Meg

The latest word on Meg. She will have surgery Monday. Maybe............

Update on Meg

The latest, as far as I know it, is.. If anything is going to be done, it will be tomorrow. This means I know nothing. Really. Will try to keep you posted but I hope I have more definite news.

Waiting

Donata, first I want to tell you how sorry I am that you had to read about Meg on my blog. Neither Bob nor I had any idea you didn't know. Next time something like this happens in the family I will not post until we are sure everybody knows.

We still don't know what is going to happen. Meg has an artery that is 85 % blocked and one with a lesion. The blocked artery is a bendy (for lack of a better description) one and would be too hard to put a stint in. The one with the lesion also needs to be fixed. Last night we thought Meg had agreed to open heart surgery. This morning Bob went to the hospital and Meg said she may not have it. She is going to talk to a couple of surgeons this morning , I guess to see what her options are. If she opts for the surgery, it sounds like it will be this afternoon.

I guess what I am trying to say is, we don't know yet what is going to happen. Keep Meg in your prayers, and will let you know more as we know more.

Weather

We are getting kind of tired of the weather we are having. Rained steady all night (poured for 30 min.) with a good wind. never did get over 52 deg. Really made for a damp cold night. We are supposed to have rain for the next 5 days. Hope we get some of this in July and August when we really need it.

I get real nervous when it rains and after Friday and Sunday nights, even more so. The lights flickered two nights at work last week. If we lose power during a downpour, our sump does not work. I have been after Bob to call Thrasher, and he did yesterday. They are coming out June 6th and will put a battery on our sump that will kick in if the power goes off. You don"t even want to know what they cost. But, still so much cheaper than a flooded basement.

Bob left the house this morning before I got home from work. Meg is in the hospital and soon to undergo a heart cath. She has had some really bad chest pains lately. Mary took her to the emergency room yesterday and they kept her. ( For those of you who don't know, Meg is Bob's sister). Bob just called and they are about to start the procedure. Will post the results as I get them.

Weekend

A three day weekend !! Too few and far between. We had storms here in town Friday night, with winds up to 60 mph. As we were driving around town Saturday, there were trees and branches down all over. Some parts of town were without power for up to 3 hours.

We went out to one of the cemeteries Saturday afternoon, and that was kind of sad. So many people had gone out Friday to decorate early. So many vases contained fresh bouquets of flowers that were shredded or almost destroyed. Many bouquets of artificial flowers were blown out of vases and across the cemetery. Some blown so far you couldn't find and empty one to put them back in.

There were a few men working but not enough to clean up the entire cemetery before Monday. There were branches, twigs and leaves down everywhere. Had we known, we would have taken a rake and done some work around Gene's grave. It really wasn't a pretty sight.

Today we went to Bob's home town and decorated his parents graves. No tree damage there, but we had a straight south strong wind. Then we went to a nephew's birthday dinner. Just family, which was quite a crowd as he has 9 brothers and sisters and their families. The food was awesome and of course we ate too much. The family was going to meet at Jim's house after the dinner, but we decided to go to the local Catholic cemetery first where Jim's parents and other family members are buried. This cemetery serves a very small Church with a dwindling parish. Upkeep is becoming a vital issue. As we pulled up to the cemetery, we could see a stock trailer pulled off on the side road and a pickup and trailer in the cemetery. Half of Jim's family was there. One of his brothers and 4 assorted son-in-laws were on riding mowers getting the cemetery ready for Monday. This cemetery is at least 5 acres. The younger guys had their brew with them and it was quite a site. Jim's dad would have loved this !!! Don and Ann"s (Bob's Sister) graves looked so nice. Besides the flowers, they had matching veterans flags. Ann served overseas during WWII and reached the rank of SGT. She also had a full military funeral.

Trying to imagine what veterans went through during all of the wars, is almost impossible for most of us. What must life have been like ? At times the outlook for the world was pretty grim, but they kept on fighting. Never knowing what terrible battle was next. Ann, like many others, had siblings and family spread through out the world. At times they weren't allowed to tell their families where they were serving. I remember reading old letters from my dad to my mom. They would start out, Dear Alice and end with Love Arvid. So much would be blacked out by the censors you couldn't get the gist of the letter. News traveled so slow then. If a family member was killed or wounded, it could take weeks to find out. I remember Bob telling of one of his brothers serving somewhere overseas during the war. He figured out how to let his dad know where he was by commenting on a Church in a town where they had passed through. Bob's dad knew what he was talking about and could tell where he was. So important for a parent to know and so important for a son to know a parent knew. How did these people take the stress, worry and hardships? They were a generation like no other. To these people we owe our world as we know and enjoy it today. These little flags we put out at memorial day? They seem so small and insignificant. No they aren't !! They are what thousands of our troops died for. They are for their families, friends and country. They are for the life so many wanted and gave up for us. If you do nothing else today, honor a veteran. Juneshgp brought up the song title in her blog that I think says it all. "Proud to be an American". God Bless The Veteran!

