Category: Craziness

Monday was sort of a wild day. I was scheduled for an ultra sound/mammogram to follow up after a strange reading last fall. I arrived for my appointment and was greeted by the Radiologist who greeted me with, “Why are you here?”

“Well, Doctor, I got a certified letter from this hospital telling me I was due for this follow up after last Autumns irregular mammogram.”

“Didn’t you follow up at Dartmouth?” she asked.

“Why yes, yes I did.” I replied.

“Then why are you here?” she asked again.

“I am here because I received a Certified letter from your hospital concerning this. When I told the woman on the phone that I had been seen at Dartmouth, she said I still needed to be seen. So, here I am.” I said and smiled.

She walked out of the room and went to the Secretaries office. This is what I overheard. “Do you know how long I spend on a follow-up exam when someone has a suspicious result on a mammogram? About half and hour! This woman was seen at Dartmouth last fall and she does not need to be here now and I do not need to see her! You wasted my time!”

I never saw the lovely Radiologist after that. She sent the shaken Secretary in to dismiss me. But you know what made me a little upset? No one said, “I’m sorry to have taken up your time”.

Ah well, since I was out, I decided to go get the canned food I use for Lili and Arnie and to also pick up something easy for dinner. While I shopped, I found a copy of “The Pioneer Woman’s” new magazine! Oh joy! I love it.

As I checked out, I suddenly heard the rain begin to fall. As I got to the door and started toward my car the skies opened and in less than a minute I was soaked to the skin! I rained like this all the way home, reminding me of when I lived in Florida and we had torrential rainstorms very often. Ugh!

I finally got home only to discover that the power was out at home. And worst of all, our seldom used generator was not working. (It has since been fixed.) Fortunately, the power was restored in short order, but we had thunder, lightening and torrential rains until well after 7 in the evening.

As we ate dinner tonight I discovered something new about Lili. She likes corn on the cob. Well not the actual corn on the cob, but after I was done with my cob, I held it for her and she nibbled at the entire cob, getting every last bit! Next time we have corn I will have to get a video of her chewing the cob!

It’s hard to believe that some of the easiest and best comfort food  can be destroyed by improper cooking. I’m not talking about  burning it, but I am talking about the recipe.

Now take macaroni and cheese. That’s pretty simple. Cooked elbow pasta, a creamy, cheesy, bechamel, type sauce, and served nice and warm. Oh goodness, one could curl up with a bowl of that and just recover from anything.

The hospital’s version stirred in bread crumbs (whole wheat!) and broiled every last bit of moisture out of it! I wanted to cry.

Likewise, imagine my horror when I ordered a big chocolate chip cookie and it was made with whole wheat flour. Now no person in their right mind, while recovering from major surgery wants a  tasteless cookie like that.

I ordered hard cooked eggs and was shocked when they actually arrived in their shells! They were hard cooked, but I was too weak to open them!

I also tried for a blueberry muffin. What could they do to that? Yep, completely whole wheat, almost no blueberries, and dry as burnt toast! Ugh!

The nurses kept harping at me that I needed to eat something, over and over again, and I sure would have, if they had provided me with something, anything, that was edible!

On my last day I ordered french toast and there were four half slices of dried out wheat blandness!

I had tried almost all items and simply lost, at Hospital Food Roulette!

Like all American girls, I grew up enjoying cookies, but my favorite cookie was always Oreos. In fact, they were my sister’s favorite too, and as she was older, and had babysitting jobs, she would buy a package and hide it in her underwear drawer.

Well, I was your normal, curious, baby sister (5 and a half years younger), and I would go in and “borrow” her cookies. To this day, I get teased unmercifully about this habit.

In my twenties, I wasn’t a cookie girl. In fact, I wasn’t a big sweets eater at all. That was until I met “Chip”.

After my daughter passed away, a well meaning neighbor, who owned a bakery, would bring over to our house, breads and cookies twice a week. I’ve always loved bread, but when I met her “Chocolate Chip”, having a small waistline was over!

