honest to pete i had 2 comments and didnt know

So I am off work today being a domestic spud.
Do some work, watch the pundits and
just figured out I had two real comments on the blog.
I love getting more educated and yet,
know at the same time,
I am pathetically behind
in the real world technology--
so not just loss of slippage but also grippage...

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.

Six daze since I last lit up my humble but necessary middle aged blog air waves. On the face of it, that feels patently impossible.

But if your job is being shot out of a cannon every day, it's not surprising.

It's Halloween and I am slipping. Not one Halloween happy card was disbursed in my household today. First time in my adult and parenting life that didnt happen. Did get a token hello off to my big kids and did have the grand hoedown with the Grands. But I feel slippage.

Long talk with oldest daughter last night. She's one of my heroes. She never stops for an inch or a day to continue to improve her life. Think the word she used yest was capacity for living. Your beautiful soul is the most in any moment daughter. You inspire me.

T-5 means just short of a week for this two year long U.S. presidential campaign to be put to the voters. What a RELIEF!!!!!!!! My former boss and friend says he cant sleep at night unless he listens to the talking heads recap the day. Us either. We are like glue sticks each evening waiting to get the analysis.

Another friend just passed away--too many lost in the last couple years..its nothing that is quick to process--final goodbyes...; stepdad is suffering and stepdaughter is having her challenges this week. Wish we had pixie dust to intervene. Gas prices, just as i predicted too dropped to 2 year lows right before the election. Lots of predicted negotiating going on with our attorney and the state's and my better half's former employer. Court or no court. Deal or no deal. I need to find a place to park my animosity. At the end of the day, the deal best include mechanisms to address the real, the pain, the chronic health issues. What a corrupt nightmare the WA State Dept. of L&I is.

It's time to make the day's game plan and sip the sacred java.

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of.

You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.

--Albert Camus

Rain is nothing but water

Aren't these girls BEE U TEEE FULL???

Jamie Moyer celebrating division championship. Update: Phil's take the third game 5-4 tonight. Hardfought game. Jamie just said, this "is at the very top of my career." Maybe they could clone him? He was also named Fox - Chevy player of the game!

What's a little rain when you are THE 45 years old starting pitcher for the ball team of your youth---and you are playing in your home town?

Rain is nothing but water.

It's been heaving torrents of water in Phillie tonight and the crowd has hung in. Jamie had his feet up in his locker, just before the game it was reported...just chillin' - We are backing you up all the way Jamie.

May the cold as stone Ms, who traded you gone, be envying you on high Jamie, while you are enjoying YOUR your night in the spotlight!

His first pitch of the game 82 mph ball!

It's Phillies 2-1, third inning.

Politics: Every shade of both parties are sick of it. 9 days until the election. I have my Jack Daniels ready. Either way, it's the libation du jour for me.

It's homecoming in our little town tonight. Youngest daughter just decked herself out in a sweet T and trimmings from the $1 store. When its your own money, its a whole new mode of shopping! It's more of a Sadie Hawkins than formal. Oh to be living life in the young and tender lane.

It was really good to see my mom, stepdad Bob and brother Jerrie, nephews Gabe and Keith today.

Son: thanks for calling so often. Being stuck in traffic is annoying in every instance except the mom who receives the regular killing time calls. I love how you are having overdue happiness in your life. :)

We hear a deal is cooking with the evil state entity. Burn baby Burn all of you corrupt ones... Sometimes the small part of me needs to come out into the light. I confess that right now. ttfn

Running on empty Jackson Browne where are you

Mondays getting back in the saddle just Kill Me!!@%%@%!%

OK Halloween Party recap: Our Sat. party with the Grands was just. . . grand! It was the crawling all over you, covered with kids and kisses kind of day. Grandpa felt better, with the baby on his lap...the littliest boy who is five months old was cutting teeth, slobbering all over Grandpa and running a tiny fever. I got called down to the basement playroom to kill a big as a giant spider! And I left with the hard to see black thing in a napkin, and the all-around loud cheers of YAH GRANDMA!!! Being the GRANDparent is natural high life.

