Am I okay?

Am I okay? That's a hard to question to answer. I guess you'd have to define "okay".<br /><br />Life is hard. Lately, my life has been harder than it should be, or at least, harder than I'm use to experiencing.<br /><br />Since my last post:<br /><br />I thought my sweet 8-year old kitty, Tommy, a gorgeous black and white short hair, was battling a bad case of pneumonia for the last three months. After five vets and many office visits and tests, two weeks ago he was diagnosed with Stage V Lymphoma. The fifth vet I took him to finally figure why all the antibiotics weren't working for the pneumonia. He told me Tommy only had a few days left. Within twelve hours Tommy had a seizure at 3am as I was petting him. I had to take him to the emergency vet in the middle of night and say my final goodbyes to him. It was horrible.<br /><br />Last week I was granted permanent guardianship for my sister by the state of Alaska. Sounds like a good thing, right? My sister consumes me. Trying to take care of her financial situation she left behind in Alaska, which is extraordinary, is like having a part-time job. Making sure my sister's physical needs are met, checking on her during the week, talking to her caregivers (occupational therapist, physical therapist, the owner of her home, etc. etc. etc.) is time consuming. Because of the guardianship, I have to document every move I make regarding my sister, every decision I make for her, account for every penny I spend of her money on her many expenses. I have to keep detailed records which I update every day. Some weeks there are as many as 50 tasks I handle on her behalf The Excel spreadsheets I've been keeping are ridiculous. This is required by the state, and it takes a lot of time. <br /><br />I love my sister, I want her to be happy and well-taken care of, but even though she's in a beautiful adult family home with wonderful care-givers, there are still a lot of tasks to attend to for her. I have no choice in this matter. I couldn't live with myself if I let her become a ward of the state, which was the only other option. <br /><br />The Vulnerable Adult Order of Protection was awarded by the court last week, against my niece. I knew I had to do this, but you can't imagine how awful it makes me feel, to keep my niece away from her mother. It's necessary, but heart-breaking at the same time.<br /><br />Work is more stressful than normal. I have a deadline that is set by a government mandate, which means there can't be a delay on this project. It's a very complicated project, and frankly, I'm not sure I can complete my part of it in time to meet the deadline. That scares me.<br /><br />My eating had been horrible for two weeks. I got up to 197.2. I was terrified and angry with myself. I finally got back on track about two weeks ago and actually was able to cut out sweets completely, started eating fresh fruit and vegetables again. I was feeling great. <br /><br />Then I came down with a horrible cold a week ago. I stayed home two days, sneezing and coughing. It was just a cold, but I was miserable. I didn't exercise at all last week until Thursday, and again Friday. Then the weekend came and again, my sister came first, I came last. I just didn't have time for the gym.<br /><br />I spent several hours with my sister on Saturday, dealing with a problem she was having with the new splints she has to wear on her paralyzed arm and leg. It was quite the ordeal, with her crying and screaming. She was extremely upset. I finally figured out the problem, but it took hours. Remember, she talks all the time, but no one can understand her. When she has a problem, she lets me know it, but figuring it out is something else. It requires a lot of time and a lot of patience.<br /><br />Then again today, we spent several hours together as I took her on a little car trip, just me and her. It was her first car trip since the stroke, almost six months ago. We had frozen yogurt at Gibson's in Tacoma, and then went down to the waterfront for a while, just watching the people. Next, we drove by her new dentist's office (where' we'll be going on Thursday). It was a really good day for both of us. I like doing this stuff with her, but it just takes a lot of time out of my life.<br /><br />So, what's the verdict. Am I okay? Not really. I'm tired. Worn out. Not exactly feeling "okay". At least not by my definition of okay.<br /><br />It will get better, I guess. Someday, I'll be okay again.

Am I okay?

Am I okay? That's a hard to question to answer. I guess you'd have to define "okay". Life is hard. Lately, my life has bee...

