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Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore. And as of 1am this morning we won’t be in California anymore either. We are taking the red eye back to the frozen tundra known as Indiana. Damn frozen tundra’s. We had a good time in California though and I am happy to report that I didn’t see not even one snowflake. More to report on our adventures when I get home though. Happy Trails!

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I don’t fall in love often, but when I do, I fall hard and fast. sigh… I’m in love. I’m in love with the most beautiful pair of shoes in the universe. It all started last night when we went to the shoe store so the hubster could buy a new pair of kicks. I had bought a pair of my standard white Reeboks earlier that day. So off we went back to the shoe store so the hubster could get shoes. That store was having a “buy a pair, get a pair free” sale. I fell hard for this beautiful pair of black sketchers. And of course I bought them. But with the sale I had to get a free pair (of course) so I choose a pair of green Kangaroos. That should be the end of the story and all is right with the world, right? Wrong! The hubster didn’t find shoes that he liked at that shoe store so off we headed to show store #2. Having just bought 3 new pairs of shoes I shouldn’t have perused the ladies show section in show store #2, but unfortunately I did. I found the most perfect shoes in the entire galaxy! But what to do, I had just bought three pairs of shoes, how could I justify a fourth pair? And since I usually just wear bedroom slippers or white Reeboks would I really wear any of these shoes anyway? What to do? So I asked the hubster if I should buy the most beautiful shoes in the universe. He said to do as I liked. In the end I didn’t buy them, but I can’t get them out of my head. They are cute pale tan canvas shoes with cute red cherries on them. Instead of shoe laces they have these two elastic straps. They are from Self Esteem Shoes and are absolutely adorable. How do I love thee, let me count the ways. I even went online to see if they had them cheaper online at www.selfesteemusa.com. They didn’t even have them on their site. And they only had one pair left in my size at shoe store #2. Somehow I have to talk myself into buying them in the next 2 days, because if I don’t I have a feeling I will regret it the rest of my life. Love is a bitch!

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Winter wonderland, my ass! I admit, at first I secretly adored the snow and would stand by the front window watching it fall. But now that we are getting the 3rd snow storm in less than 10 days, I am not so fond of it anymore. It may not have been so bad, had the previous snows melted, but in these cold temps nothing has been melting. Now here I am stuck in the house on a Saturday bored out of my mind. I had hoped to do some shopping for our upcoming trip to California (we leave on Friday morning!!!) but no, I am stuck in the house once again. Damn that white stuff!

I gave the hubster his birthday present for valentines day and plan to give him his valentines day present on his birthday. I think I made a good choice by doing it that way because now we are able to listen to the LA traffic and weather reports on his new Sirius satellite radio. We can even take the radio with us as we travel, if we choose. How did we ever manage without satellite radio before? Last night we listened to the BBC, Korea, Hair bands from the 80’s, the Sinatra channel, the Elvis channel, NFL talk, the Flames hockey game in Calgary (Go Flames!) and the Eiminem channel. Yes, we are officially hooked.

Before we relaxed in front of the stereo last night, we had to take our poor annoying doggy to the vet. As it turns out he has a urinary tract infection. Thursday I had noticed a huge puddle of blood in the snow where Moose had peed. The hubster examined Moose’s penis that night (well I wasn’t going to do it) and noticed that pus and blood were coming out of his urethra. So off to the vet we went. The thing that disturbed me the most was that when the vet put her fingers in his butt to feel his prostrate, Moose got a smile on his face and seemed to rather enjoy it. That is wrong on so many levels.

They had us go back to the waiting room while they drew Moose’s blood and examined his penis more closely (apparently owners get upset when they see what the vet has to do to examine the penis). There was the coolest dog in the waiting room. She was a five year old bloodhound named Sarah and she had the Colts emblem (blue horseshoes) painted on her floppy ears. The owner is a 1st grade teacher and had taken Sarah to school with her for a Colts pep rally prior to the Superbowl. They had face painting and the kids had the bright idea that Sarah the bloodhound should get her ears painted. We didn’t have the heart to tell her we hate the Colts, but the hubster did tell the owner that he was from Maryland. (At which point she looked at Sarah and said “Sic him”). I was so envious of her dog and would have traded Moose on the spot for this cool bloodhound. Then Sarah shook her head and snot/slobber rockets shot all around the room, one landing on a man sitting a few seats away. That’s all I needed to see, no bloodhounds for me. The woman described the state of the walls in her home and how there were slime trails all over them from Sarah. Yes, the grass is NOT greener on the other side, not at all! In fact, the grass is rather slimy on the other side.