So back to the real world today where the mailman brings us one of at least two weekly letters from the lawyer.

^Candy Gram for Mongo^

We go 2 court in 2 weeks. lots more on that later but lets say it will involve a former employer whose middle name would shame Pinnochio.

Great news about JAMIE MOYER and the Phillies! Moyer is one of my heroes. He starts the third game of the 2008 World Series. That would have never have happened if he had stayed with my fall apart can't get back together again Seattle Ms.

T-14 to ELECTION (call it rightsizing) DAY!

Daughter is late late returning in her car....:(

ttfn

Saturday and its time to think Halloween.

Big plans: Head to the 1 dollar store and find perfect treats for the grandkids ages 9 years to 5 months. Put together their early Halloween Treat bags head to their house, 30 miles down the road, grab pizza and fixin's and spend time soaking them in. It's the purest love and joy in the human form. It's high therapy for Grandpa who suffers from a work related injury and can't enjoy very many of his previous active life activities. But an hour or so of grands equals pounds and miles of anything else-- total distraction from the horrible pain .

As for Grandma, I get the Holiday fun which is some of my highest life's happiness - holidays are days Grandpa could do without. Life without holidays seems bleak and pointless for me. I dont feel any of the commercialism - it's an opportunity to be together, be joyous and break the fun barrier--the best kind of distraction from real life must do's.

Tally Ho must Go!

Last Prez Debate was last night TTL!

This would be my family outside the gate while Obama,
our likely next Pres, was boarding his campaign plane this
summer. A great moment for us driving back from a day
trip to catch the candidate, his entourage and all the media
blasting out of Eastern Oregon, heading to Montana.

TTL - Thank the Lord. It was excruitating last night just sitting there during the debates. I have to give McCain credit for a 71 year old: stamina. I was wore out. And then wore out again listening to the post-debates talking heads doing their Ronco debate slice and dice. I think the candidates should have worn Hawaiian shirts and been served unlimited drinks of their choice all through the 90 minute debate. Now that would have been something to write and talk about!
Note to my Mom the Republican: It was said last night that 95 percent of Americans would get a tax decrease, not five percent of Americans are the only ones who will be taxed.

I think everyone is exhausted. Obama looked it. I felt it. They must have given the tiger some juice. All I know is "My Friends" was replaced by Joe the Plumber. Hope you slept well Joe.

And let's hope now we can all move on to the most pressing issues in our own lives. What do we have we are losing (or not) when Wall Street opens each morning. The trickle down is going to be stupendous.

I am grateful to have a good job that does not involve banking, real estate, selling or making cars. What industry failure is next? Meanwhile, as I fully expected, gas prices are at their all time low right before the election. What economic landslide? Smoke and mirrors.

Work is full of making changes and planning activities. I love it. Tonight is once a quarter movie night with my former friends at the little newspaper I used to work at. I miss them everyday. These ladies are real, kind, fun loving...it will be good to get a fix how everyone is doing.

Tomorrow,

its finalize everything for our

upcoming Veterans Day parade.

Full of Corned Beef and Shopper Talker

Oy! Just my luck, scheduled blog outage at 8 p.m. Will type fast!
Home from long day and just had leftover corned beef and cabbage. Youngest daughter and two friends filled their plates too. Now seeing teenagers and corned beef does a mother good. They topped off the meal with candy corn and Butterfingers (junk food left from the ocean excursion). That's living.
Understand this part of the world broke an 81 year old record for cold temperatures a couple days ago while we were AT THE BEACH! Glad we were not here. I just crank up the electric blanket on the mattress and hope for the most warm when bedtime rolls around.
It was hard for the first few hours to get back in the work groove. As always, the schedule is overlapping in spades. My goal is to keep busy, keep making progress and hope that my contributions are found, over time to be invaluable.
Stepdaughter tore her big toe nail off. Talk about tortureous injury. I am so very sorry for her. Tried to tough it out for 2 days but ended up in ER today. Bad bad bad. Hurts hurts.
Yesterday a reporter from the nearby relatively big city paper interviewed me about the beauties of being a thrift store shopper. He was looking for talkers. He definately ran into the right shopper/talker, What I really wanted to say, was I do this sometimes, to resell, to help out since the State closed the injury claim on my better half for no reason; because they can. And we are T-21 days to going to court. I am praying for justice.
Step Dad is having medical tests ran. I am hoping they can find the issue and resolve it. He is as close to a senior size citizen saint as I have ever met. If life was a bowl of peaches he would be the sunshine and the cream.
I miss my big kids like breathing.
There's more but I am toooo tired...

