:comfort: Hang in there Cherry. Do you like to read, write, paint, draw? Maybe check out the second hand stores? Rent some really awful movies that you can't watch when they're around? I know you'll make it - if you run out of ideas, you know we love it when you post photos from your neck of the woods, so feel free to snap some pics to share!!!

Top Gun is a Great Movie.

that is all

So you're a screen-whore as well as a post-whore, eh?

So, I don't know exactly how many of you have teenage boys, but I've got one who's nearly a teenager, and this morning he was sitting on the mat in the loungeroom playing with Max and he farted (I was sitting about 5 feet away), and he turned to me and said, "Did you hear that Mum?" Apparently he was very proud of it judging by the level of excitement in his voice...then he had to move. It smelled.

passin' through...

Today I am Grandad-sitting.
I've come home to tend to the cats (and sneak a little screen time) because his cleaner is there now.

When I went to see him Sunday, he said that he'd had a funny turn in the morning, but it had passed. I told him that he should never be afraid to call me - I'd come round or call the doctor, whatever he needed.

This morning I got a call at 07.30 from his morning carer (who gets him up, washes and dresses him). He was feeling bad again, and could I call the doctor when the surgery opened. It wasn't a bad thing to get the call - I'd been swamped in guilt dreams since waking and then dozing from 04.00 onwards. All dreams: at one point I was lying in bed with loads of empty cans of Stella under the covers, and I'd heard Mum and Dad come back and start making breakfast downstairs. Then I discovered a full can and realised I'd passed out drunk before even finishing my stash the night before. And was trying to work out how to open a can without them hearing me. Another one was that as I went downstairs, my boots were on fire, and the flames were licking at the bottom of the coats on the coatrack. I traced it to a smashed bottle of wine which I forgot I had - and was trying to work out if it was still drinkable when I put the flames out. And then I was sifting through the piles of cans and bottles trying to find one with some drink left when I saw their shadows on the front door.

Anyway, got up, sorted the cats, showered etc and was round there by 07.50.
Called the docs and said I'd sit with him.
Quick trip down to the Spar - Mum told him in a telephone call on Monday that it was just dehydration and he needed to drink more, so I was dispatched to buy bottled water which he feels he can sip more easily. Wicked Mum also told him that Aunty Alice (his sister) died from dehydration, which she knows perfectly well was untrue - she died from a massive stroke/ myocardial infarction. She was on a drip when she died. Still, part of Mum's cruel to be kind strategy.

I've spend the morning in and out of his bungalow, offering tea, to make a sarnie, to cook something etc, alternating this by sitting in his sunny garden while he watched Sky TV.

Doctor is due any time after 13.00.
It's not a chore for me because it's not a permanent responsibility.
I've been round to clean his kitchen and toilet every other day and to get his shopping. And he is treating me like his carers and cleaner - a real gentleman, gratefu; for everything. I do know the flip side though. He takes Mum horribly for granted and complains to other people about her - which makes her cry because she does love him and she does do a lot for him (a very secondary consideration as Mum is big on duty).

I told Mum that id Grandad criticises me to her when she gets back, PLEASE don't tell me. I hope she'll remember.

Anyway, that's my day today. Just wanted to rationalise it a bt so it doesn't feel like a drama.

Grandad's fine.
Except for a call about 2 minutes ago querying whether I removed the right tablet from his dosset boxes.

FTR - yes I did.
Not only do I remember it quite clearly (it was the white tablets that come in an orange box, not the orange tablets, which Grandad remembers it as) I did it right in front of the Doctor, who checked both the box and the tablet before I proceeded.

Ah well, it's been a busy old day for him.
He's probably getting ready for bed.

I have a five year old daughter and a 28 year old SO who do the same thing. So I do it back. (The sweet, adorable Princess' daddy has taught her "Pull my finger." Isn't that cute.........)

If you're not invisible you're not anyone! I've been trying it out for a week or so now but it doesn't make any difference really. I think I'll go back to visible. :)

A successful marriage:

Haggis, what's really funny is that chat screen is how they talk to each other...

is there another way?

...but you can't make the chat screen scream.

Depends on how fast the computer is.

Ed Freeman


You're a 19-year-old kid. You're critically wounded and dying in the jungle in the Ia Drang Valley, 11-14-1965, LZ X-ray, Vietnam. Your infantry unit is outnumbered 8-1 and the enemy fire is so intense, from 100 or 200 yards away, that your own Infantry Commander has ordered the MediVac helicopters to stop coming in.

You're lying there, listening to the enemy machine guns, and you know you're not getting out. Your family is half way around the world, 12,000 miles away and you'll never see them again. As the world starts to fade in and out, you know this is the day.

Then, over the machine gun noise, you faintly hear that sound of a helicopter and you look up to see an unarmed Huey, but it doesn't seem real because no Medi-Vac markings are on it.

Ed Freeman is coming for you. He's not Medi-Vac, so it's not his job, but he's flying his Huey down into the machine gun fire, after the Medi-Vacs were ordered not to come.

He's coming anyway.

And he drops it in and sits there in the machine gun fire as they load 2 or 3 of you on board.

Then he flies you up and out, through the gunfire to the doctors and nurses.

And he kept coming back, 13 more times, and took about 30 of you and your buddies out, who would never have gotten out.

Medal of Honor Recipient Ed Freeman died on Wednesday, June 25th, 2009, at the age of 80, in Boise, ID. May God rest his soul.



Medal of Honor Winner
Ed Freeman!
Since the media didn't give him the coverage he deserves, send this to every red-blooded American you know.

THANKS AGAIN, ED, FOR WHAT YOU DID FOR OUR COUNTRY.
RIP