Sunday, February 7, 2016

Super Bowl Sunday

2/7/2016

Today is Super Bowl Sunday, and literally millions of people around the country, will be celebrating with wings, chips and beer.

Super Bowl Sunday means something completely different in our house.  It marks the third anniversary, if you will, of my being alive.  My first suicide attempt was on Super Bowl Sunday in 2013.  I was released from the hospital in June of 2013 and attempted suicide again in July.  I was behind locked doors of one kind or another for 9 months in 2013.  

I can't begin to explain what brings a person to the end of their emotional rope.  For me, it wasn't a spur of the moment idea.  I had an entire week to hoard pills and even saw my psychiatrist the Friday before the Super Bowl.  She didn't suspect a thing as I told her about all the wonderful things I had planned for the weekend, knowing that I wasn't going to do anything but swallow pills.

Clearly, I needed help that January and over the course of the next nine months received it.  My "crash and burn" exercise resulted in huge over-the-top medical bills and because of short term memory issues, among other things, cost me my job.  Understandably, it took a long time before anyone really trusted me to be home alone.  But my theory, such as it is, if I wasn't successful with my two suicide attempts, then something or someone wanted me to stay in the game.  

I regret my actions which brought on consequences that I hadn't even thought about. I was hurting in a bad way, and just wanted the madness to stop.  Depression is an ugly disease.  A disease not easily understood and certainly not talked about. While I'm in a much better place today, I'm not positive that the "wet blanket feeling" that is depression won't visit me again in the future.

Do I feel guilty?  You bet I do, but we I can't change the past.  Hopefully, I can learn from my past as well as the mistakes I made.  I hurt my family deeply in 2013 and I wish I could erase that pain for them, but I know I can't.  What's done is done.  For every action there is a reaction.  

I'm on steadier feet now, but emotionally fragile.  Progress is being made.  I only see my psychiatrist once a month now, but continue to take a lot of medicine to keep me mentally healthy.

Am I ashamed about 2013?  I don't know if I would call it ashamed, as much as I am sorry for what I did.  When a person decides it's time to take their leave of the world, you are in the moment insane.  There is a fine line between sanity and insanity.  On both occasions in 2013, I crossed the line.

Super Bowl Sundays will always be "that" day for Jeff and I.  If I live to be 100, it will still be the same, although distance through the years, will make the memory less alive. 

I don't try to hide from my suicide attempts.  It is, after all, what it is or was.  I believe that we should bring mental illness, with all of its ugliness, and per-conceived notions, out in the open.  Being "mental" (my term and certainly not my doctor's) is a part of me.    

Statistics say that 14.8 million people in this country alone, battle with depression.  And, there are approximately 34,000 attempted suicides in a year.  That's a lot of people.  People who need, and hopefully are getting, help.  People who need understanding about a disease that controls them.  And, no pulling yourself up by your boot straps is not a solution to the problem I assure you.

Stay well and I hope whatever team you're rooting for today, wins.

P

Friday, February 5, 2016

I'm Old

2/5/2016

It's official folks - I'm old.  I'm the shopper you see in the grocery store who can't pull out a shopping cart.  I'm the shopper who can't manage to open up the little plastic bags in the produce section.  I'm the shopper who doesn't understand why her favorite mustard isn't, at least at this one store, available in a glass jar.  I hate those squeeze bottles and avoid them whenever I can, because you can never ever completely empty the bottle.  Oh, I stand the squeeze bottle over the top of the glass jar, to see if I can get the last drops of mustard out, but it's always in vain.  If I could manage to cut squeeze bottles in half, think how much mustard, etc., I would have.

I'm also the shopper, who after her groceries are bagged can barely lift the shopping bag, because it's too heavy.  Today, my bag wasn't unusually heavy, but apparently I must have looked like I was struggling to carry it, because a young woman asked me if she could help.  Egads, when did I get old? 

I'm the shopper set in her ways.  When I find a food that I like, I remain loyal.  I don't poke around in the shelves looking for a substitute for let's say butter.  I like the brand that I use, so why switch?  The problem comes when say product "x" is no longer available.  I understand that if product "x" isn't making money for the company, they may pull the product.  This leaves me high and dry and scrambling for a good substitute.  This annoys me.  

My mother used to only wear Daniel Green leather slippers.  I thought, and still do, that they were rather ugly, but she never wore any other kind of slippers.  She was set in her ways.  I was absolutely positive that I would never be like my mother.  But shockingly, in some ways I'm just like her.  I too have a preference for a certain kind of slipper, and bathrobes, just to name a few of my never going to change to another type of item.  

As an adult, I didn't really want to be anything like my mother.  I wanted to be more like my Dad.  I do look like my mother, and there's no fixing that. Unfortunately, it seems as if all good things come to an end eventually.  I have worn Chloe perfume for more years than I can even remember.  The old Chloe, now considered vintage, hasn't been made in a very long time.  Because I refuse to use a different perfume, I went to Ebay and bought numerous bottles of Chloe.  There were no new bottles, some were half-full, and others mostly full.  I bought everyone I could find.  They are lined up in the bathroom, waiting for their turn.  As I read this, it sounds a bit obsessive, but if you love something, do you really need to change just because?