Just because I can

Happiness is traveling to the beach with your family. Love the frequent smiler daughter in the shot. We laughed our pants off that she made it in the photo!

Post Beach See the Mom Smile

Time out from playing on the beach. Rock Band! I sang too!


HAPPY at the BEACH!

Lots of old adages applied while playing at the beach: Doesnt matter how old your kids are, when they are near the feeling that you didnt know co-existed with the empty nest, is gone. I was one hundred percent this past weekend while we beached it. It was a feeling light and happy in a way I dont feel any other time of my life. When I woke up at the beach on Saturday-day 1, glorious thoughts were in charge:

1) All three of my sweethearts are on the other side of the door. I could touch each of them if I really wanted to bother them. 2) I/WE are at the beach. The sound of the ocean could fill the room if I got my lazy self out of bed and turn the door knob. 3) James' neck was painfree. I havent told him yet that he was in my highest prayer before we went to bed. Please give him one painfree day while here so he can enjoy it. I should have asked for something different because it was one painfree day, then back to everything that hurts.

But it was beach time, hanging out time, lots of nonstop togetherness and talking that was long long, long overdue. The kids are 3 peas--they all live in different towns too many miles apart and then when together, clicking like clack. It was beyond words for this old mom.
Dinner has not been served yet and I have miles to go and its almost 8:30. So more reveling manana.
To Seth, Mer and Lex, thanks for the indulgance! To James who put up with me so I could have my way; 1000 percent to be at the beach serving a middle of Oct TG dinner to may family. Photo of the patient one next time! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks big guy for James' pain free day. Amen.

Early morning

It was quite a sunrise this morning, telephone lines and all. The coffee is cooking *that's how you know its morning here on Florence*; the last minute clothes are being washed. I made lists all night long in my head. Hope to pull off a turkey dinner tomorrow and let's see how well it turns out going into a furnished condo with unknown utensils and cooking dishes. May pack the platter and deep dish for other things.

Our plan of the day is to hit the road by 9-9:30 and meet up at a truck stop in somewhere PDX with Meredith's Ethan and his family who travelling by UHaul, moving, from an Alaskan Island to Arizona. Mer has never met his family and obviously the families have never met. I think this will be an excellent "opportunity!" Seth will meet us there too. The girls will transfer to Seth's good driving and we will grocery shop and do a two-car drive to the beach...about 9 miles from Lincoln City.

I worked as hard as I could this week to close out all my work projects. I left with a clean desk in hopes having nothing hanging would prevent incessant worrying about what's next. I find being the mostly breadwinner (for now) is stressful in that nothing can go wrong. I can see why men die younger because of all the worry. It's a new and not necessarily welcome insight!

Happy Friday! Richard, hope you had a grande' BD week! Did you get any bacon?

TTFN

Now on vacation! And Third Rock from the Sun

Officially off work! So tired just want to sleep. We leave for the coast in the am. packing in the morning and grocery shopping in Portland. Meeting Mer's bf Ethan and his family for lunch, visit in PDX tomorrow. Should be an excellent time.
Lex got her new license in the mail today. Wahoo.
Mer said she has slept and rested so much she wants to sleep more.
Third Rock rerun. Too funny.
Bye.

Math sadness and junkie realization

Happy Birthday again Richard! Hope your day was laden with bacon! crisp!

