I DID IT! I FINNALY DID IT!

After I don't know how many years of trying, I finally did it! My mother used to make the most delicious roast beef imaginable. I have spent I don't know how much money, and I don't know many hours, or attempts at making a roast that only came close to the ones she used to make. I went grocery shopping on Wednesday and the farthest thing from my mind was getting a roast! Then, I saw a hunk of meat in the fresh meat cooler and knew I had to have it! When it was finally delivered, and after the rest of the stuff was put away, I started, and am still somewhat in shock that it came closer to the ones Mom used make than I ever imagined I'd be able to make. It was as close to perfection as can be. It's nice and pinky in the middle and as tender as can be! Hey! I did it at last! I knew I was at least close when I made the first cut and that slice looked just right. Then, I tasted it, and had a bit of a crying jag that Mom hasn't been here to make her roasts since 1978. Granted I miss much more than her cooking. She was so amazing in so many ways. I will always miss her and, still talk to her every single day. And now I can make a roast that comes out as close to hers as can be. Yup! I finally did it.

OF TVS, CELL PHONES AND ADDICTIONS

This is another one of those things that really only can happen to me! As susual I completely misunderstood the deal my cable company was offering, (well, maybe not completely, but, I did get a major part of it all wrong. They have been advertising a fantastic deal for getting an HD digi box, faster interweb and heaven only knows what else, so I called to find out about it, and decided to go for it, because it costs almost exactly what I paying now,(NIS 10 more) and includes all the channels. There's just one minor glitch. You have to have a plasma or LCD TV. My LCD upped and died pretty close to 3 years from day I got it, so, I had a friend drag out one of my old 21" flat screens because I really can't justify getting a new one right now. Strange, but the picture on that is actually better than it was on the LCD. I'm told that it's because the LCD was rectangular and this one is square. I'm not going to argue about that. After calling Cable, I called my interweb server to find out how much more it will cost to go to 5mb instead of the 1.5 I've had for years; all the time thinking I had 2.5mb. It's only NIS 10 more a month. Ok. The next project was to go to my mobile phone company to find out they guy there, who sold me a new batery for my old phone, was yammering about my being able to save a lot of dosh by getting a new phone and changing my 'package'. I adore cell phones but was in no mood right then and there to get a new one! When I found that I wanted to find a way to save those NIS 15-20, I went up there and found out that I could save not NIS 10, 20 or even 30, but a whopping NIS 90 a month by getting a specific phone! There was one phone that I really liked that would have saved maybe NIS 10 a month, but as the whole point was to shave as much off as possible, I went for the one that saved NIS 90. Of course that's where the real trouble started. They got my phone book switched over just fine, and my 'wall paper' picture, but not my beloved ring tone. Ok, I'll just download it again from their site. I've only been signed up at their site for like 7 years with my username and password. Would the site let me in? Of course not. Even worse, they didn't even have a blue tooth ear in stock for me. None of my geeky pals have been able to get my motorola ear to connect with the new phone. It does recognise it by name, but will not connect. So, now, I have to wait for one to come in....grrr. I did manage to get a USB cable for the new phone. You'd kind of think that a new smart ass phone would come with one, right? Wrong! It doesn't even come with a little booklet that tells you how to use the phone and I could not find one at the cell company's site, or even the phone maufacturerer's site, unlike most of the other phones I have. They all came with 'How To' booklets and have them on line too. But not my new one! Ok ok, I do know how to do the basic stuff, but more advanced, less used functions are a slightly different story. One way or another I WILL get the ear sorted today, as well as the ring tone. I love my ring tone because it's the song Ofra Haza sang in the Eurovision song contest in Germany years ago, and won with. Every time I hear it, it's like sticking my finger (you know which one) in the Nazi's eyes and swirling around! (Thank you for that, S.E. Cupp!) The cable techy arrived in the middle of the night, 0745 to install the HD digi box only to discover that I don't have a set to install it on! I was pleased to see that it was the guy who almost had to move here a few years to keep everything working, who I really like! Ok, so TV stays the same as it is now. No big deal and I stay on the same plan except the interweb speed is supposed to go up at no extra cost because I didn't get the HD box. Works for me. Next call was to the server to tell them to up the speed NOW! That's another NIS 10 a month. Fine. I saved NIS 90 with the phone and even the ear won't eat that up over the 5 payments it adds to that bill! Thing is, I can't tell if the speed went up or not. The two little computers down in the corner next to the time still say the same speed they did before. It's starting to shape up to be another 'most of the day on the phone day' to find out about that. I also have to go out to the mobile shop to see if the new ear is here and get it connected, and go grocery shopping. Then, I fully intend to spend the rest of the day on WoW trying to get my poor ditzy priest up a level or two. I'm actually getting pretty good with her, having figured out best to play her with one hand and an index finger on my other hand. Many of my good friends there have been trying to help us (me and my priest) be more efficient, but they don't quite get the one hand + 1 finger thing. I tell them to sit on their left hand hand and try it. The few who have done that, suddenly get what I've been saying since I started there. It can be done, but it's mostly in the head.