Read more »

Mad Men: Now and Then and Back Again

<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>by guest contributor FlickChick</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_-7gbtwicmWjvHoN2SB6vrkFmAShw5sZ_c6bDyf-ckCqjo4m7Bx7JmNrWv70u62M28gH9w9lUAlToYRUcdMs_x01WZBGGvxrWJQt_NjxuvznUfnPl76Dja_1SFzb4oHBLmiGKv-d42Nf5/s1600/mad+men+clock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_-7gbtwicmWjvHoN2SB6vrkFmAShw5sZ_c6bDyf-ckCqjo4m7Bx7JmNrWv70u62M28gH9w9lUAlToYRUcdMs_x01WZBGGvxrWJQt_NjxuvznUfnPl76Dja_1SFzb4oHBLmiGKv-d42Nf5/s400/mad+men+clock.jpg" width="382" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Watching <i>Mad Men</i> is a bit like time traveling with one foot dipped in the past and one firmly planted in the present. Viewing the actions of the "then", we can't help but measure them against the "now." The fact that things were like that in the past usually means things are not like that in the present. We judge if those things are better or worse now as the story of the Sterling Cooper (Draper Pryce) gang unfolds. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /><a name="more"></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><i>Mad Men</i> is famous for Matthew Weiner’s meticulous attention to detail. For those who did not live through the <i>Mad Men</i> times, the authenticity is akin to watching a well-researched Victorian drama. Yes, we know they dressed like that and spoke like that because we have seen the pictures and read the books. For those of us who actually lived through those times (though I was a mere child, I assure you), the details are like little jolts of electrodes to the brain.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><i>Mad Men</i> is a great "water cooler" show. While workers might not literally congregate around that proverbial watering hole for discussions any more (like they do at Sterling Cooper), one aspect of the morning-after dish on the show is always an "I had one of those!" or "my mother had one just like that!" Somebody we knew wore that dress, had that drinking glass or drove that car. Somewhere in the back of our mind we remember seeing that hat, those keys, that hairdo.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Do you remember:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Silver-rimmed roly poly high-ball glasses?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh__OzaQSuK7OsGiyyIhY2u_ao3UQ4BsArrN9xingcNkuT2rXPBRz6Y0lkVKGdjufJ7aeKFBz4OHuo1ZNdqcz_xRGISymwGfl5ONj_20z7NJ3TTPeH5JfamOEpj49h8P-HFwmSRgqt7E1Ow/s1600/cocktail+tumblers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh__OzaQSuK7OsGiyyIhY2u_ao3UQ4BsArrN9xingcNkuT2rXPBRz6Y0lkVKGdjufJ7aeKFBz4OHuo1ZNdqcz_xRGISymwGfl5ONj_20z7NJ3TTPeH5JfamOEpj49h8P-HFwmSRgqt7E1Ow/s320/cocktail+tumblers.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><i>Mad Men</i> uses authentic Dorothy Thorpe (a popular 60s glass maker) tumblers when the gang throws back a quart or two.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Remote Controls that looked like they were in control?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQbPnXWyjtIM48TtpH4Oojx96FRZaNaXC6PtuCbQQmQpGf08AVNCM6V36K_ZWWm4ZB6kQ2f4hupEM6s6_W2c_zr4dmIAjvCeJuozgG9uP6wFiMgep65rE46uf5Ddb-0zV14zm7SAJgdkjA/s1600/zenith+remote+control.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQbPnXWyjtIM48TtpH4Oojx96FRZaNaXC6PtuCbQQmQpGf08AVNCM6V36K_ZWWm4ZB6kQ2f4hupEM6s6_W2c_zr4dmIAjvCeJuozgG9uP6wFiMgep65rE46uf5Ddb-0zV14zm7SAJgdkjA/s200/zenith+remote+control.jpg" width="143" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The Zenith Space Commander 400 at the Draper household was the first remote control for the home.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Typewriters?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5nv2t5ghATrQlbt_DwMC86EKynrDoAmOOmYhUXoWtDTOXPB5RPUAi75kXxC1und7bXIPtzen9-4xE62TXHjrKjb3r89DFxPdzcLIfJ5PbgnRsQvfPJMaL6lCFWL1IcczC99fRVKyuFgfd/s1600/typing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5nv2t5ghATrQlbt_DwMC86EKynrDoAmOOmYhUXoWtDTOXPB5RPUAi75kXxC1und7bXIPtzen9-4xE62TXHjrKjb3r89DFxPdzcLIfJ5PbgnRsQvfPJMaL6lCFWL1IcczC99fRVKyuFgfd/s400/typing.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The steno pool gals at the firm proudly use their IBM golf ball typewriters. All typewriters used on the show are operational and all have identical covers.