After leaving the cemetery we stopped and visited friends, Bonna and Gary. Had to catch up on family. (Grand kids) Bonna has a new 7 month old granddaughter. What a sweetheart !! She has long dark hair down to her shoulders. Curly of course. Looks just like Curtis!! Even had a picture of Curtis cutting her bangs. Scared me, but the after pictures were great.

Then we went to Jim's house for a few minutes to say our goodbyes. An hour and a half later we got on the road. By the time we hit city limits, we still had a strong south wind and it was 93 degrees. Storm warnings were out. Bob cranked the air and I napped on the couch. I could hear the storm updates on the TV. We were to have winds up to 70 mph. Hail, rain etc. The worst missed us and landed in Iowa. Up to 7 deaths due to tornadoes.

Which brings me to why I am posting at this time of night.. Morning.. When I say Bob had the air cranked, I mean he had it set on freeze. I am now in my room in the basement with my little heater running. Running.. Running..

Miss Named Blog

I am really beginning to think I might have picked a better name for my blog. "Stupid People" would have been more appropriate. It is just that I have so much ammunition from the people I work around. I don't mean the peons, I mean the big shots.

I promised another story on stupid people, but since that, 2 stories have come up. I will deal with one now, and another later. The "view" was back in last night. He was doing windows in some very tight and scary places, so I checked on him often. Don't any of you dare give me any flack, saying I was just there for the "view". This really is a safety issue !!!!

This brings me to the topic of "stupid people". Why has he been in? A department head decided he wanted windows washed. I don't mean inside cubicle windows, I mean inside windows facing the outdoors. Not the outsides, as we are 2 stories up, just the insides. These windows haven't been washed in 20 years, if ever... I challenge all of you to get up at 3:00 A.M., go to an outside facing window with the idea you are going to wash it. What do you see? Black. Nothing else. You wash it, think it looks great and forget it until morning.

Then the sun comes up. Then you see the streaks . Then you see the dirt still on the inside of the window you thought looked pretty good. Then you see the dirt on the outside of the window.

As a department head, if you saw the results of the first nights job, would you continue to pay someone $35 plus an hour to wash windows????

Not me !!!! But then again, I am not a department head either.

I am a peon.

Shifts

This morning we had our youngest 3 grand kids while "mom" had a tooth pulled. Our daughter-in-law's mother's day was a day from _ _ _ _.. She had a tooth ache that wouldn't go away. Not having a dentist, she couldn't get anybody to see her on an emergency basis. She wasn't able to find a dentist who would see her until Tuesday. By that time her tooth was infected, and they wouldn't do anything. Go home, take antibiotics for a week and come back.

We always have a great time taking care of the kids, but something happened since they were here last. Peyton, the youngest , has always been so sweet and fun to watch. Since his last visit, he has decided he is a mommas boy. Peace lasted 5 minutes. From that point on, he cried for 105 minutes. Straight. I told grandpa we were taking shifts. Five minutes each........ We walked, we rocked, we tried bottle and I even tried changing a dry diaper. Damien and Raidyn had a ball. The poor little guy finally fell asleep on my lap, but managed to cry in his sleep. Soooo pathetic.

Mom got here at 9:15, not looking too good herself, and wasted no time in getting her boys home. Little Peyton was still crying on her shoulder in his sleep as they left.

Long morning for Grandpa and Grandma !! Longer day for mom ??

The Graduate !!

This weekend our oldest daughter Kellie, graduated from college. It took her a while , but she finally made it !! She turned in her final papers six days ago so didn't know her last grades. Sunday morning she was up at 5:00 A.M. reading the morning paper. That is how she found out she was graduating magna cum laude. What a thrill for her.

We are very proud of her as she put a lot of work into it. Way to go Kellie !!!!

Undecided

I am undecided on what to write about. I sooo want to continue with "Stupid People" but decided I would save that for later. Instead I am onto another topic that could be considered "stupid".

Unions. I have been a member of one or the other for almost 25 years. Believe me, they are great, up to a point. Without them I don't know where some of us would be. Big business would definitely be a lot bigger and the working person would be at minimum wage in in what are now union protected jobs.

BUT. Some of our union rules border on the insane. Especially now with all the downsizing that has gone on. Our plant has 78 people on 3rd shift. A few short years ago we had 600 or more.

