” 

Yesterday, on my way home from work … as I was driving past several chemical plants … I saw something that was so sweet!  I saw a momma doe and her fawn standing outside a section of woods.  They were watching the traffic zoom by and having an afternoon snack.  I didn’t have my digital camera handy or I would have stopped and taken a picture of them.  I see things like that all the time around here.  I’ve been told there is quite a large deer population around the refineries.  And I’ve never seen one of them that looked deformed or anything so obviously living around and in the midst of chemical plants and refineries must not be as bad as some people make it out to be!

As a matter of fact, some years ago as Chase was taking Erica to school one morning, a big buck ran out in front of his van.  It dented the driver side door and cracked the windshield pretty bad … but almost as soon as the buck fell down, he then hopped up and continued running across the road.  (This happened on a VERY BUSY street near our home.)

So anyway … I plan to keep my camera in my car from now on so when I see the deer out again, I can take a picture.  Then I’ll post it here so all of you will know that I’m telling the truth!  Ha!

Well it’s been awhile since I updated so I thought I’d check in.  So far things are staying stable with my mother’s health.  We’re in the last days of the IV antibiotics they are giving her for the VRE infection.  My sister and I have decided to take one step at a time.  We’ve decided to let the cardio doctor clean out the arteries in her legs.  We will see how that goes, how successful or not successful it is, and then we will cross that next bridge when we get to it.  It’s just a matter of time before the infection returns even if it clears up this time.  From what I understand the doctor telling us, the infection (”super bug” as they call it) just keeps mutating and each time it returns, it is stronger than the time before and more resistant to antibiotic treatment.

Other than all the difficult decisions we are having to make, I guess you could say that we’re doing okay.  Things like this are never easy … we understand that … but we feel that by only taking one step at a time, we can ease some of the stress off ourselves.  And life has a way of working itself out, so it’s really out of our hands anyway, if you look at it from that perspective.

Gotta go for now.  Hope all of you are okay.  MikeD, say hello to the family for me.   Hope the remodeling is going along fine as well.

Later …

It is raining! As a matter of fact, a line of thunderstorms moved through the Houston metropolitan area last night and this morning, dropping close to 10″ of rain near Hobby Airport. All flights in and out of Hobby were delayed for hours. Some people on Interstate 45 trying to get to downtown Houston to work had to sit on the freeway for 6 HOURS because the streets around were flooded. The weather forecasters are predicting more rain tonight and tomorrow. So I think I’m going to build myself an ark … just in case …

A mother was working in the kitchen listening to her 5-year old son playing with his new electric train in the living room. She heard the train stop and her son say: “All of you sons of bitches who want off, get the hell off now ’cause this is the last stop! And all of you sons of bitches who are getting on, get your asses in the train ’cause we’re going down the tracks.”

The horrified mother went in and told her son: “We don’t use that kind of language in this house, young man. Now I want you to go to your room and you are to stay there for TWO HOURS. When you come out you may play with your train. But I want you to use nice language.”

Two hours later the boy came out of the bedroom and resumed playing with his train. Soon the train stopped and the mother heard her son say: “All passengers, please remember your things. Thank you, and hope your trip was a pleasant one. We hope you will ride with us again soon. For those of you just boarding, remember, there is no smoking in the train. We hope you will have a pleasant and relaxing journey with us today.”

As the mother began to smile, the child added: “For those of you who are pissed off about the TWO HOUR delay, please see the bitch in the kitchen …”

… of having a “pity party” for a few minutes. Since I originally set up this website to journal about my life and things that are happening in my life, I thought I’d take time to return to the basics once again. I feel the need to do so.
My mother, as some of you know, is 93 years old. She has Alzheimer’s and is in a nursing facility. Several years ago she fell and broke a hip. Since surgery, she has not been able to walk and has been confined to a wheelchair. Most of the reason she can’t walk is that the Alzheimer’s would not allow her to “remember” what she was being taught in physical therapy. She would learn something while in therapy and by the time she got back to her room she had forgotten about it.

Nursing homes and hospitals are perfect places for infections to live, especially some of the so-called “super germs” that are highly contagious and difficult to treat. My mother recently had a go-round with one they call MRSA. They finally got that cleared up and now she has another one of the super germs called VRE. The problem with these infections is that they are resistant to most anti-biotics and the ones they AREN’T resistant to, are so powerful the patient sometimes has serious side effects from them.