A very strange thing happened during my sudden cold turkey withdrawal from Oxy. Something got shaken loose and my left hand is functioning a little better now. I've been working on it in the hopes of betting the fingers to do more. Time will tell. Oh, and maybe the biggest news of all is that I have decided to get off the oxy after the last chat I had on the phone with my son. He does know his drugs, which he should, being the adminstrive manager of a pharmacy. I should be off it by the time he gets he gets here at the end of next and he and my doc can figure out what to try next. I'm taking 1 naxyn in the morning now, and 1 oxy at night, in order to not go through what I went through when I ran out of in the middle of the month. The naxyn works just fine and there IS hope in my heart that, if I eat when I take it, it won't do to my stomach what it did with the help of aspirin, and coumadin not that long ago! So far, so good. Next time I get oxy, I'll go down to10 mg, and by the end of next month hope to off it completely. Oxy is very nasty stuff, other than being highly addictive, even it does pretty much stop the pain in it's tracks. There must be a non NSAID out there that does the same thing that I can take without odd side effects that isn't as addictive and bad for the body as oxy! Right? We'll know soon enough. I'm taking this nice and slow. So, there we have my news. Other than that, not much is new except our new baby. He's so cute. Another carbon copy of his daddy, who was an adorable baby.

THE WORST AND THE BEST or THE CONTINUING ADVENTURES OF A DRUG ADDICT GRANNY

Ok, I'vehad my little cry and after I post this, will try to get some much needed sleep. I am feeling so blessed right now that it's amazing,

What brought this all on was a very, very, bad cash cruuch and even stoopider case of bad budgeting than any I've pulled off in a long, long time. I always try to make sure I have enough cash on hand to be able to buy my oxy pills which are really cheap but can only be gotten once in 10 days, instead of monthly like the rest of my meds. I ran out of oxy a little over a week ago but didn't panic because I have a very nice stash of Naxcyn in my meds darwer and the only reason I take oxy is because of the pain, and the damage the Naxyn did after 11 years of use. I have been very careful about not upping to the oxy dose by getting shot every three months. The shots are effecrive for less time each time, and the oxy really helps. I was doing just fine and had decided that I could get away with waiting to get the oxy. WRONG. I just went what were quite possibly three of the worst few days of my life. I started getting headaches that lasted for hours then just went away for no obvious reason, then, my left hand started to tremble all the time and my left leg had spasms, I couldn't sleep and was weepy all the time and having the strangest thouhts (even for me!) My right hand was starting with the tremors too, so, I did some checking on the interweb, and there was the answer! Withdrawal symptoms from an opiate! But, damn, no cash. It didn't take me long to figure out that there were at least 3 people in that mall who would happily loan me NIS20 until after the holiday. I threw on clothes and off I went to get the prescription, and my fix. I got up to the clinic just fine and was pleased as punch that they had finally finished the construction up there. My doc handed over the prescription with a sharp look at my twitching left hand and grinned at me. The trouble started when I wanted to get into the next floor down, where the pharmacy is. They were working there and there was no way over a shallow trench they had dug. One of the workmen finally sorted it and in I went only to forget to ask my friend there for the cash. I had to go in, do the paperwork and hope and pray that my credit card would work. It didn't, and as there were people in the pharmacy he couldn't let me have them like he did that other time. So, out I went a begging spree. First time lucky, and I got my fix and took it on the spot. By the time I finished at the fag store, I was already trembling less, so decided to go out to the other mall whee my card works on small amounts with no trouble. Go figure, and stocked up on cottage cheese, then to my other fag and Ben and Jerry's store, where I got more fags and told the owner what had been going on and got soundly told off for not asking him for the cash. Now, I'm home with everything I need and a much less twitchty hand. Just after I got in, I had a little weep of some odd kind of joy. I was so touched by how quickly Sharon who owns a clothing store stuck his hand his pocket and gave me the required NIS20 and told me not to worry about it. And the other Sharon for being so upset that I didn't ask him. Whew. An emotional see saw if ever there was one. One thing is for sure and that is that I will get the money the pizza shop guy owes owes me on Thursday and pay back Sharon 1. I hate the confrontations with the guy's father who is there instead of his son, the owner. This time I am ready for him, and will make him sort it on the spot one way or another. And now, dear friends, I am going to have a nap. The damn withdrawal gave me 3 sleepless nights and I am nackered beyond belief.