On occasion I have to use the east freight elevator. These have large double doors. Ours has a wooden slated door on the outside and a heavier metal one on the inside.
You push the wooden one up first and then the metal one. To close you use straps to close the wooden one and then the metal one. Last night I needed the elevator twice. No problem with the wooden one but I could hardly get the metal one open. It was no easier to close. The second time, I could hardly get it opened and closed at all. When I got to the lower level, I hollered to Moe, our oiler, and asked him if he could tell me what the problem was. He is a really nice guy and it took him 2 minutes to tell me the door was off it's track. His response was "not my job". He called a mechanic and his response was, "that's a riggers job". (No riggers on 3rd shift.) Moe asked the mechanic if he could leave a message for the riggers on 1st. shift to fix the door. Mechanic's reply was, "that's the lead hands job". Mechanic asks Moe if there is anything else he needs. You are not gonna believe this one !! Moe says, " double cheese burger and large fry " and leaves me standing there. I am totally speechless, which I think is probably a very good thing.

In the mean time, I still have to get to the 2nd floor. Not knowing if I will be able to handle the door by myself, I really have no choice but to give it a try. I make it there and get the doors closed. (My armpits are killing me !!) I feel like I pulled an elephant around the plant. After all of this, I still don't know if a work order has been put in. If I need it tonight, and it is not fixed I am not sure what to do. I know I could try, hurt myself and go on light duty. Then there would be hell to pay. Or, I could try it and get stuck in the elevator until someone came along and got me out. I do have choices !!

"Butt Crack"

If this subject is too much for some of you, you may want to go away and come back another time. I just feel like this subject needs to be addressed by somebody. You women out there know what I am talking about.

Just what is the difference between men and women anyway? Jeans and slacks are a very common item of clothing for both. "But", they don't have the same effect. A woman can put on a pair of pants, work all day, bend, reach, crouch and anything else, and nothing. "But", a man puts on a pair of pants, does all these same things and what do you get? Right. "Butt Crack".

What brought this subject up? A guy came in on 3rd shift to work in my department last night. (What he was doing is another story for "stupid people" that will be coming up sometime in the future.) Back to my story. He is using 2 different ladders washing windows. One is the safe kind with four legs and hand holds. The other is one he is just propping against the wall. Since we are the only ones there, I check him frequently to make sure he hasn't fallen. As I enter the offices, he is up on one of the ladders trying to reach the windows. Of course his back is to me so I can't see his face. You have all ready guessed. What do the eyes focus on first? "Butt Crack". Not that we women intentionally look for the "view", it is that it is so prominently displayed !!!

I try looking everywhere but at the "view", and ask if everything is all right and did he need anything? He stops what he is doing, pulls up his pants, and says no thank you.

Anyway, I go to break, and me and the girls discuss "butt crack". None of us understand it, we just know it exists. We have all witnessed it nuuuumerous times. I guess my question is, does anybody know why slacks of any kind react differently on a woman's body than they do on a man's body? If I can collect enough information, maybe I can contact pant makers and get this issue resolved.

Please send all suggestions ASAP, as he is coming in again tonight on 3rd shift.

Thank you.

Zero Tolerance

We have a zero tolerance policy at our plant. It is very specific. Very clear. Should be no doubt in anybodies mind what it means.

Last Thursday night at work, two men had an "incident". Two men had words, many words, and one punched the other one. A plant official was called in at 2:30 A.M. to handle it. The "Puncher" was sent home on a three day cooler, pending discharge. The "Punchee" was sent to the nurse to be examined. He was the victim, pronounced physically fit, and went back to work.

Monday morning was the big meeting between the two men, union officials and the plant "big wigs". Something funny happened on the way to the meeting. The "witness" didn't remember seeing a thing.

Moral of this story? If you punch someone in the work place, do it in front of someone with with bad eyesight or a very short memory.

"Puncher" is back to work with 3 paid days off.

Halogen Lamps

For those of you who have these in your homes, I am telling you now, please get rid of them !!!!!! They are sooooo very dangerous. We had one explode in our living room Friday night. By the time Casey got downstairs, the damage was done. So fast !!! Bob didn't hear it, nor did I.

My sofa is burned. My love seat is burned. I counted 30 burns on our living room carpet. I say 30 because I was too sick to my stomach to look any further. The pieces flew about 10 feet from where the lamp was sitting. Landing everywhere. I was able to find 2 pieces of the actual bulb. It looks like the rest just melted into whatever they landed on.