Today is math sadness today. Youngest daughter has ongoing struggles. Needs either to pass her third year of math or pass the WASL math test. She has missed passing it by less than five points the last two times. I am a bonafide math bone head. I am no help, none. I sent for two math books for the girl and in hopes one of them can save her. It's very sad to be an adult and not be able to help. She is also going to forgo her lunchtimes for a week and spend it asking questions. Failing improvement I have contacted an official tutoring agency in Tri-Cities. I have no faith in the school's math depart. Both the chairman and the teacher responsible for teaching basic algebra failed daughter and more than 56 percent of her sophomore class. All these children failed and then the kids were told to take remedial classes after school, taught by you guessed it the same teacher. FRUSTRATION!!!!!!!!!!!!

On a different type of note. I love being a foodie. I didnt realize I was for years. Then about two years ago I read an article in the Sacramento Bee about folks who are foodies. More tomorrow.
It's been an extraordinarily inhuman and long day!
ttfn

Really early and B4 coffee

I have failed to mention my lovely older daughter is visiting from San Francisco. We have not been together for 10 months. She is a student and worker bee, living a sweet life with her bf Ethan near San Fran. It's been grande' to have her close. We talk almost everyday but that phone and email doesnt come close to having your child (no matter what age) withing touching and seeing distance. Although I have been keeping a wicked work schedule, the little bits of down time have been stellar. It's really fun seeing how the gene pool affects our children. She is very passionate about politics like I am. We ran out and put up a few Veterans Day parade posters around town, then a quick hello to youngest daughter, waitress/baristra and ran home again so we wouldnt miss any of the second presidential debate. It was an all star line up watching the debates. Mer had her couch, James had the recliner and I had the other couch. What one was thinking the other was shouting out. Being very verbal back to the tv. Say shouting in a passionate, focused way (ha!). I kept trying to imagine Mr. "My Friends" in charge of our country. Holy, holy. The best description I heard about it was, it was the 20th century candidate meets the 21st century candidate. Mer is running errands later to hometowns and her dads. Tomorrow we all got to think about packing for our Oregon coast beach trip! Coffee is calling! HAPPY BIRTHDAY RICHARD!

Village Etiquette (ttfn)
A year ago I didnt know what a blog was. I just learned how to text three months ago so my kids would write me back. I clicked the wrong button looking for my daughter's blog, and lo, now I'm in middle-aged blogland hoping to get my writing fix happy back.
Thursday, October 2, 2008

Early Bird waiting on coffee
Coffee is nearly a religion with me, in the food-est and most-habit type of way. Not church religion but must have; never run out; try for the coffee perfection every morning kind of coffee drinking. As a fairly random human, it's hands down the most predictable feature I exhibit. It's morning, me, the coffee pot signalling "ready for you" and the ever vigilant kitty cat sizing me up to see how long until I refill her kat chow bowl. If I happen to be sipping fresh hot joe at the same nanosecond the sun rises, or getting my lazi-ness to take the top off our little three person hot tub on the deck and hopping in with said cup, perfection.Coffee enjoyment is for me, what smoking nasty cigarettes is to my better half, known affectionately as the pirate. There is no cutting corners, no going without. It is always at the top of any mental shopping list. Joe consumption started about 30 years ago in college when I realized it was cheaper to exist on coffee, on my always nil and minus budget, than six packs of now extinct Tab cola. My idea of a well rounded meal then was coffee, a bean sprout sandwich and more coffee. Disgusting in retrospect. But I was fighting weight, thoroughly awake at all the critical moments and it fit the budget.Yes it's a highly addictive habit, but I figure everyone has one habit, at least one they will acknowledge is non-negotiable. Coffee is mine. I hate malls, shopping; only drink occasionally (and less by the month as two beers normally means fall asleep an hour later); and don't get up to the nickle machine at the local Indian casinos on a rare occasion other than to enjoy the fabulous all you can eat sea food buffet.But back to coffee. Yes, its sitting hot and patient as I type this, near my left elbow.Next topics may be living with dyslexia, life as a Foodie and becoming an un-speller. All of them are me features or lifestyle issues I wasn't aware even had names until my 30s, 40s and 50s.
Posted by neorblonde at 4:29 AM 1 comments
Labels: coffee drinking, early morning habits
Wednesday, October 1, 2008

