My Mother-In-Law died.

My MIL died last Friday morning. My sister-in-law is here and my brother-in-law is due in Monday. MIL will be buried Wednesday in Springfield where her first husband is buried. We will drive down Tuesday to finalize the arrangements. Not looking forward to the four hour drive with a van load of people. The roads are good so the drive is easy but long.

Over a Barrel

Back when I was between marriages, I used to go drinking with the people from work on Friday nights. Most of the workers got off at 3:15 and I would leave work around 4:00 on Fridays. Most of the married ones would leave by 6:00 to go home to their wives or husbands. One guy, who worked in my department, was still there around 6:30 which was unusual. I asked the married guy why he was still there. He said that his wife was at her mother's home in another state.

This guy had joined our company about six months before straight out of school. About a month after starting at the company he got married and moved his wife to our town. She was a nice good looking woman and looked well suited for him.

There was a single gal at our company that most of us guys would have loved to date and more but she would never give any of us at work a second look. I'll call her Miss V. Setting with her at out table was another woman who was married but she always stayed late on Fridays. She was a loud pushy woman and was big and round like whisky barrel. I'll call her Ms Barrel. Ms Barrel had ridden with Miss V that day due to car trouble. Ms Barrel talked Miss V into staying late. Ms Barrel had for the last year let me know that she would like to bed me. I always found someway to avoid her. She was not appealing to me physically or personally wise. I was surprised to see the married guy and Miss V making a connection. Neither had ever shown any interest in their coworkers. When the women had gone to the bathroom, the married guy asked me if him and Miss V could use my apartment for some one on one time. I said OK and I would give him a key when they were ready to leave and I would stay at the bar until he returned. Well Ms Barrel had a different idea. She did not want to stay at the bar without a ride. As I has been drinking and was a bit drunk, I went with the flow. Soon the four of us were headed to my place.

Ms Barrel and I went to my bedroom while the married guy and Miss V stayed on the sofa in the living room. I had hoped that Ms Barrel would show some creativity in bed to encourage a return engagement. But it was not to be. She just laid there letting me do all the work. I remember thinking "This is just like fucking the bung hole of a barrel and about as much fun."

Oh well. The things one will do for a friend. In this case our friendship had put me over a barrel.

My Mother-In-Law is dying

My MIL has lived with us the last ten years or so. Her health has declined over the last couple of years resulting in her being coming weaker as well as with more delusions and dementia. About three weeks ago she fell and hurt her back. Every time we tried to get her up to go to the bathroom or to set up in her chair to watch TV in the family room it hurt her. My wife called MIL's doc and she said to take the MIL to the hospital. She was admitted for a few days then sent to a nursing home. She has not eaten or drank much for the last month and it has been very hard to get her to take pills for her headaches or back pain. When she was admitted she was malnourished and dehydrated. Now she has stopped drinking or eating altogether. The doc thinks she is terminal with only a few days left. My wife is devastated. All of this is reminding me of my mother's death. Right now the least little sad thing causes me to tear up. I am so emotional right now.

Not much in the way of Inspiration

My muse has spring fever. Some political things chap my ass but not enough to work up a good mad. I have even been a bit slow in reading my fellow bloggers.

But I have been working in the yard and on the outside of the house. Maybe if it rains I will blog. Until then:

be happy
be glad
be not so sad

My First Time

In my junior year of college I met the woman who was to become my first wife. I was quite ignorance about the ways of dating and women.

(Funny, I don't remember how we met and I have thought and thought about it but just don't remember.)

She was a freshmen and lived in the women's dorm. At that time I did not have a car so on most of our dates we walked to the date activity. Sometimes I would borrow a car from one of my friends in the rooming house where I lived. I did not borrow the car often as the cost of borrowing was to fill the car with gas. Even though the gas was only 24.9 cents per gallon, it was more than I could afford. My part time job only paid 85 cents per hour and I worked fifteen to twenty hours per week.

The most we had done until that weekend was some heavy petting. I was too shy and too ignorant to push further than that. This was my first real serious dating experience. She invited me to go home with her to meet the parents and to spend the weekend together. I think we went with a friend of hers who lived in the home town as neither of us had a car. Her mother was a big brash pushy women and her father was one of the nicest kindest men I have ever met.

(When we divorced years later the thing I missed the most was his friendship. In many ways my oldest son is a lot like him and I am very happy about that.)

