Your Southern-Fried Scopes...

Yep! some of us are pretty skeptical of horoscopes, and it has become obvious that what we need are our own "Southern" signs:

Go ahead, guess my sign, and enjoy yours! tell me is it true what they said about your sign?

OKRA (Dec 22 - Jan 20) - Although you appear crude, you are actually very slick on the inside. Okras have tremendous influence. An older Okra can look back over his life and see the seeds of his influence everywhere. Stay away from Moon Pies.

CHITLIN (Jan 21 - Feb 19) - Chitlins come from humble backgrounds. A chitlin, however, can make something of himself if he's motivated and has lots of seasoning. In dealing with Chitlins, be careful. They can erupt like Vesuvius. Chitlins are best with Catfish and Okra.

BOLL WEEVIL (Feb 20 - Mar 20) - You have an overwhelming curiosity. You're unsatisfied with the surface of things, and you feel the need to bore deep into the interior of everything. Needless to say, you are very intense and driven as if you had some inner hunger. Nobody in their right mind is going to marry you, so don't worry about it.

MOON PIE (Mar 21 - Apr 20) - You're the type that spends a lot of time on the front porch. It's a cinch to recognize the physical appearance of Moon Pies. Big and round are the key words here. You should marry anybody who you can get remotely interested in the idea. It's not going to be easy. This might be the year to think about aerobics. Or - maybe not.

POSSUM (Apr 21 - May 21) - When confronted with life's difficulties, possums have a marked tendency to withdraw and develop a don't-bother-me-about-it attitude. Sometimes you become so withdrawn, people actually think you're dead. This strategy is probably not psychologically healthy, but seems to work for you. One day, however, it won't work and you may find your problems actually running you over.

CRAWFISH (May 22 - June 21) - Crawfish is a water sign. If you work in an office, you're always hanging around the water cooler. Crawfish prefer the beach to the mountains, the pool to the golf course, the bathtub to the living room. You tend to be not particularly attractive physically, but you have very, very good heads.

COLLARDS (June 22 - July 23) - Collards have a genius for communication. They love to get in the "melting pot" of life and share their essence with the essence of those round them.. Collards make good social workers, psychologists, and baseball managers. As far as your personal life goes, if you are Collards, stay away from Moon Pies. It just won't work. Save yourself a lot of heartache.

CATFISH (July 24 - Aug 23) - Catfish are traditionalists in matters of the heart, although one's whiskers may cause problems for loved ones. You catfish are never easy people to understand. You prefer the muddy bottoms to the clear surface of life. Above all else, Catfish should stay away from Moon Pies.

GRITS (Aug 24 - Sept 23) - Your highest aim is to be with others like yourself. You like to huddle together with a big crowd of other Grits. You love to travel though, so maybe you should think about joining a club. Where do you like to go? Anywhere they have cheese or gravy or bacon or butter or eggs. If you can go somewhere where they have all these things, that serves you well.

BOILED PEANUTS (Sept 24 - Oct 23) - You have a passionate desire to help your fellow man. Unfortunately, those who know you best - your friends and loved ones - may find that your personality is much too salty, and their criticism will probably affect you deeply because you are really much softer than you appear. You should go right ahead and marry anybody you want to because in a certain way, yours is a charmed life. On the road of life, you can be sure that people will always pull over and stop for you.

BUTTER BEAN (Oct 24 - Nov 22) - Always invite a Butter Bean because Butter Beans get along well with everybody. You, as a Butter Bean, should be proud. You've grown on the vine of life and you feel at home no matter what the setting. You can sit next to anybody. However, you, too, shouldn't have anything to do with Moon Pies.

ARMADILLO (Nov 23 - Dec 21) - You have a tendency to develop a tough exterior, but you are actually quite gentle. A good evening for you? Old friends, a fire, some roots, fruit, worms and insects. You are a throwback. You're not concerned with today's fashions and trends. You're not concerned with anything about today. You're really almost prehistoric in your interests and behavior patterns. You probably want to marry another Armadillo, but Possum is another somewhat kinky, mating possibility.

but...but...first syndrome

I just wanted to let you know that I have recently been diagnosed with AAADD - Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder.

This is how it goes...

I decide to do the laundry, start down the hall and notice the newspaper on the table. OK, I'm going to do the laundry...

BUT first I'm going to read the newspaper. After that, I notice the mail on the table. OK, I'll just put the newspaper in the recycle stack...