First out blog
I think writing is best done just flat out writing and thinking later. Some one said along time ago that I must write so I know what I think. I wish I had said that first. I thought since I was little if I could go through my life just writing everything down, it would be perfect. I must write so I can continue thought processes and not get weighted down and overloaded.I decided to start this blog when I was trying to find my daughter's blog. I clicked the wrong button and here I am.As my intro says, a year ago I didnt know what a blog was; and I just learned to text so I could get my kids to write me back. I certainly dont know what a T9 is, but i's just the way it s.I changed jobs during the middle of the summer and my new position doesnt have me doing much writing.I am starving for it. So here you go.I have spent the last two and half months transitioning my brain. I am now one of the older people in the work place. It's the strangest thing to never think of yourself as having an age, and then changing jobs, seeing that I am one of few with grey hair and old lady support shoes (not really, but getting close). I think all the time how I am older and slower. Wiser in so many ways, yes, but older and slower.I used to have that killer instinct. I dont have much killer instinct left. In exchange I has a workplace perfectionism for all my projects and assignments and a great release, a totally great feeling of knowing very little is worth getting stressed over. It all works out!I love my kids, and my grands, and my better half and my family. We are about as typical as anyone I know. A little drama, alot of love sprinkled with a dollop of dysfunction.More later. I want to turn back into a reading vegetable. My Oprah magazine is waiting and so is the stack of books from the library.TTFN
Posted by neorblonde at 8:01 PM 0 comments
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Early Bird waiting on coffee
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About Me
neorblonde
Heart of WA Wine Country
I am ageless and timeless and impatient and kind. My hair is three shades of colors, all natural and I have freckles coexisting with age spots. I am as real as you get. View my complete profile

one last thing

Getting ready for the 4th Annual Prosser Vets Day Parade.

Excited for it! Just found this photo of James and his old schoolmate-friend Jackie from the 100th birthday of the Steptoe Elementary School. That was the day of the days...A perfectly preserved 100 year old elementary school and a day of activities to celebrate. Population: 50.

Editorial:
‘Killing Me Softly’
BY Deb Richards · March 19, 2008

Editor’s Note: Due to the large number of requests for this editorial to run again, here it is. Keep the faith.

“A citizen is better off getting hit by a bus, than being hurt on the job in Washington State.” –Anonymous

