THE GREAT PAJAMA HEIST

I have kind of taken over the large closet my ex daughter left behind when she got married. I assume that if she had wanted it, it would be long gone by now. She left a bunch of clothes in it. She never dreamed that I'd ever get thin enough to wear any of the things she left and even told me to get rid of my old clothes because I'd never ever fit into them again. Really?
It was a little chilly here the other night and I remembered that there were two pairs of satin jammies in that closet. I got them out, and guess what? They fit. I guess losing 60+ pounds had something to do with it. I still have a way to go before I get back to the point where my old clothes will fit properly, but I'm well on the way. So there.
Other than that, not much has been happening except that I managed to turn night into day again. It's enough to drive a body wild. By around 0300 my body aches to sleep, but I just can't. Then I do, and wake up late in the morning. Then I end up struggling not to doze off during the afternoon so that maybe I'll be able to sleep at night. That doesn't always work. It ain't easy being a night owl, but, I guess I'll just have to learn to live with it. It would be much easier if the rest of the world was more accommodating. I rather doubt that will ever happen.
Yes, that was a huge sigh you just heard.

HOW COULD I ALMOST FORGET?

I came very close to forgetting that yesterday, Columbus Day in 1970 was the day I landed in Israel for the very first time and knew beyong a shadow of a doubt that I had found the place I was destined to live in.I do believe that everyone has a place for them. Some find it right in their back yards, others, the really lucky ones find it elsewhere quite by accident, like I did. To this day I'm not entirely sure where the idea to come here came from. Divine Inspiration, maybe? But, the minute I got off that plane, I knew I was in My Place. It took a lot longer to find the sprcific place here. I was sent to teach English in Kiryat Shmonah and knew very early on in the school year that this was the spot. Two days after school let out for the summer, I moved up here with kids, lock stock and barrel. I feel so blessed to have found my place. I can't even begin to imagine living any place else. I am well and truly home.

I SUPPOSE I SHOULD BE HAPPY....BUT

After making an inept attempt at repairing my Windows operating system, and making a right mess of it, and getting the sweetest techie from the cable company in to fix my non working cable phone, my computer decided to pack it in. I'm still not quite sure what all was wrong with it, so I did the smart thing and got my geek in. He set up the laptop and I got it connected to the interweb, and off this one went in brand new Chevy ambulance to the Kiryat Shmonah Computer Hospital. There was a knock on the door at a little after noon and the computer was home and declared cured of all ills, viral and otherwise. Again I got it connected to the interweb, and started downloading all my stuff, like Firefox and Thunderbird. Thunderbird refuses to work correctly. It receives mail but cannot send. A very sweet guy from my server tried for ages by remote to get it to send, but it was stubborn in it's refusal. In the end we did get the detested Outlook Express to both send and receive. Now all I have to do is try and remember everyone's e addys. Yeah, right. I do have a pretty good memory of what my usual downloads were and have started rebuilding my favorites list. It should be finished in 10 years or so. It's going to be a long long night.
Susie, please, send me those stories again.