If you have them, I suggest you put them out for the garbage man right away. We will be calling our insurance man tomorrow, and I suspect, I don't know why, we will be paying a bundle. Seems to work that way. Don't know why we pay for homeowners insurance. Could have been worse I guess. We could have had an all out blaze !!!!

Uncle Myron

Uncle Myron went home from the hospital last Friday, after 7 days . There were 3 more cases of this ( can't spell it & can't pronounce it) before it came to an end. The hospital isn't saying much about it. You can come down with it up to 70 days from the time you are exposed, but Bob's doctor isn't too worried. Uncle Myron is very weak and slow to get around. Rose told me she even thought about discussing a nursing home with Aunt Eva and Uncle Myron. I laughed until I cried. If you only knew my Uncle Myron !! If he can breath and walk from bedroom to kitchen and back, he will not leave his home. I would not have wanted to be in Norfolk had I known she was going to bring up such a subject !

My brothers and I, along with our cousins can tell you many stories of doing things we really didn't want to do because Uncle Myron "asked" us to. Everyone of us, to a person, was scared to death to say no. How many times did I sit on a river bank, baking in the sun, wanting to go somewhere cool but scared to death to say so? Because Uncle Myron wanted to go fishing with "Barb". Many , many days. It would be too darned hot for the fish to bite I thought. I got lots of bites. Mosquitoes and gnats !!!!!!! Uncle Myron? He just kept pulling the fish in and telling me about proper bait . We were using the same darn stuff !! Even the fish were too scared to not do as "Uncle Myron" wanted ...................

Stupid People

A little background information before I start in on them. As some of you know I work in a factory here. It is very old (built in the twenties), huge and has a flat roof. That is where the problem starts. I have seen many summers where we have had entire roofing crews work all summer just patching it. There is so much tar up there, I don't know what keeps the roof from caving in. With any rain, we have leaks through out the plant. Sometimes the word "flood" best describes it. We had heavy rains in town last Friday. Sometime after the office people went home for the weekend and before I came in Sunday night, a ceiling tile in one of the offices became saturated, leaked and finally fell. Unless you have seen what a wet ceiling tile does on impact, you have no idea what a mess it can make. Picture the average workplace desk. Stacks of papers, planners, notes, telephone, calculator,computer, keyboard, pictures, knick knacks and stuffed animals. I know, I don't understand the stuffed animals either, but they are there. Then picture all that stuff plus the desk, floor and walls covered with thousands of pieces of exploded ceiling tile. What a mess. It took me all of 4 hours to clean that one office. I asked my lead hand to contact someone about removing another ceiling tile that was quite saturated so it wouldn't fall the next time it rained. He did, and the carpenter came yesterday and removed it. One more bit of information before I start in on stupid people. It was a woman's office.

When "That Woman" saw her ceiling tiles gone, she called some "Hot Shot" (engineer) in the plant and wanted her ceiling tiles replaced right now!! "Hot Shot" calls the shop foreman . Carpenter is called and does as he is told. "That Woman" is happy her office is all put back together and pretty again. "Hot Shot" pats himself on the back for a job well done and goes back to work.

"That Woman" is a department head. You would think, she would know why one tile was gone and why I wanted another removed. After all, her carpet was soaked and there were waste baskets all over her office collecting rain water. I had laid all of her papers, notes, books and planner all over the hallway to dry. Did she really think replacing those tiles would fix the leaking ceiling? Lord help us all if she did.

And what about "Hot Shot"? An engineer no less. Been in the plant for years. What in heavens name was "Hot Shot" thinking? Or not thinking. He knows that plant as well as any of us. Maybe "Hot Shot" was trying to impress"That Woman". I don't know.

It started raining last night at 9:30. Hard.... I didn't get to "That Woman's" office until 12:00 A.M. or P.M. Is midnight A.M. or P.M.? Doesn't really matter. It was raining hard !! As I unlocked the door and stepped in, I said "Oh _ _ _ _" !!! Water, water everywhere. I didn't know where to start first. Waste baskets !!! I stand in that office, and all I can hear is rain hitting most of the tiles above me and pouring in throughout the rest of them. I know the original tile is going to fall. I can only hope and pray it waits until "That Woman" is in her office and at her desk when it happens. No such luck. I was frantically moving all of "That Woman's" stuff out of the way when it fell. I had my back to it so I didn't see it coming. It scared the _ _ _ _ out of me !! Sounded like a cannon going off. As I was trying to get away from the cannon, I hit my wrist on the wall. I thought it was broken or sprained at first. I was lucky. It just hurt for a while. I cleaned up the rest of the office ( not my usual best effort) , covered computer, other papers, file cabinet and lap top with plastic, shut out the lights and left.