Okay, this old woman is getting off her soap box now and going to sit in my recliner and watch some kind of cheesy television for a bit.

Happy Friday.

P

Bernie Madoff

2/5/2016

There was a television movie about Madoff this week.  Movies or television shows about someone famous or infamous, gets my curiosity radar to start up.  After watching the two night show about Madoff, I immediately wanted to do some research into his life.

He was a fraud and master minded the largest Ponzi scheme in America.  Watching the movie, it was clear that he was a slick, fast talking, "I'll take care of you, don't worry" kind of guy.  People tripped over themselves to give him money.  Pension plans, individual retirement funds, as well as charitable foundations, were handled by Madoff.  The size of the fraud was stated as $65 billion early in the investigation. A former SEC Chairman estimated the actual net fraud to be between $10 and $17 billion.  That's a lot of money. 

People trusted him, were reassured by him and ultimately defrauded by him.  His lifestyle, and that of his family, was extravagant.  His wife and sons contended that they didn't know what Madoff was doing.  All the money that was given to Madoff to invest, went into his own personal business bank account at Chase Manhattan.  When an investor wanted out of Madoff's fund, he took the money out of the bank account, or from another investor's funds.

After Madoff's arrest and conviction, his wife was allowed to keep $2.5 million, which is a pretty nice nest egg.  Properly invested, a person could live quite comfortably with that kind of money.  I know I wish I had 2.5 million dollars to play with!

Madoff was sent to a minimum security federal prison in North Carolina.  From the pictures I see on the Internet, it doesn't look like a regular prison, the kind we see in the movies, dark, drab and dreary. 

On the second anniversary of Madoff's arrest, his son Mark committed suicide.  Madoff's other son Andrew died in 2014, leaving behind  $15 million dollars to his ex-wife, fiancee and children.  

Such a sad ending for a man, and his family, who at one time, were living life in style.  Mrs. Madoff now shops at Ikea rather than Tiffany's.

P

Thursday, February 4, 2016

Reality in Period Shows

2/4/2016

I watch a lot of television shows set in older times.  And when I watch these shows, I question whether women had pierced ears, as one example, back in the 1800's.  So, off to the Internet I go to look for answers.  I know you guys are glad that I'm here to answer such burning questions!

Pierced ears goes back about 5,000 years ago. Pearl earrings were famous from the 1500s to the 1800s.  I am currently watching a period television show on PBS, set in the 1800s.  The women depicted on that show are wearing pierced earrings as was fashionable in the 1800s.

My own personal history of pierced ears was probably in 1973 or 1974.  In those days, and maybe they still do it today, you went to the department store and sat while your ears were pierced.  It's been a long time ago, but I do remember the sheer dread of willingly submitting myself to pain.  I don't have a large collection of earrings, and I don't wear any heavy or long ones - I don't want to have droopy ears!

Of course by today's standards, I'm sort of an oddball.  It seems as if the world has gone mad for piercing, and I'm not just talking about one in your ear.  People have multiple piercings in their ears, some in their nose and tongue (I can't even imagine what that feels like, but it gives me the shutters) as well as their belly buttons.  

I can remember one time I was being prepped for surgery and the surgeon asked me if I had any piercings that he couldn't see, as in my "nether" regions.  I thought the question odd at the time, but today it is probably a reasonable question to ask.

You see often, men and women with really large stretched ears to accommodate earrings.  The ears look terrible and I can't help but wonder what their ears would look like without the earrings.  Let's say you're 80 years old and have removed your giant earrings.  What do you ears look like now?  Scary I bet.  

I will go against the flow of piercing anything and everything as well as the thought that bigger is better, which is simply not always the case.
 
Here's two examples of big earrings and big ears.  Apparently, you can when you tire of this look, can undergo a surgical procedure to put your ears back to normal.  I don't know why people do this to their body.  It must make quite an impression on a job interview.

P

Image result for picture of stretched pierced ear 

 


Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Chores

2/3/2016

Today is going to be super exciting.  First, I get to clean up the kitchen, then fold (ick) and put away the clean clothes, and then I need to scoop (you know) after Mr. Sam.  I know that all of you who are at work are super jealous of me now - I know I would be.

I have an almost negative mental block about folding and putting away clothes.  I don't know why, it's not like the clothes have ever harmed me.  It may be that almost as soon as you put the clothes away, there's another load that needs to be washed.  Jeff would say that I do laundry too often, but I disagree.  You have your white clothes (or mostly white) and the colored items.  By my count, that's just two loads I run in a week.  