And that’s where me and my sister are with our mother right now. When she was taken to the doctor to be treated for the VRE infection he noticed that the circulation in her legs was not good. He did a Dopplar test and determined that the veins needed to be cleaned out. Well my sister and I feel strongly about not letting doctors do invasive procedures on our mother, especially with her age and the Alzheimer’s. So after talking to a friend of mine, (she’s an RN and administrator over several nursing home facilities), I discussed things with my sister and we both decided NOT to let the doctor clean out the veins. For starters, the procedure is not without risk, even for a younger person let alone someone her age. Second, the procedure would leave another incision that would have to heal and with our mother being a diabetic, wounds do not heal easily. Third, we fear that the VRE infection might spread to the new incision place since those germs like to settle in at unhealed places. And the doctor can’t even be sure that cleaning out the veins will be successful … and if it is, how long she will benefit from the procedure. So the doctor wasn’t very happy with us and tried to make us feel guilty by saying if we don’t have the veins cleaned out, she will end up having to have her legs amputated. But that’s not totally true. If we do absolutely nothing, the circulation will eventually cease at which time it will affect her heart and kidneys. At that point, Hospice would be called.
The doctor also told us she needs to be in a hospital on IV anti-biotics because the VRE infection isn’t clearing up like he’d like it to. My sister told him that a hospital stay wasn’t necessary (especially since he said she’d have to be in there 6 WEEKS) because the nursing facility our mother is in is a skilled-care facility. That means they can administer IVs and such. (I’m sure if I had been able to get inside that doctor’s head, I would have heard his brain telling him how much money he was going to lose out on by not putting her in the hospital and billing Medicare!)

So, long story long … the nursing home will administer the IV anti-biotics for the next 6 weeks. The anti-biotics she will be getting are damaging to the kidneys so its very possible that this long length of time on anti-biotics may be more of a problem than the lack of circulation in her legs.

At any rate … I don’t want anyone reading this to think my sister and I are uncaring or don’t have any feelings for our mother … it’s the exact opposite. We love her so much that we feel we’ve made the decisions that would be how she would want to live out the remainder of her life, however long or short that may be.

I’m redoing my living room in a “coastal/beach” decor theme.  I recently found some cute little adirondack chair picture frames that I purchased, too … so I placed them on the piano (with the rowboat shelf I painted) and on one of the end tables.  Here’s what they look like:

Just checking in.  I haven’t posted in awhile because I really haven’t had anything new to say.  Hope all of you are doing well.  Things are fine on our end … just the same old same old, as the saying goes.

As I grow in age, I value womenh who are over 40 most of all.  Here are just a few reasons why:

A woman over 40 will never wake you in the middle of the night to ask, “What are you thinking?”  She doesn’t care what you think.

If a woman over 40 doesn’t want to watch the game, she doesn’t sit around whining about it.  She does something she wants to do and it’s usually something more interesting.

A woman over 40 knows herself well enough to be assured in who she is, what she is, what she wants, and from whom.  Few women past the age of 40 give a hoot what you might think about her or what she’s doing.

Women over 40 are dignified.  They seldom have a screaming match with you at the opera or in the middle of an expensive restaurant.  Of course, if you deserve it, they won’t hesitate to shoot you if they think they can get away with it.

Older women are generous with priase, often undeserved.  They know what it’s like to be unappreciated.  A woman over 40 has the self-assurance to introduce you to her women friends.  A younger woman with a man will often ignore even her best friend because she doesn’t trust the guy with other women.  Women over 40 couldn’t care less if you’re attracted to her friends because she knows her friends won’t betray her.

Women get psychic as they age.  You never have to confess your sins to a woman over 40.  They always know.

A woman over 40 looks good wearing bright red lipstick.  This is not true of younger women.  Once you get past a wrinkle or two, a woman over 40 is far sexier than her younger counterpart.

Older women are forthright and honest.  They’ll tell you right off if you are a jerk if you’re acting like one.  You don’t ever have to wonder where you stand with her.

Yes, we praise women over 40 for a multitude of reasons.  Unfortunately, it’s not reciprocal.  For every stunning, smart, well-coiffed hot woman of 40+, there is a bald, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of himself with some 22-year old waitress.

Ladies, I apologize.

For all those mean who say:  “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?” here’s an update for you … nowadays 80% of women are against marriage.  Why?  Because women realize it’s not worth buying an entire pig just to get a little sausage.

(Ya gotta love that Andy Rooney, don’t ya?  Especially that last paragraph!)