Then I went to the rest of the offices and dealt with all the other leaks.. I am now in the "safety" of my own home. I say "safety" , but that too is is questionable. That is for all of you who know about our basement problems.

As I sit here at my computer, I am trying to picture what might be happening at work. Is "That Woman" calling "Hot Shot" about her missing ceiling tile? Do they even think about her soaked items laying all over the isles? The things that are covered in plastic? The waste baskets half full of water? I can imagine the conversation now. "That Woman" will call "Hot Shot" and tell him one of her ceiling tiles is gone again. "Hot Shot" will call the shop foreman again and demand that "That Woman's" tile be replaced, this time to be left where it is. Trust me, the next time it happens, I will leave it right where it falls. "That Woman" needs to see, and show "Hot Shot" what happens when you replace tiles that shouldn't otta be replaced !!

Aunt and Uncle

This weekend we went to Norfolk to see my Aunt Eva and Uncle Myron. They are pushing 90 and neither one is doing well. We stopped at my cousin Rose's house first to see where her parents were. We thought Aunt Eva might still be in the hospital. As it turned out she was home, but they had to put Uncle Myron in the hospital. While at Rose's we also got to visit with her daughter, Sonja. Sonja had a little boy last July and in August was diagnosed with cancer. She and her family moved in with Rose, so Rose could take care of her and her children while she started treatments. It is supposed to be a curable cancer(if you live through the treatments). She started cycles of chemo first. She has thought several times she was done with it but the tumors just aren't shrinking like they are supposed to. She won't go on to radiation until they see more improvement. Then we went to Aunt Eva's house and stayed with her for a while.Then on to the hospital. Uncle Myron is suffering from an inoperable (due to his age and physical condition) hernia. Pain, diarrhea and dehydration are what put him in the hospital. We stayed a while and as we left I held his hand and gave him a hug and a kiss. Bob shook his hand and we left. We had business in Hartington so we headed there next. When we were finished, we headed for Yankton to meet my brother and his wife for supper. Then we headed for home.

We had left Lincoln at 7:30 A.M. and it rained the whole day. Very cold with winds gusting 40 to 50 mph. When we would park in a parking lot, the pickup would actually rock from the wind. We were really afraid it might turn to ice and snow.

Saturday afternoon I got a phone call from my cousin Rose. When I heard her voice I was sure something had happened to Uncle Myron. Not so. She said, "Did you touch Dad's hand?" I thought this was weird, but I said yes when I came and when I left. She asked if Bob had touched his hand. I said he shook his hand when we left. She said, "that is what Dad had told them". (He is still pretty sharp mentally). As it turns out, he has an antibiotic infection he contacted in the hospital. You guessed it. It is contagious and passed on through "hand" contact. This (it's a long two word, unpronounceable) condition is most dangerous to someone Bob's age and the very young. She said they told them we should both call our doctors and tell them we were exposed. My understanding is, we would be in more danger if either one of us had been on certain antibiotics, which we haven't been. Bob will talk to his doctor this morning and I am just going to wait and see what she says before deciding to call mine.

Needless to say, he can only see immediate family members now, and they have to capped and gowned. And no touching! Uncle Myron and Aunt Eva have been married 62 plus years, and I betcha, she don't leave without her kiss !! She is a feisty old gal !!

An added footnote. Rose said the doctors told them, 3 million people a year contact this while hospitalised. Amazing !!!

Tax trivia

-The Gettysburg address is 269 words, the Declaration of Independence is 1,337 words, and the Holy Bible is only 773,000 words. However, the tax law has grown from 11,400 words in 1913, to 7 million words today.

-There are at least 480 different tax forms, each with many pages of instructions. Even the easiest form, the 1040E has 33 pages in instructions, and all in fine print.

-The IRS sends out 8 billion pages of forms and instructions each year. Laid end to end, they would stretch 28 times around the earth. Nearly 300,000 trees are cut down yearly to produce the paper for all the IRS forms and instructions.

-American taxpayers spend $200 billion and 5.4 billion hours working to comply with federal taxes each year, more than it takes to produce every car, truck and van in the United States.

-The burden of compliance is the equivalent to a staff of 3 million people working full time for a year, just to comply with the taxes on individuals and businesses.

-The IRS employs 114,000 people; that's twice as many as the CIA and five times more than the FBI.

-60% of taxpayers must hire a professional to get through their own return.

-Taxes eat up 38.2% of the average family's income; that's more than for food, clothing and shelter combined.

-And that is only the federal tax--not counting state, local, property, sales tax, etc.

Just something I read and thought I would pass along.