Putting the weekend of Sulfa vomiting and “things swimming before my eyes” behind me, I have, as of 20 minutes ago, begun a five day course of Cipro. They write the side effects in tiny print; I read them and am actually paying attention to all the precautions cited. Things like, oh, taking it with food and lots of fluids and stay away from calcium supplements . . .
Five days; I can do this.

The ironic thing is when I had C. Dif. and had to take a medicine that most people have to suffer through, I felt great. Hopping across the kitchen great. Not that I want to do it again. On the other hand, when I had to take a sliding scale of Tums after my parathyroid surgery, I found out they were delicious and really didn’t want to cut down. So, it just goes to show you, it’s either this way or that . . .

I also have a stuffy nose, as does Summmer, but I do NOT have one of the “really worse cases of post-traumatic arthritis” that Robert was diagnosed with yesterday. He first broke that ankle when Summer was in grade school!

And, speaking of Summer and school, she asked me to proofread an essay she had written about the importance of leadership. She writes better than I do, BUT she wrote that it is necessary to be able to assess the qualities of leadership in order for the people to elect a good president. Of course, I had to say she needed to add an an aside: BUT THEY DID A SUCKY JOB OF IT!

Which reminds me: Pottermom told me Joe Biden is making Presidential hints in Iowa. I think the slogan writing should start now.

DON’T ABIDE WITH BIDEN!!!!

Joe Biden. Why, why, do I even come so close to him as type his name? BECAUSE I CAN’T STAND HIM. No doubt if he ever read this, he would delegate someone to say, “AmeliaJake, the VP wants you to know he is much, much smarter you!!” That is what he told a questioner in one press conference.

Here’s a little reference to that incident:

Oh, yeah, don’t forget the fact that he graduated 76th out of 85 in his law school class, but claimed to be in the top half. When asked about it at one function, this interaction was reported:

The tape, which was made available by C-SPAN in response to a reporter’s request, showed a testy exchange in response to a question about his law school record from a man identified only as ”Frank.” Mr. Biden looked at his questioner and said: ”I think I have a much higher I.Q. than you do.’ (From this source)

Then, of course, here is the summary out of the horse’s (possibly we could substitute another animal) mouth.

Now he knows more about the Senate that anyone who ever served there . . . according to him.

“I’m going to say something outrageous,” Biden said. “I think I understand the Senate better than any man or woman who’s ever served in there, and I think I understand the House . . .

We’re fair here so we wanted to post a definition of outrageous and here it is:

OUTRAGEOUS:

outrageous |out?r?j?s|
adjective
1 shockingly bad or excessive: an outrageous act of bribery.
• wildly exaggerated or improbable: the outrageous claims made by the previous administration.
2 very bold, unusual, and startling: her outrageous leotards and sexy routines.
Now which definition do you think Biden was referencing?  You’re right  – #2. And in the lingo of little kids’ potty-training lexicon, it fits.

Gee, what if he uses the  Neil Kinnock quote rephrasing method again?

Henry, (JB) was furious when he found out what Becket (AmeliaJake) had done (written). He is said to have shouted out “will no-one rid me of this troublesome priest (B____) ?” Four knights heard what Henry had shouted and took it to mean that the king wanted Becket dead.

Oh, yea, what if he sics the bureaucracy on me?

For two decades, I had reported to doctors that I am allergic to sulfa – until one informed me that really I should say I was sensitive because I do not get a life-threatening anaphylactic reaction. So for the following decades I have been telling them the modified “sensitive” assessment. Well . . .  when I found out I had a UTI and the doctor said sulfa was the drug of choice and asked what did I remember from close to 60 years ago about the sulfa situation. Not much, although I think my parents said my fever went up after each dose. I guess there was more to it than that.

Yesterday morning, after three doses, I started to feel nauseated. And then I threw up and thought, “Okay, that’s that; now I’ll call the doctor and leave the message that I’m suspending taking it.” I got nauseated again; I puked. I felt a little shaky and rested and then I got really, really urgently nauseated and while I was hurrying to the bathroom  – and considering stopping off at the kitchen sink – two things happened. Summer yelled, “Grandma’s going to throw up,” and Der Bingle walked in the door.

It was not pretty. It was violently projectile  . . . Good thing it happened here and not where it could have been documented for “People of Walmrt.”

Then I found a nice soft and horizontal place under afghans and stayed there the night. I think I feel better

There is no post title because I was tempted to type Thirsty on Thursday, but even I couldn’t bring myself to do that. There’s a simple explanation: Alison tested herself for a UTI with a kit from a store and we were going to use me as a baseline, comparing a negative test with a positive. They were cheap tests from the Dollar Tree and had been moved from store to store how many times I can’t imagine and I really didn’t think you could trust them.

Mine turned purple. PURPLE. Maybe even a darker shade than that, so I thought about it for awhile and called the doctor for an official urine test and he came out and said, “You do indeed have an infection. What are your symptoms?” I told him I had thought I was just getting older. We’ll see if I feel “younger” after this round of medication.

Actually, I like the fact they made it purple – a royal color, dontcha know? They could have kept with the sick urine theme and made it . . . oh, use your imagination. Sorry.

The lady who lives across the street had to go into a nursing home early this year and while the signs for auction of her house have been up for some time, no date was listed. Today, they are setting out tables for the stuff; she’d lived there since 1941 so I don’t know if they are going to take a day to set up or not.

