Quiet Saturday

My desktop computer crashed another couple of time yesterday and last night. I don't know how many more times I'm going to be able to get it up. I have tried to back up important documents on the laptop as well as a thumb drive. I am in the process of getting it up again right now.

I let Slinky in this morning. It was 27 last night and he really wanted to come into the kitchen this morning. I fixed myself some bacon and eggs to use them up and could not eat much of it so I gave it to Slinky. I bought the bacon for Scott and then he did not eat much when he was here.

Missy is also in the house. Only Inky is outside. Poor little cat. I feel sorry for him but cannot let him in because Missy hates him so much. She would hurt him. As it is she growls and hisses at him whenever he comes around her.

I had dinner last night with Phyllis F. We both enjoyed our visit as well as our meal. We sat there from 6:00 until 7:30 and visited. Luckily, they did not need the table.

I don't know whet I will do today. I cleaned house yesterday and did my laundry as well as visited both Gerry and Phyllis. I may go to Bartlesville. I would like to go see Jeromy's house but they have not specifically invited me out so I do not want to just drop in on them.

Bob A. came over this morning and we visited awhile about Phyllis. He is concerned that she seems to be getting a lot worse rather quickly. I think so too. She is miserable in the nursing home but none of us can handle her. She is not sleeping nights now and is napping a lot in the daytime. I am just sick about her situation but she will have to stay there where the staff can care for her day and night.

More later...

I ended up going to Bartlesville and walking the mall. I also called Nancy R and talked to her. She lost her husband last month and is struggling. After she returns to Caney following the holidays, we will get together for lunch in Bartlesville.

Another Complication

Leslie noticed the other day that my left eye was red and tearing. I stopped wearing my left contact that day and waited for the eye to clear up but it hasn't cleared up and it still tears a lot.

I started cleaning house and doing laundry this morning but now I will have to interrupt that do go see the optometrist. He is twenty miles away. I will leave about 11:15. My appointment is at 11:45.

I read last night instead of watching TV. I am reading a very interesting book called "Saving Jesus from the Church...How to Stop Worshiping Christ and Start Following Jesus". The author is Robin R. Meyers from Oklahoma City. Verrrry interesting.

I will meet Phyllis F. for dinner tonight. We are both widows although she has been a widow for ten years. She has a part time job...something I probably need to do in the spring...hopefully the job market will improve by then.

More later...after I find out about my droopy red eye.

The eye is drooping because the muscle has relaxed. Roger wants me to have eye lid surgery to correct it. The lid rubbing on the eyeball is making it red. And the left lid droops all the time. I have an appointment March 30th in Wichita but Roger wants to talk to several of his colleagues and see if they can recommend a doctor in Joplin or Tulsa. Otherwise, he wants me to see this doctor in Wichita. I will know by the middle of the week. Leslie has agreed to take me.

I went to see Gerry this afternoon. She is not at Windsor. She is still in the hospital. She may be back at Windsor tomorrow. But she is going to have to have another disk repaired. So far she has had three of these procedures done.

So I went to see Phyllis before I went to the hospital. Phyllis' cold is better but she is not sleeping at night. She is sleeping in the daytime instead.

While you're here, check out Robert Reich's blog over on the right side of my blog. He talks about "America’s Two Economies, and Why One is Recovering and the Other Isn’t".

Computer Problems

The desktop computer is crashing regularly now. I awoke at 3:00 this morning and went to the bathroom. The dreaded blue screen was on the computer. I rebooted it and attempted to check my blog but it crashed again. I rebooted again and it crashed again. This time I ran it through disk check and if it doesn't stay up this time, I guess I'll just shut it down. I am hoping Keith can fix it while he's here for Thanksgiving. Luckily I have this laptop so I'm not entirely out of luck.

I talked to Bob A. last evening and he told me Phyllis has a terrible cold. I had intended to go see her after the 11:30 till 1:00 CMA meeting but I sure don't want a cold and she was not up to visitors yesterday anyhow. I need to go see Gerry again today so I'll check in and see how Phyllis' cold is doing while I'm there.

I went to the mall yesterday to check on the booth. Someone had taken the instruction manual and recipe book for the small ice cream maker. I tried to get one online but they are no longer making it. So I just brought it back home. It's worthless now without a manual. I do not understand the mindset of people who steal. They had stolen one of the candle holders to the dishes last week. I think I'll just give them notice and pull my stuff out of the booth.

I'm going to meet Cyndi for breakfast this morning. I will discuss it with her.

I decided to wait until Spring to make that decision. Meanwhile I paid Cyndi $9.50 in booth rental that my stuff didn't sell enough to earn. She made over $200 cause she has a lot more stuff to sell between her and Jeff. Our booth rental is $53.00 a month. The only people who are making any money are the mall owners.

The House

Well, the Republicans won the house but not the Senate. There's a message in that...no doubt. People wanted change when they elected this president but the change he brought wasn't the change they wanted. He continued the policy Bush started of bailing out the rich and letting the middle class stew in their own job losses. He needs to initiate a federal jobs program to fix the infrastructure and hire some of those jobless people to work at those jobs. That would accomplish three things...put people to work, circulate some money and fix the infrastructure at the same time.