Tonight my cell phone rang. I picked it up without bothering to look at the display to see who was calling. To my delight it was my 6 year old granddaughter. I haven’t seen her for a couple of weeks, since I’ve been sick. I hadn’t realized how much I missed her until I talked with her.

“Hi Jas” I said. “Are you enjoying the snow?”

“Yes” she replied. “But why haven’t you seen me for a long time Gwanma?” She asked.

Yikes, a six year old was calling me on the carpet. “Um…well… Gwanma’s had pancreatitis honey, I’ve been sick”.

“But you should still see your grandchildren, even when you’re sick” she countered.

“I’m sorry Jas, I just didn’t want you to see me sick and get scared.”

“It’s okay Gwanma, I saw you yell at Gwanpa once and I didn’t get scared. But I think Gwanpa did”.

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There is nothing quite so fun as waking up to 6 inches, unless it’s waking up to 9 inches. But 6 inches it was and it is still falling. The white stuff that is. And no, I’m not talking about my neighbors dandruff. We are currently experiencing a level two snow emergency here in the frozen Midwest. We are supposed to get snow all the way through Wednesday with it falling at a rate of 1 inch an hour this afternoon. Our total accumulation is supposed to be 14 inches which means we will get 18 inches. With a level two snow emergency you are not allowed on the roads unless you have an essential job such as working at a hospital. So the hubster gets to stay home today. Whoo-hoo, snow day! I may not be so jovial by the end of the day however if the hubster gets on my nerves, but for now I am pleased as punch to have the old man home for the day. Besides, he builds a better fire in the fireplace than I do.


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In the excitement of the snow I almost forgot to tell you our exciting news. We’re going to California in less than two weeks! Hurray! Lady luck smiled upon us and at the last minute we were able to pull the trip out of the crapper by finding a flight that was only $50 more than our cheap flight would have been. And now the hotel accommodations are starting to fall in place. We found a great deal at a well known hotel on a suite. With this sale we were able to get a suite at a dirt cheap price at a very nice hotel on the beach in Manhattan Beach. Things are starting to fall into place with the trip so maybe the trip was meant to be after all.


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I went to my doctor yesterday afternoon and had more bloodwork done. Depending upon the results of the bloodwork will determine if I go to the hospital or not for a few days. I explained to him that we have non refundable tickets to California and I wasn’t going to miss that trip, Pancreatitis or not. So we made a deal (yes, another deal). If my bloodwork comes back showing a certain level I will go into the hospital Thursday morning and be admitted with the understanding that I’ll stay longer than 3 days. There is really nothing they can do other than put me on IV fluids to give the pancreas a rest and shoot me full of Demerol. I’m not a big fan of being stoned out of my mind (well except for those couple of years back in the late 70’s/early 80’s) so I would rather stay out of the hospital and just stay at home doing our taxes. Who would have thought that doing taxes would be more fun than getting shot up with Demerol. Holy cow I must be old.

As I was singing in the shower this morning I started thinking about the songs I taught my kids when they were little munchkins as opposed to the songs I’ve taught my 6 year old granddaughter. You see, my grandmother started it all by singing odd songs to me when I was a little tot. She then carried on the tradition by singing as she would rock my babies, such classics as “Boobie, Boobie” (sung to the tune of the old gospel song As We Gather At The River. Or that old classic “Butterbean, butterbean, butterbean”, sung to the tune of Lone Ranger song. While I did occasionally sing Boobie, Boobie and Butterbean, Butterbean, Butterbean to my kids and grandchild, I added new favorites thanks to the TV age that we live in. I taught my children to sing the McDonalds song by the time they were three.

“Big Mac, Filet O Fish, Quarter Pounder, French Fry,
Icy Coke, Thick Shake, Sundae and Apple Pie.
You deserve a break today,
So get up and get away,
At McDonalds, we do it all for you.”

While other tots in the neighborhood were learning the ABC’s song, or singing some Barney monstrosity, my kids were chanting the Burger King song.

“Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce,
special ordered don’t upset us,
all we ask is that you let us serve it your way,
have it your way,
have it your way… “

And then there was the regional favorite,

“I like bread and butter,
I like toast and jam,
I like the taste of Sunbeam bread,
It’s the one I buy.
Don’t want no pumpernickel,
Don’t want no fancy rye,
I like the taste of Sunbeam bread,
It’s the one I buy.”

Being young and idealistic, I also taught my children poetry. To this day when they belch they will automatically recite the poem of their youth;

“Excuse me for my rudeness,
it wasn’t very smart,
if it came out the other end,
it would have been a fart.”

For some reason my son asked me not to teach that to my granddaughter. Odd, eh?