I don’t know if I will go over, although I’m certain she has things from the past that have not left that house for decades. Then, again, I have the same situation since Mother did not want an estate sale. People used to tell me about my mother’s good taste and possession of old antiquey things and ask, “When’s the sale?” And I would say there wasn’t going to be one. I have given away some things, but it is difficult to know what people of different generations would appreciate.

At some time, people would go to antique stores and auctions and buy “instant ancestors” i.e., pictures from the late 1800’s of some solemn, unknown old person staring out from a gilt frame. I have two above our flat screen TV; the best you can say about it is eclectic. I suspect some family members would have liked to have them, but these pictures, enhanced with the techniques of the time, are of my grandmother’s parents and I remember her talking about them. They are not some people who are identified solely by their slots on a high branch of a family tree.

My great grandmother was a very nice lady, according to things my grandmother recalled people telling her and gleamed from wrinkly old letters and cards. My great-great Aunt Sara once said, “I always thought so much of your mother.” For Aunt Sara, that was something, indeed. My great-grandfather would stand where the lane intersected Rte.120 with a lantern so my grandmother could see where to turn when she returned from teaching school after dark in the winter. Sometimes she would fall asleep and the horse would bring her home.

Once, when she was young, Grandma ran up behind her father who was using a scythe and her leg was almost severed. She lay for weeks on a horse hair sofa with the leg elevated by being suspended from sofa’s back. I know her parents were sick with worry and her father racked with undeserved guilt.

These pictures are primitive when it comes to portraits; they certainly are not made of pixels. They stare out at me in my house because I was very close to Grandma and they were her parents, They have come down through the maternal line with feeling. So I kept them, even though there are other descendants with the same last name as theirs.

It would be a good idea for me to actually consider decorating with new wallpaper or designer paint, but I’ve never been one to think about out-dated decors or furniture. So I guess my great-grandparents fit right in.

I read that some people think they are smarter in the morning; judging from my whimsical post title up there, I would tend to believe I am not one of them.

So, moving on . . .

I just realized this is an upsetting situation: It is September 11th and I am in a frivolous mood. I just woke up that way; it’s kind of like having hiccups at a recital.

i feel very personal today and so when I remembered the date, I immediately thought how things have changed for me since then. In 2001, the grandkids were little, my mother was going strong, Little Ann and Sydney were are dogs and when Der Bingle called to tell me a plane had flown into the World Trade Center, I assumed it was a little plane and an accident.

Well, writing that paragraph has sobered me up and widened my view; I remember sitting in the chair in the sitting room watching the continuous news coverage and watching in real time as the building collapsed. It took awhile to accept that this was no movie scene.

Perhaps I am experiencing something such as the scene between Katherine Hepburn and John Wayne in the movie Rooster Cogburn where she comes upon Wayne and the Indian Boy throwing corn muffins into the air and then shooting them, as in primitive skeet shooting. She was angry and asked why they were shooting corn muffins in a meadow and her father lay newly dead and the killer at large. Wayne replied they were celebrating and when she asked what they were celebrating, he answered, “Being alive, Sister, being alive.

I don’t quite remember what I did today, although it may have concerned reading, with an interruption to fill Shane’s water bowl. Every time I did get up to walk here or there – here probably being the kitchen and there the bathroom – I picked up white fluff from the floor. Shane is shedding and I guess getting a new undercoat. I didn’t realize it took so much water, but I guess you work up a thirst scratching and rubbing against furniture.

He doesn’t like being combed too much, but he is happy to sit with you while you position your fingers like a beginning piano player, stick them in his fur and move them around like, well, “Magic Fingers”. He does not put a quarter in the little tip jar so I am thinking of taping a cardboard slot to my pocket and refusing to move until he pays up.

But, oh those puppy eyes. Sigh.

We haven’t heard about the car that conked out in Fort Wayne, other than to learn they are looking at it . . . Probably not good news. We’re taking it in stride, although I have been seeing red – Classic Red, that is. That’s the color I’m painting the shed out back; I can see if on the shed and I see it on me.

While I was wearing swatches of red classic on my skin and clothes, I thought I might as well wade into some shrubs and saw out a few tall leaders. I did and then came walking across the front lawn with the saw still in my hand just as a college girl passed. She is here in Northern Indiana for four months from Bulgaria, demonstrating software door-to-door. I don’t know if she really is from Bulgaria, of if that is just an angle to get more attention, but then maybe she didn’t know if I were really just a painting, pruning lady . . . or a casual murderer.

I was very nice and did not point to big splashes of classic red on my leg and say, “Oh, that’s Cousin Leroy; he won’t be bothering us anymore. The blob on my arm is Agnes, the tenant we just couldn’t get rid of . . . until now.”

I answered my cell phone today and that was Curtain Up! Robert was on the line – in the ether, cyberspace, whatever and he asked me what could make a thumping noise in a car. He was in Fort Wayne in the parking lot at Logan’s. . . and then I was in Fort Wayne also. Then we were home and the car is at the Wayside Garage. Well, at least it sounds like a feel-good Indie movie. Oh, maybe two old ladies sharing a nice chat at a homey service station – something along that line.

I have to say I would feel better if the name of the garage were There’s Nothing Wrong With Your Car. I imagine this story will continue – one way or another.

Apparently so. More likely, though, is that I have started posting in my head and thinking that I have actually typed it. Given some of my off-the-wall thoughts lately, that is probably a good thing.

Summer is taking art and drew a still life picture of her shoe; now she can’t find it. She has shown me the picture so I can help look. This would more than likely have been a good post for only my head.