He also needs to make the banks make loans for small businesses and not just those giant businesses who are taking the free stimulus money and pocketing it and paying off their CEOs instead of using it to hire people.

Surely he can see that. Yet he is becoming one of those politicians that bow to the special interests. That is just what he campaigned against. He needs to learn that you can't just get by on your personality. He needs to fulfill some of his campaign promises if it's not too late with the Republican taking the House. He's very lucky they didn't take the Senate too.

And...we're still at war. I voted for him to get us out of Bush's wars. If he does that though, there will be thousands and thousands of vets returning to the no job situation. Still he may be a one term president if he doesn't do that.

Hopefully he will get the message before it's too late.

VOTE Today!

It's not as important who you vote for as that you exercise your right to vote. It will be interesting when the results are in because pollsters rely on land line telephones for their polls. Many people do not have land lines anymore. They only have cells. So this will make the election a little harder to predict ahead of time. I will go to vote when the polls open at 7:00 AM. I have never missed an opportunity to vote in all my years. I hope each of you will vote too.

After I vote, I will read my book and then go to Independence and mess around until time to meet Leslie for lunch. She was going to paint on Jeromy and Marlene's house after work. She painted after we got home from Branson on Sunday. She is an excellent painter.

Then after lunch, I will go to Wal Mart in Independence and get a few things.

Tonight I will watch PBS. A couple of my favorite shows are on TV. One is American Experience and the other is Frontline.

Yesterday I packed my shoebox for the Samaritan Child project. I'm glad I got it done. I was afraid I was going to forget it. Now I need to put it in the car. Anything I don't want to forget, I put in the car. If I go anywhere, it's in the car and if I'm home, the car is in the garage.

I went to have lunch with Leslie and enjoyed that. Then I stopped by the church on the way home and left the Temple School material for the class on Sunday.

Now I will read this afternoon and watch TV later this evening.

The Country's Delimma - Power

Relational power is not unrealistic for national policy. Relational power does not mean the abdication of self-interest. Rather, it requires the recognition that our interests are inescapably intertwined with the interests of others. Economically, this is obvious. But an image of nationhood suggested by true relational power goes further than economics. It affirms that the richer the total economic, cultural, spiritual, and intellectual life of others, the richer our potential for aesthetic value relations. The greater their beauty, the greater our joint beauty can be. Thus relational power involves our openness to every dimension of the lives of other persons and nations.

If we take seriously Alfred Whitehead’s claim that the fundamental form of order and hence of value is aesthetic, and the accompanying principle of relatedness, it is obvious that unilateral power (the ability to affect without being affected) inherently inhibits the growth of value in human experience.

Relational power (the ability to be affected, to create oneself, and to affect others by having first been affected by them) is the essential foundation for the growth of such aesthetic value. The acceptance of beauty as the primary criterion of value, and of relational power as the means of producing such value, necessitates the development of new images of personhood and nationhood. We must reject those images arising from substance philosophies and shortsighted pragmatism which falsely elevate success in the pecking order to the supreme image of ideal personhood.

Bob Mesle

My Branson Photos

Photos below are those that Sheri sent. These are the ones I took. The top one is of Sheri, Karan and Leslie. The one on the right is the entertainer with whom Sheri took my photo. The one below is the three of them at the restaurant with the taxi. My other photos did not turn out to be anything but Leslie's condo. We had such a great time. These gals are really great fun. We do this once a year. It's our mother/daughter weekend.

My brother-in-law came over and let the furnace man in on Friday and he fixed the furnace. It was the ignition. My furnace is slowly falling apart...one part at a time. If it just keeps doing that, I think I can afford to have it fixed. If it just doesn't die altogether.

Back Home on Sunday

We had a wonderful weekend. We left on Friday morning for Branson. Met with Sheri at Joplin at the Cracker Barrel. We did some light shopping and then ate lunch there by sharing the lunch. That was the way to go. None of us overate that way. Then we loaded our luggage into Sheri's truck. Sheri drove us to Branson and Leslie's timeshare.

That afternoon we shopped at one of the discount malls. I bought some PJ's and some underwear which I badly needed. The others bought clothing and Christmas gifts. That evening we went to Outback Steakhouse where we once again shared our meal.

That evening we stayed at the timeshare and watched HBO movies.

Saturday morning we went to the usual breakfast restaurant (the one that looks like the 50s) for our breakfast. There was an entertainer there who did an imitation of several famous country singers. We tried to get him to do Barbara Mandrell but he said he would have to think about that.

Afterward we went to the other discount mall where I bought a sale sweater. I could use the sweater because it was pretty chilly at that time. We ate at Branson Landing at the Mexican restaurant and once again we split our food. That afternoon, I broke down and bought a second sweater. Then I finished my limited Christmas shopping.

That afternoon we shopped at Branson Landing. And, once again, we watched TV and rested. We ate brunch the next morning at Montana Mike's. Then we came back to Joplin and picked up Karan's car and came home. Bob Avery fed my pets while I was gone.

The top photo is me when we packed to leave. What about that T-shirt photo? Karan has a wicked sense of humor. The third one is that entertainer with me and the last ones are Karan and Sheri and Leslie and me.

By the way, I have no idea what the repair on my furnace will be. I don't have the bill yet.