Woe is Madame x

December 07.... A happy, hilarious, fun filled noisy Christmas, with the constant commotion of a four year old and a six year old and all the company of parents and aunts and uncles and cousins, ravaging the house and neighborhood. One hardly noticed the brief few hours the little one fell ill... Spreading the deadly virus like a sparkling pixie dust storm, landing where it may.

It was a melancholy day when they all left, one moment all choatic and alive with laughter and kisses, and the next.... silence, unsettling and erie. Madame x thought she was just in a lonely funk, wandering about the house. picking up stray toys, a forgotten sock, feeling kinda blah.... and then she lost her voice. No kidding her voice totally, completely amazingly disappeared..... gone....
Although Madame x felt kinda punky, she managed to function through her January days in semi-croaky silence. It took the full month to rally (something the 4 yr old managed in a few hours). On the evening of January 31st, Madame x announced in her scratchy recovering voice that she was looking forward to a February of good health.

HA!

Madame x didn't know sick.... until February 1st dawned..... the unseen, unheard, all powerful and ever lurking virus of the 4 year old swooped in and dropped a bucket load of sick on Madame x's head. Rendering her unconscious and on death's door....(shut up, its true) for FIVE days straight ....miserable and delirious. Unable to eat, drink, think or even check into the morgue hospital....

Upon regaining consciousness, with barely the strength to shower and collaspe back in bed... Madame x awaited her fate. the tunnel... the white light..... and while she waited.....she watched a movie.


Therefore, In the next post....

Madame x will offer up her Wednesday review about that very movie.

Wits End...........

Madame x barely had time to unpack her dirty laundry, before the forces of evil set about their evil forcing ways.

There's a bad moon on the rise, folks

But light dawns in yander tunnel and with luck and latitude Madame x will be back on the computer by next week (mid-week).

As an aside................remember the barking dogs? the dogs are still barking...........

and at the moment

that ........is the least of Madame x's problems.

Wahoo! happy dance

I got most of my music library back.....


Received an email from an anonymous reader and they included a link to restore from my ipod...

took some figuring, but I did it....... THANK YOU.... anonymous...(and you shall remain so)

okay... maybe I'm not that happy

but I'm definately

tickled

happy

Whoa da Machine

see this.... This...............is............the BLACK (not blue) screen of death

not good....

This causes involuntary jazz hands.. and utterances of words (not befitting a kindly grandmother).... and as if in a bad slo-mo nightmare the five stages of grief take hold and consume the next 24 hrs of your life.

• Denial: the initial state "This can't be happening"(how many reboots with the same screen does it take to figure out "it's happening baby)

• Anger: Why is this happening "looking around wildly for someone to blame"

• Bargaining: Oh Hell! just let me get my Quickbooks back! I don't care about anything else....(Oh yeah? wadda 'bout those ten thousand photos....)

• Depression: Wandering aimlessly around the kitchen periodically opening the refrigerator door, helping yourself to 'yet' another ice cream sandwich, waiting for the techie guy to call for a "computer update".

and last...

• Acceptance: Highly jubilant acceptance, looking thru the Dell flier that has been littering the computer desk for weeks. Hmmmm, that certainly is a fine looking lime green laptop with a 17" in screen.... Just the thing to help one thru a tragic computer disaster.

Cell phone rings while making a purchase at the local Farm Supply store. Techie guy in need of Norton's Utility password to load it back on my computer.

"You fixed it?" I inquired.....

"Well, I got your Windows OS back, but everything else is gone"

So there you have it.....I have my trusty (old) Toshiba laptop back . A pristine, blank-slate, little program-less virgin......

as visions of a shiny new greener than green, 17" screen, bad boy named Dell, fades to

well, black

Whew!!!!

Okay...it has been awhile.... But I have some really great excuses

this is the best one

SURGERY

.... on this guy, my thyroid....

now,it is gone
.....kicked to the curb....tossed in the cancer crematorium



Good-bye Thyroid ...... I always suspected you were up to no good.