BUT first I'll look through the pile of mail and see if there are any bills to be paid. Yes. Now where is the checkbook? Oops... there's the empty glass from yesterday on the coffee table. I'm going to look for that checkbook...

BUT first I need to put the glass in the sink. I head for the kitchen, look out the window, notice my poor flowers need a drink of water, I put the glass in the sink and there's the remote for the TV on the kitchen counter. What's it doing here? I'll just put it away...

BUT first I need to water those plants. I head for the door and...

Aaaagh! stepped on the cat. Cat needs to be fed.

Okay, I'll put the remote away and water the plants...

BUT first I need to feed the cat.

END OF DAY: Laundry is not done, newspapers are still on the floor, glass is still in the sink, bills are not paid, checkbook is still lost, and the cat ate the remote control... And, when I try to figure out how come nothing got done today, I'm baffled because... I KNOW I WAS BUSY ALL DAY! I realize this condition is serious... I'd get help...

BUT first... I think I'll check my e-mail.

how is everybody?

Love's Orchestra...

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Gentle patience dancing breath upon the mirror
Passion leans forward with sparkling eyes.
Candor speaks with baritone piano rush
And all the while humor throws a head back in mirth.

Shame stays outside looking in through a glass pain.
watching reckless juggle knifes for a pittance of attention.
Charm roams the room as a deep with disarming intensity
Arrogance and anger puff in heated discuss about nothing.

Love radiates like a beacon reaching out past it's shores
and joy frolics in abandon in the brilliance of love.  
Wonder is amazed and attentive with rich gentle fascination
And serenity becomes a fragrance of a dream un-dreamt.
Love's orchestra ~ patience, passion, candor, humor, shame, reckless abandon, charm, arrogance, anger, love, joy, wonder, fascination, serenity.
 
 


Halloween Tales and Eerie Folklore...

its that time of year again, I love reading folklore and/or eerie tales, and watching spook movies! Here's a WV tale for yuns entitled "Screaming Jenny."


The old storage sheds along the tracks were abandoned shortly after the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad was built, and it wasn't long before the poor folk of the area moved in. The sheds provided shelter - of a sort - although the winter wind still pierced through every crevice, and the small fireplaces that the poor constructed did little to keep the cold at bay.

A gentle, kindly woman named Jenny lived alone in one of the smaller sheds. She had fallen on hard times, and with no family to protect her, she was forced to find work where she could and take whatever shelter was available to someone with little money. Jenny never had enough to eat and in winter her tiny fire barely kept her alive during the cold months. Still, she kept her spirits up and tried to help other folks when they took sick or needed food, sometimes going without herself so that another could eat.

One cold evening in late autumn, Jenny sat shivering over her fire, drinking broth out of a wooden bowl, when a spark flew from the fire and lit her skirt on fire. Intent on filling her aching stomach, Jenny did not notice her flaming clothes until the fire had burnt through the heavy wool of her skirt and began to scorch her skin. Leaping up in terror, Jenny threw her broth over the licking flames but the fluid did nothing to douse the fire. In terror, Jenny fled from the shack and ran along the tracks, screaming for help as the flames engulfed her body.

The station was not far away, and instinctively Jenny made for it, hoping to find someone to aid her. Within moments, her body was a glowing inferno and Jenny was overwhelmed by pain. Her screams grew more horrible as her steps slowed. She staggered blindly onto the tracks just west of the station, a ball of fire that barely looked human. In her agony, she did not see the glowing headlight of the train rounding the curve, or hear the screech of the breaks as the engineer spotted her fire-eaten figure and tried to stop. A moment later, her terrible screams broke off as the train mowed her down.

Alerted by the whistle, the crew from the station came running as the engineer halted the train and ran back down the tracks toward poor dead Jenny, who was still burning. The men doused the fire and carried her body back to the station. She was given a pauper's funeral and buried in an unmarked grave in the local churchyard. Within a few days, another poverty-stricken family had moved into her shack, and Jenny was forgotten.

Forgotten that is, until a month later when a train rounding the bend west of the station was confronted by a screaming ball of fire. Too late to stop, the engineer plowed over the glowing figure before he could bring the train to a screeching halt. Leaping from the engine, he ran back down the tracks to search for a mangled, burning body, but there was nothing there. Shaken, he brought his train into the station and reported the incident to the stationmaster. After hearing his tale, the stationmaster remembered poor, dead Jenny and realized that her ghost had returned to haunt the tracks where she had died.