With my granddaughter I not only sang her the old classics and the new classics, but I also taught her movie lines. I believe in giving her a well rounded childhood. By the time she was three I could shout to Jas “Your out of order” and she would immediately shout back “No your out of order.” By age four she would on occasion stand outside of my house and shout up to the bedroom windows “Yo Paulie” or “Adrian”. And by the time Jas was five she was known to look at me with a deep sadness in her young eyes and tragically groan “I coulda been a contender”. I didn’t set out to teach her these things, it just sort of happened, kind of like a train wreck happens, or a cold sore. It’s just one of those things. But one day, when she is much older, and she is watching On The Waterfront or Rocky, she’ll hear one of those lines and she’ll think fondly of her Gwanma Daisy. If I had known being a Gwanma was so much fun I would have skipped being a mother and just gone straight to being a Gwanma.

While I am still in pancreatic hell, I am doing much better and at the point where I think I may actually survive this hell we call pancreatitis. But pancreatitis has claimed another victim, our California trip. The hubster held off purchasing our plane tickets until my pancreatitis settled down somewhat. He was afraid that if he purchased the nonrefundable tickets (which were dirt cheap) that I would end up in the hospital and not able to go to California. Last night he went online to purchase the tickets for the perfect flight we had found and they were all sold out. He even tried different dates, but the prices have changed from cheap to nose-bleeders. Now we are in a quandary as to pay 3 times what we would have paid, to go somewhere else, or to just stay home and go to California another time. Damn you pancreas!

As I said, my pancreas is starting to settle down a little and now I am able to eat jello without screaming in spasms of pain. I even went to a certain unnamed place last night and got a chicken pot pie for dinner. I was able to eat half of it before the pains started. But boy did I ever enjoy that first half. I have been so hungry but with pancreatitis everything you eat causes the most intense pain in your gut that you would rather starve than eat. You look at food like it is your enemy, and it is. I have an appointment with my pancreatic specialist on March 1st. He is the leading authority on pancreatitis in the United States. But for all his knowledge it won’t do me a bit of good, because I know what he is going to say. My pancreas is fried and the only recourse is to remove it at this point. I’ll take bets that what he is going to say. We’ll call it the pancreas pool. I hope I lose that bet.

As for the ice berg we call the Midwest, the temps are still 18 degrees and below, we still have half a foot of snow on the ground, and we are expecting another snow storm Monday and Tuesday. Maybe we should go to Key West and lay on the beach for a few days instead of trying to revamp the California trip. Or maybe we’ll just stay home and watch TV, we are good at that, we’ve had a lot of practice.

Have you ever known in your heart that you should do something one way but in your mind you justify it so you can do it the other way? I have that inner turmoil going on right now. At 3:00am this morning as I sat curled up in a ball on the sofa, tears streaming down my face from the pain of my near dead pancreas fighting my internal organs one last time, I knew in my heart of hearts that I needed to go to the hospital. But my head overrode the pain and said “It’s freezing outside, why leave your cozy living room? The only thing they can do at the hospital for pancreatitis is put you on IV’s and load you up with morphine and Demerol. You can take morphine at home without having to go out in the cold.” So I stayed at home and toughed it out. It’s not the first time I have done this and it probably won’t be the last time.

I make deals with myself. I tell myself that if my pain is as intense in 20 minutes as it is now I will go to the hospital. 20 minutes later my pain is just as intense but I make more deals with myself. My mind plays games with itself trying to find any way possible to get out of going to the dreaded hospital. One of these days I am going to run out of excuses.

But for the meantime, here I sit, huddled in pain. If you don’t see me post on here for several days or weeks, you’ll know I ran out of excuses and went to the hospital. But for now I have a few more deals to make with myself. I feel like the Monty Hall of pancreatitis - Lets make a deal, come on down.

A wise man once said:

"The older you get, the harder it is to hold back a lifetime of tears."

I heard this many years ago on a sleepless night when I was young and defiant. It didn't make sense to me then...

It does now.

Someone told me that the farmers almanac said that we would be having a blizzard in February. Guess what we had yesterday? Yup, a february Blizzard. Who would have thunk it. It was funny because schools were delayed 2 hours because of the bone chilling cold. So school started at 10am. At 10:30 am it started snowing at the rate of an inch an hour. They immediately made an announcement that schools would be closing at 11am and some at 11:30am. Seems that the kids spent more time getting to and from school yesterday than they did actually attending school. As for myself, I had errands to run yesterday. When I left the house I saw a few lone snowflakes fluttering in the air. When I came out of the post office it was snowing at a pretty good clip and just starting to stick on the roads. When I came out of the store everything was a winter wonderland and you could barely see in front of your face. It was an interesting drive home. When it was all said and done the weather person said we had 5.3 inches of the white stuff. I don’t know what white stuff he was talking about but in my driveway I measured 9 inches. (tee-hee, I got 9 inches yesterday *snicker*) It was one doozy of a storm. I have to say I found it oddly satisfying, all 9 inches of it.