After being exposed for more than two years, in day-to-day, painful detail, to the Washington State Labor and Industries (L & I) system (which is described on paper, and in theory, to assist workers who are injured on the job), I have developed a greater appreciation for the phrase, “Killing Me Softly.”
If a more grossly un-American, acutely self-serving Washington State department exists, I would like to learn about it so I can compare it the atrocity which exists now, and calls itself Washington State Labor and Industry. This is a department that by statute, is given money earned by Washington State workers, on the principle there will be something to help workers who lose their health on the job, and their subsequent ability to earn a living, when they need it.
The Washington State L&I “Killing Me Softly” principle begins early in the career when workers are required by law to contribute a formulaic sum each payday to L&I. These mandatory funds accumulate for some day, and if. It continues when a worker is injured on the job. When the injury occurs, basic rights, assistance and access to those accumulated funds end.
By statute and formula, Washington State Labor and Industry is allowed to decide without medical validation, whether or not injured workers are truly injured. Entry-level employees without a certified medical background are allowed to screen the injured worker’s claims. Claims are often closed for reasons the department does not have to justify.
If the injured workers, (who is reduced to an abbreviation called IW), protests the closure, L&I pours it on. L&I inundates, attempts to intimidate and overwhelm the workers with what they call, “rules, paperwork, rights and responsibilities.”
Mind you, the injured workers have to negotiate all the State paperwork written in a medical terminology language, most don’t understand, without the benefit of any basic assistance, advocacy or representation.
Injured workers are never invited in, in person, to discuss their injuries; instead they immediately become dehumanized and faceless, assigned a case number. The entry-level gatekeeper’s job is to watchdog the injured worker’s paperwork for any missteps. If the injured worker fails to produce the right terminology, in any of the response paperwork, the price is very high.
L&I is allowed complete unaccountable access to the bottomless pit of taxpayer and worker funds to make the injured workers dance anyway they choose. Injured workers can be sent repetitively to their doctors to get a single piece of paper signed that says they are still off work; L&I is allowed to doctor-shop and send injured workers to repetitive medical exams until L&I gets the medical assessment they want.
These exams are called Independent Medical Exams or IMEs. They are not called objective medical exams because the State is allowed to choose “independent” medical provider to examine the injured worker. Mind you, these are hand-picked medical providers employed by the State as independent contractors, and yet the exams are called “independent?
While the scheduling of these visits and exams goes on, the injured worker can be denied basic medical assessment, treatment, and care. There is nothing in the statutes that says workers have to be given basic medical assessment tests, appropriate treatment or care.
Each injured worker has a medical fund. There are no RCWs to mandate how much of the fund is required to be spent on the injured worker’s care. L&I is completely at liberty to use it anyway they see fit. It all can be spent on consultants; and it often is.
And if an injured worker is financially compensated for a permanent injury, it is laughable. If a Washington State worker’s back is permanently injured on the job, he/she will receive $6,000. Imagine if you were hit by a bus and had your back broken, and lost your ability to work or even bend over to tie your shoes or carry a gallon of milk?
L&I holds all the cards and is allowed to operate in a culture which assumes every injured worker is a crook; taking everything from the system. In an age filled with acute technology and ultra-defining tests, faked injuries are easier now to determine, than 20 or 30 years ago.
But the old suspect culture of disrespectful disdain remains. It colorizes the transactions between L&I and the injured workers from day one, continuing through the ordeal of regaining health and returning to work or stabilized enough to go through retraining.
It is very typical for an injured worker who has spent their working life contributing to this fund to not only lose their health and ability to earn a living, but to lose their homes, transportation, health insurance, marriages, credit rating and families—and self-respect.
There is no one in the State system who cares about the injured worker, once the on-the-job accident happens. Pain and suffering comes not just from the on-the-job injury, but the endless months of emotional blasts and aftershocks of trying to make headway in the paperwork game called Killing Me Softly, by Washington State L&I.
If you are hurt on the job in Washington State, good luck to you. Workers are not allowed to sue Washington State employers for the creation and continuation of unsafe work conditions. L&I serves as the sole restorative financial hub for the injured worker; but to L&I, workers means nothing at all.
It is incumbent on elected officials who truly consider their jobs ensuring fair and equitable representation of its workers, taxpayers and citizens, to make substantive, ethical and cultural changes so when workers in Washington are hurt on the job, they are assured basic rights, assistance with and access to those funds designed to help them get well and return a productive life.

'ere we go again

Short story: Had blog, lost password after 2 days; new blog...ere we go again.



A little photo of one of the most beautiful places on earth: Blue Mountains of Eastern Oregon.

Was Obama or the older gentleman who kept calling us all My Friends the clear winner in tonight's debate? Well...on their heels was Gov Chris Gregoire and very greasy and arrogant sounding Dino Rossi. Clear winner? Seems like we all see it according to our political party filter.


I did the American/UnAmerican thing and stopped my 401K stock market contribution today. I work too hard to flush it. Steven Colbert said the stock market saw its shadow today and fell further. Let us pray.



My former boss and friend Richard suggested I upload some favorite Village Etiquette's, my former column I wrote for six years for my hometown paper. I think its a great idea. I am going to upload my favorite editorial about James' and my experience with WA State Labor and Industry.

Lex is a working girl; a senior girl; a driving girl. Strange to see this child motoring down the street. Seth and Mer have been driving so long I cant remember them not driving. Except Seth getting his license in spite of speeding through a school zone and then getting a speeding ticket the same day.

Only three days until the Oregon coast. Cant wait. Four day weekend. Cant wait. Spending it with my kids and James...we are having turkey dinner and seafood.
More another day
TTFN (ta ta for now)