To this day, the phantom of Screaming Jenny still appears on the tracks on the anniversary of the day she died. Many an engineer has rounded the curve just west of the station and found himself face to face with the burning ghost of Screaming Jenny, as once more she makes her deadly run towards the Harpers Ferry station, seeking in vain for someone to save her.

I always love visiting those blogs I know can tell a tale better than anybody, and here is one such link.  If you're interested in originality and reading one great writer in my opinion, click here.

Neglected..

Yes, I feel as though this blog has fallen by the wayside into some dark alley...

with being sick here for a few weeks, and schedules being what they are, any free time I get I'm pretty much exhausted and lounging in my bed. Work and everybody else's needs are drowning me...


To be a clown was to be fate's pawn. The life in the arena was a dumb show consisting of slaps, kicks - an endless shuffling and booting about. And it was by means of this disgraceful rigolade that one found favour with the public. The beloved clown! It was his special privilege to re-enact the errors, the follies, the stupidities, all the misunderstandings that plague humankind. To be ineptitude itself, that was something even the dullest oaf could grasp. Not to understand, when all is clear as daylight; not to catch on, though the trick be repeated a thousand times for you.

- Henry Miller "The Smile at the Foot of the Ladder"

out of the darkness comes the light


Well, this has fit a time in my life when I'd rather not have looked my life in the face, rather tried to hide behind the pain of a custodial issue concerning my youngest daughter who was at the time 6 years old. Yes, through no real fault of my own, fathers were being granted custody of their children as the start of a trend against women traditionally being awarded custody. The females that I know of in this area who went through this were made to feel as though they were trash, or made to look like it, but they were good mothers, nurturing mothers, who still were not awarded their own children...not to mention custody at that time was decided by a Comissioner who also hated women, or so it was strongly rumored. 

I hear that this trend is still going on today, men receiving custody of their minor children. I am not saying that there aren't mothers out there who lose custody and for good reasons, but in general, most people think there is something wrong with YOU if you are a mother and you don't. Believe me, I've felt the stigma. A mother loves her child unconditionally, or I did, so did those other mothers. So if you think it can't happen to you, think again. This caused me terrible emotional pain, especially in view of the fact that he was doing this out of spite with money backing him, while I had nothing. I heard similar stories also from other women, and come to find out there were some dirty lawyers who played golf with the judge. That lawyer in fact has since become a Judge, I hope he can live with the decisions he's made that affected lives profoundly beyond a damn courtroom. The courts do not care necessarily about the best interest emotionally of a child, nor the abuse they suffer behind close doors by someone who is supposed to love them. 

Yes, my daughter was bought and paid for at the time. He was certainly no father of the year ever. He was abusive, even with his own family, and my other two children. She suffered emotionally herself which tore my heart to shreds. I tried to love her through all of it, be there for her, never once turning my back. I should have taken him back to court, but I grew leery of the system, didn't trust that justice would be done; if so, this never would have happened. He would take me to court numerous times over anything he felt like he could, even child support. My daughter and I were his puppeteers to use/abuse. He would call me if she came home crying...that I must have done something to her, all the time it was her crying to me not to take her back knowing she would be grilled or made to feel like she was not allowed to have a good time with me or my family. 

Through the years, I've court ordered counseling due to his crazy, I've tried to face and deal with this awful adversity at the hands of someone who wanted to make my life miserable but didn't have enough forethought to realize that the only one he was hurting truly was her, and himself, because at some point their relationship died. She doesn't have any true father love for him. He is a waste of space, and undeserving of breath. If they don't have him a room reserved in hell, I'd be surprised. For many years he succeeded in making us both his victims in a way, especially her, but I won that war. I let go of his abuse years ago. My daughter still fights the battle, even at 18, because of his controlling abusive nature, but our relationship has weathered the storm from him. She knows where she is loved, she always knew. She always has a home with me.

circa Thursday November 8, 2007

This is from my Blogstream archives, back when I typed for a living, instead of doing quality assurance work, which I do now...

anyway...


~~~~~~ In the World of Transcription today ~~~~~


My repertoire of emergency room reports (so far today) has included ...