The rest of the day I spent in the kitchen cooking up a storm (no pun intended). I made the most divine Beef Bourguignon. I made a fresh from scratch Caesar salad. And I tried my hand at another pound cake. This time I tried a different recipe. It came out great, even though I used a loaf pan instead of the tube pan it recommended. It absolutely melted in your mouth. I think I have found the most perfect pound cake recipe.

I have a little problem lately. I had some tests run at the hospital last week and it seems that the tests caused a major flare-up of pancreatitis. So although I have been cooking my little old heart out, I can’t eat any of it. I have been living on baked potatoes and sprite for the last several days. Not fun. Does anyone have a spare pancreas laying around that they wouldn’t mind donating to me?

Not to get off topic, but I just realized I can’t find my Cindy Lauper CD, and in fact, don’t recall seeing it for at least the last year. Do YOU know where my Cindy Lauper CD is? Huh? Huh? Could someone call the physic hotline for me and get a physic to tell me where my Cindy Lauper CD is? I would really appreciate it, and isn’t that payment enough? Funny how the Meatloaf CD isn’t missing. Hmph!

Back to topic, my aches and pains… In addition to having pain that feels like someone shot me in the gut with a cannon ball, I also have a bad back. Silly me shoveled the driveway and sidewalk in the midst of the storm yesterday. Silly because at the rate of 1 inch of snow falling per hour my efforts were quickly covered up. And the hubster ended up having to reshovel the driveway when the snow stopped last night. Meanwhile here I sit in my warm cozy house, playing on the computer, popping percocet. It’s not a totally a bad thing. Nope, not a bad thing at all.

Some of you may remember the pics I posted on my old blog of the wondrous meals I created in my humble kitchen. I was an artist with a paring knife and a block of cheese, I swear I was. I don’t know what happened and where I went wrong though. You see, I have been wanting to try my hand at making a pound cake for several years. Finally I worked up the courage to do the deed. On Saturday morning I braved the crowds at the grocery clothes in Dolts blue and white garb. (Go Bears) I bought a bundt pan, premium flour (no store brand for me), Land O Lakes butter, brown eggs, real vanilla (not the imitation kind), I shot the grocery budget just so I could make the most perfect pound cake known to man (or woman). I am woman hear me roar and watch me cook. I am the brave almighty baker and I rule! Or maybe not. What’s that saying about the best laid plans of mice and men? Superbowl Sunday was the day. I put on my apron and spent over an hour in the kitchen whipping up the most divine pound cake known to man. (snicker) If the recipe says to bake for 80 minutes and you notice smoke coming off the charred black top of your pound cake after 65 minutes, maybe you should take it out of the oven. Unfortunately I did not. After I took the cake out of the pan and let it cool on the counter, I tapped my fingers against the rock hard sides of the cake. My dog started barking because he thought someone was banging the doorknocker at the front door. I had to take hubsters super sharp chef knife just to cut through the brick cake.

What does a Hoosier do when the Superbowl is on and the Dolts two points behind the Bears and their pound cake is a black charcoal cinderblock not fit for human consumption? Go to Steak and Shake for a milkshake of course. As if there were any doubt. Go Bears!

This morning I was at the grocery in the produce department peeking at the tiny print on PLU lookup sheet so I could print price labels on my produce. At the grocery I shop at you have to weigh and print price scan stickers for your produce but pay premium prices for their rotten old veggies. I never have understood that concept really. But I shop there so I guess I am the dumb one. Anyway, I am looking at this sheet and squinting when I happen to notice that there is an older woman (meaning older than me) waiting to use to price printing machine. I step to the side and tell her to scan her stuff that I am having trouble finding my code. She proceeds to chat with me and tells me that the store needs to print the codes in a larger font for old baby boomer eyes like ours as she gestured towards she and myself. That thud she heard was my jaw hitting the floor. Now I’m no spring chicken by any means, but I didn’t think I looked so bad that someone in their 60’s or 70’s would mistake me for their age. I admit I wasn’t wearing makeup today, but still, I am very, very, very far from a baby boomers age. I think it’s time for me to get a face-lift if I am being mistaken for a senior citizen. Maybe I should have hit her over the head with my walker?