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">One of my favorite little <i>Mad Men</i> vignettes shows the Draper family on an idyllic family picnic. Betty’s crinolines cover a blanket spread over a meadow-like space of grass. The children are there and so is Don. It is all so wholesome, so idyllic and all so American. When they are done, Ma and Pa Draper pack their picnic basket and the kids into the family station wagon and head home, their trash left behind to litter the beautiful landscape. And that’s really how it was until the word “litter bug” (no doubt dreamt up by a real life Mad Man) entered our consciousness. Before it became socially unacceptable to litter, respectable people scattered their garbage to the 4 winds thinking, perhaps, that elves or convicts came and cleaned it up.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid5sz65i0WCkZ66_kWkczhuIq6NkF-uL8Gm9X2JYfO7m4oby2_DZiY-CyXp26910TkTyYd9ZkNVNniOz2o-tw-zugXAvDULMe0i9PV3UcsrlLTJ0_OUv4Ive3wkg5N66Uc-Cg_dwz-j0C7/s1600/bird.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid5sz65i0WCkZ66_kWkczhuIq6NkF-uL8Gm9X2JYfO7m4oby2_DZiY-CyXp26910TkTyYd9ZkNVNniOz2o-tw-zugXAvDULMe0i9PV3UcsrlLTJ0_OUv4Ive3wkg5N66Uc-Cg_dwz-j0C7/s200/bird.jpg" width="86" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The episode that featured the dipping or dunking bird also brought back great memories. How fascinated we all were by this little novelty item that ever so gingerly stuck its beak in a cup of water and mimicked a drinking bird. How did it do that? Seeing the employees of Sterling Cooper so intrigued by this silly toy tugged at a thread of memory that is attached to the heart.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5kYj46f285o8Pwr7pzWLNbFcMi0TJl07Ot9f872vYb9PVnguaaxjp_fCVI8DT2y4Xb4-iknNr9wPqvR2G6ZzyZHuYs1BL2ILl8XyOSNq9MTh9rf-uCGAAGXEQKBNW-DTT-z5D5EfReejq/s1600/Robert+Morse.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5kYj46f285o8Pwr7pzWLNbFcMi0TJl07Ot9f872vYb9PVnguaaxjp_fCVI8DT2y4Xb4-iknNr9wPqvR2G6ZzyZHuYs1BL2ILl8XyOSNq9MTh9rf-uCGAAGXEQKBNW-DTT-z5D5EfReejq/s400/Robert+Morse.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">And what a wow stroke of now and then to cast Robert Morse as the elder statesman of the firm. When first we – of a certain age – saw Mr. Morse, he was one of those eager young Madison Avenue men – namely J. Pierpont Finch of 1961’s Broadways Production of <i>How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying</i>. Climbing the ladder of success at the World Wide Wicket Company is not unlike getting ahead at Sterling Cooper. Then, in fact, is so “now,” that a revival of the show is currently running on Broadway (Nick Jonas as J. Pierpont Finch) and has been going strong since March 2011.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">It’s fun to see your mother’s plaid kitchen wallpaper and your father’s car. It’s fun to remember favorite TV shows and the shared behavior of a safer time. And so we watch Don, Betty, Peggy, Roger, and the entire gang knowing full well that, as their story unfolds, they will never, ever feel that safe again. Unlike them, we know what happens. Peggy’s struggle as the lone creative woman of the firm is one that makes many women today bristle. But Peggy doesn’t bristle, she just plows forward, because she only has an unknown future to draw upon. She does not drive looking through a rearview mirror. To look back is to see Joan and all of the other <i>Best of Everything</i> girls who either marry the boss or just sleep with him.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Those who didn't live through those times may long for its glamour. Those who did probably have mixed feelings. From the vantage point of our living room, <i>Mad Men</i> disturbs and delights and never fails to cause us to measure our present against our past. </div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><div style="text-align: center;">~</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div class="MsoNormal">Guest contributor FlickChick has a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/FlickChick/155690437779073" style="color: #990000;">Facebook page</a> of the same name and her popular blog is<span style="color: #990000;"> </span><a href="http://flickchick1953.blogspot.com/" style="color: #990000;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Person in the Dark</i></a>.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">~</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://eves-reel-life.blogspot.com/p/from-around-blogosphere-more-on-mad-men.html"><span style="color: #990000;">Click here</span></a> for more on <i>Mad Men</i>...from around the blogosphere. </div></div></div>

FlickChick Mad Men Matthew Weiner Robert Morse Mad Men: Now and Then and Back Again

by guest contributor FlickChick Watching Mad Men is a bit like time traveling with one foot dipped in the past and one firmly planted in th...

Read more »