I started eating “Chip” after breakfast, for a pick-me-up snack. Maybe one or two with tea in the afternoon. Then something happened. I started to feel really good after eating each cookie. It was so warm, soothing, and made the pain of my loss just a little more bareable.

Soon I was eating “Chip” for breakfast, a few more at lunch. And I was lost to the world of ooey-gooey chocolate chip wonderfulness.

You know how a package of cookies will give you a serving size of 2 cookies? Well, before I knew it, a serving size was like a pound of cookies.

Soon “Chip” brought friends home. Girl Scout Thin Mints became a favorite. A serving size was supposed to be 3 cookies. But heck a serving size soon became an entire sleeve.

I became a slave to chocolate goodness, to make me feel better. Store bought, bakery bought, it mattered not. As long as three of the ingredients were flour and chocolate and sugar, I was good. In a pinch I would accept cookie with no chocolate, but that was not my cookie of choice. Let’s face it, chocolate is God’s way of saying he loves us, right?

Soon, nothing fit me and I found myself in Sears, buying size 18 pants, to wear right then and there. Not bad, I thought. I still look okay.

Then one day, someone took a picture of me and I saw this woman I did not recognize. She looked as though she was related to the Pillsbury Dough Boy! Only there were smears of chocolate around her mouth!

I needed bigger clothes and since my wallet was empty (from buying cookies), I knew I had to do something, and do it fast!

I am a Chocolate, Cookie-A-Holic!

And that my friends, is how I came to be a member of Weight Watchers.

Have any of you had your car spiffed up and detailed? You bring it in, full of donut crumbs and coffee stains, and hand it over to people who will clean it up for you. You pick up the car 6 hours later, and it is like a brand new vehicle. Then you fork over $150.00 for this service.

Well today I vacuumed, washed, treated the leather seats, did the windows, (Hubby took the car to the car wash for a super wash and wax) and then I finished with the carpet freshening and window polishing.

I came up stairs and sat down and thought that $150.00 was worth all that I had just done! In fact, I’m booking in a hot bath tonight so I can soak away the aches in my hand from this cleaning.

Now the Caddy is beautiful and ready for the trip. Hubby is changing the oil tomorrow, and filling the gas tank. Then we begin packing the old girl for this trip.

I sort of feel I should have named the car before now. After working so hard to make her pretty again, I think she really does deserve a name.

I came up stairs and sat with a tall glass of water, and thought long and hard about the work I had just done. Call me extremely happy with a job well done.

But next time,  I want to get paid!

All was going very well, with my learning about my Smart Phone, when I thought I would add a program to my laptop to go between the two devices.

That’s when the problems began.

I suddenly had windows popping up and downloading things and I tried to X out these boxes but nothing was working. Even Norton Antivirus couldn’t deal with it.

In my terror, I shut down the computer, and called my computer guru, Brad. I got his answering machine and tried to explain. I am certain I was incoherent with the worry!

He called me back a while later (the longest few hours of my life!) and is going to pick up the machine and work on it at home.  Hopefully he can start it in safe mode and get rid of the viruses and get my little baby (laptop) up and running.

Meanwhile, I am using our really old desktop computer in our very hot office. But it’s something, right?

Monday was a crazy day. I literally cooked all day. I made a turkey pot pie, turkey soup and for Hubby’s lunch a hot turkey sandwich.

My hand is feeling so much better, so I took a chance and just took care of all the leftover turkey stuff. It came out well. Unfortunately, the pork, potato pancakes and beets that I  made for dinner were a disaster. It seems lately, when I try to make a leftover meal like this, disaster strikes. Tonight was no exception. Dinner was terrible! I’ve decided to work a bit more on planning dinner menus.

Have any of you watched “Dancing With The Stars”? I’ve never watched it, but this year I wanted to watch because of Meryl Davis and Charlie White. I find that I really enjoy it.

Tonight I plan on an early bedtime. I’ve been a bit tired lately and think a few extra Zzzzzzz’s may be useful!

Don’t worry, I’m fine. I’ve been trying to deal with Flickr problems. They changed their upload to my blog features and I have been struggling to figure it out.

I finally did and will post all about my visit with Savannah this afternoon!