Sunday morning her father was out of the house doing his thing and her mother was at church. She and I were in a little used bedroom kissing and fondling. After a bit we were both naked. This was the first time we were together without having clothes on. Soon she was guiding me into her and I lost my virginity. I was really dumb as we did not use any birth control. Luckily there were not any consequences.

(Looking back - - while she was my first, I am sure I was not hers.)

We dated for another couple of years and then we were married. It would be many years before I had sex with my second women.

I love reading blogs and making comments

And reading the comments others leave. I hate rude uncaring comments and of course I hate spam. But what is worst than rude and spam?

Commenters who are judgmental are the worst. What gives them the right to judge others. Many of the commenters who leave judgmental comments are cowards. They are like drive by shooters afraid to be seen or to confront. They are the type of people who will shoot you in the back. They do not have the courage or knowledge to defend their statements or beliefs.

That said, I too have left judgmental comments. I've done it in the guise of helping, by leaving comments telling the writer of the blog what they should do. There is a fine line between constructive criticism and being judgmental. And I probably have cross that line on a few comments. Why do we cross the line? By being too strong in our convictions and being too sure we understand what is going on in the life of others.

Some blog writers have thick skin and don't care what comments are left. Others we hurt with judgmental comments.

So how as bloggers do we protect our self from bad comments? The easiest way is to turn off comments. To me this is like throwing out the baby with the bath water. Several blogs that I like to read the posting and the comments have turned off comments. So sad. You lose the interaction with your blogger friends. Another way is to not allow anonymous comments. This is not foolproof but it seems to reduce the number of bad comments. Yet another way is to require logon to access the blog or even hide the blog. Both of these methods reduce the interaction with other bloggers.

Its a good idea to learn how to delete a comments on your blog. I just got an off topic comment so I just deleted it. Poof its gone. Not had any spam yet so I guess for now I will just delete any that gets posted.

So how do you handle bad comments? Any tricks for the rest of us?

My Mother 1920 - 2001

Its been five years since I was able to get my mother a Mother's Day gift. For her last several years I got her some mail order fancy fruit(because she enjoyed it), a card and spent time with her. Before that I would get things that I though she would like and she usually did. And before that I would often forget it was Mother's Day and to get a gift until it was too late so I just got a card.

Around 25 years ago she moved from LA to live near me. She bought a house and lived within a quarter mile of me. She was a very independent woman. During those years I would help her do thing she could not do for herself. And I knew not to try to do things I though she needed but waited for her to ask. That was the way she wanted it. When the house became to much for her to take care of, she moved into an apartment. Her first apartment was on the 2nd floor. When getting up and down the stairs became too hard she moved to a first floor apartment.

She developed Leukemia (CML). She refused to have chemo as she had watched her closest friend in the world suffer through six months of treatment and then die. She wouldn't even see a cancer doctor for any other options. Soon her red blood count was way down and the doc sent her to the hospital for blood transfusions. She needed another transfusion in a couple of months. She could tell when she needed to get another transfusion by how tired and weak she got. After a while the time between transfusion got down to a couple of weeks apart. She and I saw her doc and in talking with him we found a steroid she could take to keep her red cell count up. But the steroid caused her blood sugar to go sky high, over 200. To control the high blood sugar she needed to inject insulin. She would not use insulin because of all the bad side effects she read about in the alternative health magazines. However, the effect of not using the insulin was worst, it killed her. She continued for about a year without the need of a blood transfusion by using the steroid. But her body got weaker and weaker. She called me one day telling she could not get out of her chair. I rushed over to her apartment and seeing her in her weaken condition I called 911 and took her to the hospital. From there she went to a nursing home and in a few weeks she died. I never heard exactly why she died, but I think she died of organ failure due to diabetes.

I miss my Mother. She was always on my side. She always told me the truth, even when I didn't want to hear it. I miss her a lot. I feel so alone sometimes.

Happy Birthday from my son

Last week was my Birthday. My son came to visit me from the west coast. He brought me two, no three presents. One, himself for a visit. Two, a newer laptop computer. And three, and probably the best, help in cleaning out the basement. My knees keep me from making too many trips up and down the basement steps so his help in carrying stuff up out of the basement was much appreciated. At the same time it made me very sad. Many of the things we hauled out reminded me of things I use to do and now don't. By throwing out this stuff I was closing doors on my past. I had said during much of my life that when one door closes another door opens. And I guess its still true. The problem is when I peak through the newly opened doors I see rooms with no exits. Not all, but most of the rooms. Some of the rooms have me sitting in a rocking chair watching the world go by. I dont want to go there. My lament is still true.