A GRAND DECLARATION

I don't much care what the weather geeks and calendars say, as far as I am concerned, it is now officially summer. I base my declaration on the fact that both my air conditioners are set on 'cool', the blast door to the Liberry is open and the little fan in there is on. The fact that we have had many days that came close to 100 degrees and that I have yet to use the a/c matters not. I intend to muddle through as best I can with my big propeller, small fan and snow storm screen saver for as long as I can before resorting to the a/c. I quite like getting the lower electrickery bills.

I guess the biggest news here is that I am no longer an addict to oxycontin. I decided after that brief brush with withdrawl, and a lecture from my son, that I'd best get off the stuff while still on the relatively low dose of 20mg. I am finally off it and have started looking for something else as naxyn has again raised it's ugly head started me barfing. I went to my doctor yesterday, and he was pleased that I'm as good as off the stuff and gave me a prescription for something to try. So far, so good. It works on the pain and after 3 doses there have been no strange reactions. Way back when we started looking for a pain killer I went through at least 10 that either didn't touch the pain or gave me side effects, some of which were not even in the book. Then, we tried naxyn and it was just fine until 10 years later. Oh well. Being back at square one is not exactly fun, but the pain is even less fun, so, here we go again. I really do hope this new one will be the answer, and that I won't have any weird reactions to it. I'll take it until I'm sure one way or another.

Most folks just don't get how debilitating chronic pain can be. It doesn't

let you sleep while at the same time causing you to be tired all the time from fighting through it to do even the simplest things. It's hard to sit, lie down, or do anything else. Your body is never comfortable. Then, of course, there's the issues that go with being completely pain free. That is also not good because you don't just can't feel if something else has gone wrong. The trick is to keep the known pains down to a bearable level so new ones can be identified and dealt with.

Oh, to be able to go back to pain free days of youth. As that isn't about to happen any time soon, I'll just have to aim for that balance.

I had the most amazing luck with my cable company the other day. I absolutely adore Top Gear with Jeremy Clatckson, but the channel that carries that show was not part of my new deal with the cable company. I didn't get the part about having all the 'packages', but not that channel, so I called them for an explanation. After explaining it to me The Cable Guy asked why on earth I (a woman) would want that channel. He made a comment after I told him which show I wanted that had me explaining that I had been a partner in the first motorcycle garage up here which lead him to ask if I still ride. After I told him that these days I ride a collection of wheelies, a scooter and crippled cripple car, he gave me the channel for free for 3 months, after which it will cost me NIS 13 a month ($3.50) a small price to pay for Top Gear, and still within the savings of my new mobile phone deal! The very best thing of all is that my son will be here in 20 days with his wife and both kids. I haven't been this excited since the last time he was here. And it's getting closer by the hour. I'm still on day count down, but it won't be long before I go into an hourly countdown mode.