MINDLESS MEANDERING OF MY MIND

It's been one of those weeks so far and it looks like it just might continue that way for a while. My cleaning lady was supposed to come yesterday. I really needed her because the sink was full to over flowing with dishes, pots and pans. I discoverd that, yes, I can do them myself, but evrey time I do, I come away with another 'do it yourself home PT test' and that hurts! After all, why do I have a cleaning lady? To clean stuff I can't like the floor and now dishes.
Ok, so she didn't come yesterday. She's been with me just long enough for me to figure out that she wiuld probably appear today. She did. So, that's that. Dishes are done, floor is washed, and I'm a prisoner in the computer corner unless I want wheely marks on the nice clean floor!
I don't mind being a prisoner here because I can keep on with my new addiction-Bookworm. Last night I quit for the day at level 16 which is the highest I've ever gotten. We had some wet, noisy weather for a while and I was nervous that the lightening might cause the power to go out and I'd lose the game. Luck was with me and the power stayed on, and this morning I'm up to level 19, a new record. I do enjoy this game. I go to it every chance I get.
Now I have to decise if I want to go out or stay in for the rest of the day. I'll decide after I bring Peg in. The floor is dry enough now.
It's quite a nice day, but I think I'll stay in as I don't really have anything to do outside today.
A few months ago my partner in crime and I went on a little crusade against some local criminal types who had illegally taken over an abandoned building behind our houses and had started all kinds of illegal bulldozing and building. There is a stream between our houses and the property they took over. They used the stream as their own private dumping ground and caused it to back up and overflow it's banks in heavy rain which we had last night. Golan and I sent e mails to just about evryone in the country who might have an interest in putting a stop to the criminal activity going on there. Eventually we hit on the right person and one fine day the work was stopped in it's tracks by a court order. We tried to get one of the local newspapers interested, but the reporter refused to go near it and gave the head criminal our names. In the end the rival paper picked it up and low and behold, that first reporter got her ass fired.We had spoken to her boss about it several times and he wanted to do an expose on it. When the rival paper covered it, he realized that she had torpedoed the story for personal reasons. You don't do that to your editor and stay employed for long. Now both papers are in on the act!
Now all we have to do is get the stream bed cleaned up. Right now it's a breeding ground for mosquitoes as the water level has gone way back down to almost stagnant. There's Nile fever in the area, so, someone will be around to get it cleaned up. I'd go down there myself, but there's no way to get Harley down the bank, and the stream bed is not passsable either.I guess City Hall will have to handle it. If they don't we know exactly who to talk to to force their hand.

ONE OF THESE DAYS

One of these days things will get done prperly the first time. Friday was not one of those days. I went to the clinic to get my meds for the month, and the doc only gave me half a month od 3 of them, so, back I went today to get the rest. I have four pill boxes that I fill up at the beginning of the month so I don't have to futz around opening ten different boxes of the meds in the morning and at night. I like it when I get it all done the first time. So, I was not pleased to discover that the doc didn't write twice a day for three of them so the computer would give me whole month's supply at the pharmacy. Today I went and got it sorted. Now I have to sit and fill the remaning boxes, and recheck the others.
After getting that sorted, I went down to the Industrial Zone, where my preferred supermarket and picked up few items. The gal at the check out told me that I can't write a check in purple ink. Oh yeah? All the law requires is ink, not pencil, and I've only been writing checks with purple ink for 20 years. I get so annoyed at these Russians who think they know everything. She was informed by her head cashier that I do and can write checks with my handy dandy purle pen and that it's prefectly legal. I think that next time I'll write in the Jewish date which is also legal here and watch her deal with that.
When I finally got home, I performed yet another PT(blood clotting time) test on myself as I went from Harley to the wheely. No big deal. I'd feel completely nakey if I didn't have at least several cuts and bruises.
And for my next trick, I think it's time to change into something more comfortable and do the dishes, make something to eat, and get my feet up.
Hell's bells! It's 92 degrees out there! Just saying; not complaining. It's nice and comfy in here.

SLOW GOING

Things are moving very slowly, but, never the less, moving. The swelling in my legs from the DVTs is finally gone, as are 5 more kilos. I acrually managed to break the 90 kilo mark and get to a solid 98 kilo, which is far from being svelt, but is firmly out of all the BMI overweight categories. I have to admit that I celebrated with a Big Mac and a small iceream cone. Not exactly items high on me new diet list...but, hey, it was a celebration and I don't get to do that very often. I pretty much stick with my veg and fruit regime and break it up maybe twice a week with some meat, chicken or fish. It's kind of nice that due to the mess in my stomach I don't get hungry very often.
The really big news is that we found a pain killer that acrually works. The one the doc from Rambam suggested was worse than not taking anything, so my doc at the clinic gave me something else and it works. It works so well that after popping one at the clinic pharmacy, the pain was gone by the time I got home. And that night I slept from midnight until 0930, which was a first in I don't know how long. Of course, I went and over ate the next day and was up most of the night with a miserable stomach. Serves me right. Today I'm sticking to cukes and plums and maybe a few grapes. We'll see how the night goes. At least I'm not barfing now. I'd rather be up with a miserable stomach than barf.
I'm still trying to keep my feet up as the swelling does start again after I've been here for a few hours. In fact, it's time to get them up again. That's my excuse for not posting here as often as I'd like; and I'm sticking to it for as long as I can!