I wonder what will be my excuse now, for not having a body like this?
hmmmm...... oh well ...............................hi girls Saaaa.....lute!

Wasted Days and Wasted Nights

I thought I could soldier on, chug some electrolytes, and not let my family down. We were having dinner out to celebrate my mother-in-law’s birthday with the Valentine masses. I actually made it, thru the dinner anyway. They forgave me skipping the dessert and present opening and let me drag my sorry ass home.

Turns out I had good old fashioned influenza. I believe the medical term is "sicker than a dog." It all came down (or up) about two in the morning. I spent a wicked few hours in the bathroom. At dawn, I am (finally) in bed, my hero and husband and caretaker brings the pedialyte, to restore the electrolytes and get me back on my feet. He places it on the dresser instead of my nightstand. Four steps away. I lay in bed for 2 hours willing it to come to me, but too weak to walk 4 steps to get the bottle.
I hope this terrible stuff is avoiding you and I hope you are all well. I hear we had a beautiful day here today….be careful, it is still the 'cold and flu season'…hunker down and take care!

Weeda

Weeda is how her name is pronounced

O.U.I.D.A is how it is spelled.
She is my mother and today is the eleven year anniversary of her death.

She died of hepatic cancer.

at home, in the middle of the night, with my father at her side.

So, this is for you Mom, I wonder how it is that you are still so vivid in my dreams.
That you come to me in the oddest places while in my dreams
such as, my closet or
the backseat of my car or
In the house we lived in forty-five years ago

and once

In the old Santa Barbara I. Magnin department store (that one, I get)

I am always perplexed and pleased that people still tell me how much I look like you, although I can’t see it

I tousle the thick wavy auburn hair of my own first grandson and I know you had something to do with that. I delight in the second grandchild with his devilish grin and indominatible spirit and I see you... you at two and you at seventy two.

I look at your quilts and wonder at the legacy you leave. Those beautiful handstitched masterpieces. Truly superb artistry, that will last for generations to come.

I look through old photos with Dad and he lingers long on those of you and he together

I don't know what he is thinking but,

I know what I am thinking

if Mom knew this was the third day in a row

Dad has worn that same shirt...

we'd all be in trouble!

Wish you were here Mom
Wish you were here

Wig Out!

I have an account at a very friendly little local bank. It's a first name basis..... how's your mom........ 'sure let me get that for you'...kind of bank.

One of the tellers keeps a glass bowl which holds an orange betta fish (beta?). There is also some type of aquatic plant with orange glass rocks courtesy of Michael's, scattered at the bottom...

That orange betta fish, is one psychotic dude. lurking in the root structure of the plant, darting in and out if he thinks you are getting "in his space". I try not to make 'eye contact' with the little goofball.

UNTIL TODAY....

In preparation for a trip to see the kids and grandkids, I got out the 'Nemo' key ring I received as a gift from grandson last Christmas. I clipped Nemo onto my keys and set out to take care of errands. Those of you who are familiar with Betas, know where this is going, I had no clue. My first stop was the bank, stepping up to the teller with the fish bowl and set my key chain on the counter next to the fish. Happy, friendly nemo landing face forward to the fish bowl.
I don't think I have the words to do justice to the ensuing drama. This fish began furiously slamming against the bowl, aiming for Nemo! Knocking over his plant, creating a small tidal wave and propelled! his little body right out of the bowl. "Lester!" exclaimed the teller (he had a name? who knew)...."Don't you know these fish are territorial! Please remove your keys.." complete with a surly look, directed at me.... as she scoops him up and puts him back in the bowl.
Okay, well he was floating a little suspiciously when I left (like lifeless).. I walked over to Pet Central and discovered 'orange' betas are $3.95 each.... blue are only 'a buck'.... I wonder if a timid blue beta would have been so freaked about an orange Nemo. Clearly, Lester was an Alpha Beta.....

you just can't make this stuff up....