~~~ a woman who comes in complaining with a green vaginal discharge, OMG! I am NOT doing that pelvic exam, YOU do it!! *exclaims the doctor to the PA* ... Do I have to type this? Nothing grosses me out any quicker than this or other mucousy things! Breakfast was put on hold today! This is a spawn of trichomonas! eeeeeek! States that she had one sexual partner recently but has not been with him again since ... I wonder why ...

~~~a then there are the patients who come in complaining of a rash, an itchy rash that they have scratched until they caused sores ... with burrows found in the intertriginous areas ... can you name it? Yes, you've guessed it... OMG! Scabies!!! I find my own skin is crawling as I type these reports, and I am beginning to itch for no good reason! eeek!

~~~and then there is the mother who brings her child in frantically because he has decided to try TidyBowl Solid (lightly fragranced)Deodorizer as a snack while sitting on the floor, watching cartoons today! Mother said there were pieces of it on the floor and she found a piece of it in his mouth. Just where was mother? Obviously the child was hungry? and the PA dictating said the child was 35 months old ... 35 months old?? Why couldn't he just say 2 1/2 almost 3? ... well, you can make your own determinations about that one! (of course the child was okay and mother told to observe and return child if needed).

Well, that was a more than likely a happy ending for that mother, but all too often there are tragedies. I did not type this report, but I think a lesson is order here for people not to assume the role of doctor themselves when it comes to their children or use remedies they "think" might alleviate a child's symptomatology, overmedicating them, or God knows just what they are thinking ... I came across while looking up something in a medical journal on magnesium.

A 7-year-old male with a history of constipation presented to a hospital with cardiopulmonary arrest. He had complained of abdominal cramping and was given an unknown amount of a tap water and Epsom salt enema by his family in an attempt to relieve his abdominal pain. The family reports that initially the child felt better but then became sleepy and went to lie down. His family checked on him approximately 10 minutes later, found him difficult to arouse, and immediately took him to the local emergency room. On arrival to the emergency department, he was found to be in asystole. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) was begun immediately with the administration of epinephrine, atropine, and sodium bicarbonate. The patient was intubated, volume resuscitated, and a continuous epinephrine infusion was begun.

There are couple of more paragraphs to this story, but what it basically boils down to is that this child died. He died because of toxic magnesium levels. Epsom salts has many uses as we all know, but I am not sure of the exact details as to why they would use it in this manner. People can die and do often from metabolic abnormalities, which perhaps could have been avoided. Sad lesson for the family.

Did I just bum everybody out? I think I bummed myself out too.

But then ... here a few minutes ago ... I get this report ...

Here it is ...

CHIEF COMPLAINT: In a train wreck.

HISTORY OF PRESENT ILLNESS: This is a 48-year-old white female states she was on a train last night about 9 o’clock. She states she was in the bathroom and the conductor apparently slammed on the brakes on the train, and the toilet seat came down and hit her on top of the head which caused her to fall backwards and hit her head. She states that she was knocked out for several minutes, and comes in today complaining of headache....

What are the odds of that happening? and in what position might one have to be in to have their head hit by the toilet seat?? ah ha! just what was she doing in that bathroom? hmmmmm?

and lastly ...

HISTORY OF PRESENT ILLNESS: This is a 21-year-old white female who comes in complaining of rash and itching for two months. Her boyfriend has the same thing. It is all over. She has not been ill. She has had no fever, sore throat, cough. States she has tried multiple over-the-counter medications with no relief.

Scabies, Scabies, and more Scabies! eeeeeeekkkk! I just want this day to end and get a nice hot shower!

and tomorrow's another day in the life.

I hurt and have a temperature too...

hey bloggers,

I didn't fall off the face of the earth, just been sick.  This started last Saturday, it has now been a week, saw my family doctor twice, and I can't say I'm much better. 

I've had temps as high as 102.7, not yet coming back to normal, and after bloodwork and a few x-rays on my 2nd visit, my doctor told me I have pneumonia. 

No other real symptoms, except for coughing that burns like fire in my chest, headache, bodyaches, weakness; no GI distress stuff, except for one time nearly passing out when I got up on Wednesday; this causing nausea with a throbbing headache prompting a doctor visit again; if I could have thrown up then perhaps my headache would have subsided. 

I've been on 1500 mg of antibiotics a day, plus have had two shots, still this fever persists.  I now am sore in my chest.  I am wondering if I should just go to the ER, last night my friend tried to talk me into it; my fever was way over 102.  Today its not normal, but its tolerable. 

Bella has a game today she is cheering at.  I had to miss them last week.  I am going to go if I croak over.  I ain't dead yet.