Mom goes in for surgery tomorrow. Think of us.

Raindrops

This morning you sit
reading and sharing with me
the news of the day
from the internet.
I wish we were far away
snuggled in fluffy quilts
watching the sunrise
through the door of our camper.
Then we heard raindrops,
our eyes met, and it didn't
matter where we were any longer.
It only mattered that we were
together.

02-20-2008

In spite of the weather and having to rush back home the trip to Dallas was great. Saturday morning at 6:30 a.m. a terrible storm passed through and showered golf-ball-sized hail on the roof of the house and all the cars parked out front. I guess the rain disguised them because we didn't see the little dents until we got back to Porter. It rained all day long on Saturday but we attended three basketball games anyhow, two with Renee and one with Michael, Jr.

We came back on Sunday morning after Joe called us and said Joey and his family were coming home for two days. Joey is going to Afghanistan next month for a year and it was great to see them before he left. Joe planned the party at our house and had the cooking and arrangements all done when we got here at noon. Becky and the kids drove in at the same time. It was so good to have her here for a day when nearly the whole family was able to be here. Needless to say we were exhausted when it was all over but wouldn't have missed it for the world.

I washed yesterday, we bought some groceries, talked to Allstate about the car (we'll get the dents taken out on Thursday), Larry made two meatloafs, one for today and one for tomorrow, then we just lay around watching TV, playing on the computer and finished the day off by watching our latest Netflix DVD, The Mothman Chronicles.

Today I bought Lucinda Williams new CD, West, from Amazon's new mp3 section. Amazon makes it easy to buy music ... :D Now I am listening to it, writing and watching AVS on WinAmp. Coool.

So, Dr. Edwards said, "it is your decision to have this done or not but if I do the surgery you will need a reverse shoulder replacement." We knew he would say that, we'd already checked on the internet about the procedure, the doc and the hospital. Of course she is afraid of the surgery, she has had surgery before, but Larry said, "what if we decide now, get all the pre-op done today, can she back out later." The answer was "yes" so that is what we did.

We got all the blood work, ekg, exam with anesthesiologist and CT scan done yesterday. Now it will take 3 to 6 weeks to schedule surgery but everything is in place and we will not have to make a trip to the medical center in Houston until the day of the surgery. I hope she goes through with this, Mom broke her shoulder in 2004 and has suffered with it ever since. It is time.

Now we are off to Dallas to see Becky and the family. If I don't write until Monday, never fear, I shall return. Be gooood.

Telling someone what you did all day might sound boring. I guess it's the repeating of it that does it but when you are doing the thing it's not so uninteresting. For instance the things we did today: he and I sat in the bedroom this morning drinking coffee, exchanging Valentine's cards while "I Can't Remember Not Loving You" by KT Oslin played; or receiving a call from Granddaughter, Carrie, who needed a ride in Kingwood as we drove to the grocery store which gave us a chance to talk together a bit as we drove from one end to the other; or eating cheese and slivers of ham on crispy leaves of romaine lettuce topped with sliced onion and pickle circles for lunch.

It's all so normal and so pleasant, it's like him patting me as I walk by or my kissing his shoulder as he cooks supper or those moments when we feel so blessed to still be together after 48 years, healthy and in love.

Just before logging off last night I found this video at YouTube, a poem by Billy Collins. His voice is deep and soothing, and I love his imagination. If you want to watch another, "Forgetfulness" is good, though bittersweet, and perhaps you'll need to be older to understand. Billy Collins was born the same year as I, 1941.

The Dead - Billy Collins Animated Poetry

Enjoy

A huge thunderstorm went through this evening. We expected a lot of rain, we got very little. Who cares, it was exciting and felt very cozy.

I have always liked a simple but informative home page. Sometimes I use a blank page but people sit here as if the internet is down and to tell you the truth I have waited on a screen full of "stuff" myself. Today I checked out iGoogle and I like it very much. It does inform you of the news but with no graphics. It takes perhaps half a page on screen and loads very fast.

My Gmail loads in a little box so I can see right away if there is any important mail, and I can deck the whole page out with gadgets from the "add stuff" link on the right of the page if I want. The first gadget I looked into is a todo list which appears on the page as a yellow notebook. Note takers, stickies and word processors have always fascinated me.

The other thing I found today is Google Image Ripper. I actually found it by watching a YouTube video by Mobilephone2003. He was talking about Firefox addons and extensions. Anyhow just Google "google image ripper," click on it and it will sit in the corner of your page ready to receive your search. Pretty self explanatory from there but I like this little program because I often use Google to search for images and they always appear in little thumbnails. It is nice to choose how big to see them on the page.

Another thing I learned about is "Stylish", an extension for Firefox that when loaded into your browser (it must be downloaded within Firfox) sits in the status bar. Right click and choose Find Styles for this Page. It will load a page of, for instance, different Google or iGoogle or YouTube pages. Save the one you like and it will add it to the list of styles that you can choose from when you visit different web pages.

Ah there is more but tiredness creeps in. Goodnight.

Wow, I upgraded and now my blog is beautiful.

This week I sat for hours at YouTube watching videos of tech talk by Chris Pirillo and Googletechtalks. I used Juice to download other tech talks but when I got to YouTube and found how easy it was to manage I sort of left the little lemon where it belongs, in the Quick Launch bar.

I watched music videos of KD Lang, my favorite singer, and Roy Orbison and KT Oslin. KT sings a song called "I Can't Remember Not Loving You" which I would love to be able to lip sync to Larry on Valentine's day.

I've spent all afternoon investigating Gmail and Google Docs, switching my browser back to Mozilla Firefox, (which made computing fun again) and renewing my acquaintance with Blogger.

I discovered an add-on for Firefox called PicLens. It is wonderful. It displays a page or website full of art on one page and works at art sites like DeviantArt or on Flickr with my own photograps. Instant love.

Now, I want to write again, ya know? Yeah that will be nice.

2005 to 2008 and no words. Interesting!