Against my better advice to myself, I have over ridden the 'right' advice and decided to post before and after pictures of your favorite gimp! Before she lost weight and after she lost weight! I am looking somewhat murderous in the after picture because I had been just been discussing how unqualified clerks get away with overturning things doctors say we need, simply because they can. A lawyer had come up from Tel Aviv to help us with legal matters like that from the major gimp group in the country. The same laweyer who lit a fire under the chair of that idiot quack in my clinic who hadn't hired a qualified physical terrorist in a timely manner, several months ago. He finally did, and she came and also said that I need an electric chair, only to have it turned down by a 'social worker' in the Health Ministry. This lawyer chews them up and spits them out like they were watermelon seeds. The subject does not lrave me all smiles and sunshine and I have a tendency to run my fingers through my hair when agitated, as this picture so clearly shows. I also had most of the contents of the bag of holding on my lap!

A BIT OF HISTORICAL HISTORY

I just got the most fantastic reminder of my personal history as a 'demonstrator' imaginable! When asked how I got involved in the protests I've participated in for disabled rights, I've told the story of how a friend and I took our high school out in protest over the Viet Nam war in 1970. Now, I can prove it to the sceptics, thanks to Sue, a classmate who saved the newspaper clipping of that demonstratio,n which appeared in the local paper in 1970, and again in 1985, when a retrospective was done on the year 1970. It's interesting to note that the expression on my face hasn't changed at all in my 40 years of protesting! I still look as fierce today, as I did then. The one thing I do wonder about, is why it looks like I have two black eyes. I don't recall having had a fight with any one at that time! It's kind of hard to see in this copy, in the

original, it's quite clear. Ah, the memories this brings back. In case it's not clear, that's me in front on the right with one of my favorite bags at my feet, and Lise Barratta on the left. I can identify most of the ones in the rows behind us. So, there you have it! Proof positive that I started demonstrating for causes I believed in way back then, 40 years ago. Never mind, that I grew up and am now not at all pleased with my choice of a first cause. I have moved much to the right since then. My father's reaction to this was, even stranger to me then. He was not a great supporter of that war, but, neither was he against it, as so many were then, but he was proud that his daughter went out and did something about an issue she felt strongly about at the time. Having my picture in the paper WAS a surprise to him, even though, as the Chairman of the School Board he was well aware of who was behind the walk out. Yeah, I did have a cool dad.

Good news and bad news

What is wrong with people that they can't leave a note saying that they are sorry they just about ripped the bumper off your car after they just did that and drove away leaving headlamp glass shards on the road? Mrs. Savta and I have going to Safad every other day to visit Savta, and when we got back on Thursday evening, I parked in my space, and came in, as usual. There was nothing parked behind me, which I am sure about because I remember thinking how nice it was that was as I could just drive into my space without any maneuvering between cars, which is often the case. On Friday moning I went out, and did my usual Friday morning errands which did not include going anywhere near the rear of my car. Golan came in about an hour before the start of Shabbat to tell me that the bumper had almost been torn off and that there were glass shards on the street. I asked him to take a couple of pictures and called the cops who told me that I have to go to the cop shop to make a complaint in person. I decided to wait until tonight or Sunday morning because there is nothing they can do about it on the Sabbath, when I don't drive, in any event. I just hope that the cops will have at least enough pity on me to try and locate the car that did the damage through making phone calls to garages to find who got a headlamp repaired. If they do, and, by some miracle, find the driver, it will save me having to pay the deductible to get it fixed.

Savta had good news for us when we got there. The docs told him, that, after studying the last MRI and CTs, that he has a stone that developed an infection around it, and that it is not as close to the nerve as they originally had thought and that the operation will be much easier than they had feared. They are planning on doing it as soon as the infection clears up. That is really good news, because they had told him that it would be a tricky operation as the stone was on the nerve.
Golan said that he will secure the bumper so I can still drive the car. I just hope they didn't damage the trunk because BBC-Big Blue Chair is in there. We'll just have to check that before we go to the cop shop in the morning. I am not looking forward to that at all, as the local cop shop is not exactly gimp friendly, which is why Golan will be going with me. The intercom that you need to use to tell them why you want to come inside the compound is high on the gate post and I can't get to it. The front desk is behind an entrance blocked by a cement wall (rocket protection) and Harley doesn't fit in. The wheely does fit in, so I kind of need Golan to get it out, put together, and to push me inside. I am looking forward to the visit with Savta much more than I am to that.