We still had snow on the driveway yesterday, so I spent some time shoveling snow.  I wanted to get rid of enough snow so that Jeff could put his new car in the garage.  My car is now "old" (hardly) and she sits outside.  Of course, I couldn't escape my good deed of shoveling without accident.  Yep, I slipped on some melting snow and fell on my fanny.  My chief complaint was and is that I had broken my fanny - which just means that the old rear end hurts!  You would think that a well padded fanny would be able to survive slipping and falling down, but I'm here to tell you that even though I'm padded in that department, among others, my rear end still hurts today.  Note to self: stay inside.

My "reward" for doing my chores is that I can either (a) watch television; or (b) read.  Tough choices, but I bet I can get a little bit of both in my day if I try.  I recorded the live version of Grease last weekend, and I will probably start watching it again, because I just love the music.  

Today is Elmo's birthday and national wedding ring day.  When Benjamin was little, I watched countless hours of Sesame Street with him.  He's now on to more "mature" movies, like Frozen, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and others like that.  He also loves Shrek and I've watched the movies with him so much, that I'm pretty sure I could recite the lines.

Have a great Wednesday.

P

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

The TV Knows More Than Me

2/2/2016

Last year, Jeff bought us a new, really big television.  And, it's a "Smart TV", being operated by a rather simple minded person - yours truly.  I don't mean that I'm simple in a bad or negative way, more like I don't have deep thoughts about things.  Also, I don't retain everything I'm told or read.  It's just the way my brain works these days.

Anyway, the new television allows us to use our Amazon Prime account to access movies and television shows for free.  Last night we sat down and while I watched, Jeff pushed all the buttons to get us registered with Amazon.  In reality, I don't know how frequently I'll be trying to watch something on Amazon.  Up to now, Netflix has been my go to place for movies. 

 I love watching movies on Netflix and other premium television channels, because there are no commercials!  I know it's not difficult to push the skip button on the remote to bypass commercials, but it's annoying.  You can't really enjoy buttered popcorn if you have to keep using the remote!

Through the help of Jeff and/or Scott, my computer runs effortlessly.  All I ever have to do is wake up the computer in the morning.  I take this ease for granted, and I'm thankful.  I was afraid after my 2013 mess, that I might have forgotten how to maneuver my way around the computer.  And, initially I did have some difficulty, but I kept at it, and feel that I'm up to speed as far as using the computer goes.

Now all I have to do is figure out what all the various television remotes do!  Or, I could more easily, stick to what I know, which is how to turn the television on and off and select and record shows and watch movies on Netflix.  As I said, I'm a simple person.  I don't need bells and whistles and I don't want to wade through a rather thick owner's manual on how to get the most out of the new TV.  If I turn it on and can find my shows that I've recorded, then all's good in my world.

The sun has decided to come out today, so the pile of snow remaining on the driveway, will probably disappear today.  I can always go out and start shoveling snow out into the middle of the driveway to help Mother Nature along.

I'm sorry that I didn't check out the "holidays" yesterday.  One holiday in particular applied to me: Spunky Old Broads Day!!!!

P

  

Monday, February 1, 2016

Happy February!

2/1/2016

We survived January with it's huge snow storm which has left "mountains" of snow everywhere that the plows couldn't get to.  There is a large pile of snow in front of the garage, which pretty much prevents getting a car inside.

Yesterday, we went out to Andrew's house for pizza and dessert.  I had a slice of pizza that had bacon on top.  I'd never had that before and it was quite yummy.  Stacey made a red velvet cake and we had brought apple pie and ice cream.  A very balanced meal!  Salt, fat and sugar - what else could a person ask for?

The hot tub was an option, but we decided not to go in.  Jeff gets up quite early in the, so it was better to leave early and let him get as much sleep as possible.  He'd be so happy if he could work remote, but that's not happening.  I know that computer guys can do their work practically anywhere, but sometimes policies are in place that prevent them from doing so.

My day will start off in the dentist chair - yipee!!!!  Two fillings today, which will leave me with I can only describe as Betty Davis' face in "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane".  I know that my face only feels like that, but in reality doesn't actually look like that.  I can have my teeth cleaned on Monday and by Tuesday have already sprouted a new cavity.  The medicines I take are causing havoc on my teeth.  As I tell my dentist, I can either be fine mentally, or fine dentally - but apparently not both.  I have opted for the wise decision, which is being mentally well - or at least mentally better.

After the dentist, I will run a quick errand for Jeff.  Women who are retired, or don't work, are sometimes pretty useful.  We can wait for a delivery or repair man.  Drop off packages, buy stamps, go to the grocery store as well as a host of other mundane chores.

The only thing I miss about working, besides the salary, is seeing my friends everyday.  What I don't miss is the having to get permission to leave early, arrive late or call in sick.  When you don't work, you don't have to coordinate your schedule with your co-workers.  I no longer need to have the first or last appointment of the day with a dentist or doctor.  Since there isn't a lot of money in retirement, at least you can enjoy the perks of being where you want to be, and when you want to be there.

Much as I've enjoyed "chatting" with you, it's time to get my rear in gear and get something done.  What I'm actually going to do has yet to be determined, and it might involve the latest book I'm reading on my Kindle!

Enjoy your day.

P




Closing Up Shop

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