'EMERGENCY' PREPARATIONS

This afternoon I was minding my own business at work when, wham, at 2:06 pm I was hit with a sudden spinny feeling, nausea, mild body aches, headache, and scratchy throat. Uh oh. By the end of of the work day the inner Warning System had sounded it's alarm and lifeonhold went into Impending Illness Emergency Preparedness Mode.

IIEPM is all about food, comfort and a credible attempt to fulfill upcoming work responsibilities. First I pulled up Thursday's check run in case I'm out; that was the only work task that really needed to get done. Next I headed for the grocery store for 'sick food staples'. There's nothing like getting to the 'I think I can eat something again' stage only to find that there's no bread for toast or milk for cereal.

Finally at home, I hastily made homemade chicken soup and did most of the clean-up. For a brief time it seemed I was better again. Do the preps, get the 'I'm all ready to be sick" tasks done, and the evil illness demons cry out, "Curses! Foiled again!" and retreat to catch their victim unprepared at a later date. Or so I hope. But now at the end of the night I'm feeling nauseous again. We'll see the what the morning brings.

FIRST SIGHTING

They're baaaaack!  My beloved wild monk parrots have made their first stop at the dead tree they use as a staging area for my birdfeeder. There they were, three of them, up on the top branches of the tree when I went out to fill the feeder. The scouts squalked and took to flight, leaving this morning's offerings for the house sparrows and other birds that have been feeding for the past month.

Tomorrow morning will be different. I'll hear their squalks about 8 am, and then they will descend to the feeder and dominate it for the next 6 months. A rotation will evolve and other birds will have their feeding times too. I get a peek every workday morning before heading for work and their weekend visits for the price of seed and the care.

Welcome birdies all! 

GHOST STORY, Part 2

READ GHOST STORY, PART 1  BELOW, BEFORE THIS STORY CONCLUSION


Sometime after that I finally brought the topic up to Ellen only to find out that she was also having creepy things happen to her. She also had times when she felt she was being watched and she said there was a very black 'shape' that she could sometimes see in her room which was frightening to her.  

I also learned that the members of Ellen's family were fighting over the grandmother's estate. A while later the estate was settled; with that, all these disturbances and creepy experiences stopped and my cats stopped their 'ghost tracking' behavior ... except for one thing.

Herbie, the cat who took the plunge, decided that the leap wasn't such a bad way to get out of the house, particularly on the Saturday mornings I would sleep in. He never tore out the window like a bat out of hell again, but a few times he carefully, and very deliberately, took the leap to gain his freedom.

GHOST STORY, Part 1

[Edited into 2 parts due to Journal entry size limitations.]

Recent chat talk turned to cats who can see ghosts and since it is close to Halloween and I have such a story to tell, here goes:

Back in the early 70's when I was just getting out on my own, I moved into a house with my new roommate, Ellen; it had been her grandmother's who had just passed away the month before we moved in. Upstairs was the attic with 2 small rooms under the A-frame of the house. One of the attic rooms was my bedroom and across the hall the other was storage for the remainder of the grandmother's belongings. Ellen and I had different schedules and busy lives so we rarely saw or spoke to each other.

Soon after moving in strange things began to happen. I would go to sleep at night and have disturbing dreams like I was blind; the darkness was terribly dark and in the dream I would try to turn on lights all through the house but I could not because I was non-corporal and my hands passed through the lamps. Yet I would awaken to find my bedroom table lamp on. This happened over and over and I was very unsettled by both the nightmares and finding the lights on.

Then there were a few times when I felt I was being watched from a corner of the room, one time while I was in the shower.

My cats, Herbie and Racoon, were also acting strange; they would paw at the storage room door across the hall and at times look like they were watching something in the room that I could not see. Herbie in particular seemed to be challenged by 'the presence' and would sometimes race up the stairs like he was chasing something.

One summer day I had the unscreened window in my small room open and was lying on my bed reading when Herbie tore up the stairs at full throttle, and, without stopping or slowing jumped up and across my bed and out the open window. What followed was right out of a cartoon as he ran in place for a moment, carried forward by his momentum and then fell to the ground, brushing tree branches on the way down.  I just knew he was chasing the phantom. Since it was such a small house the distance was not that great and he was unharmed.

CAUTIOUS INTEREST

A friend of mine of the same age has been testing online dating services for the past several months. This is quite remarkable because in other areas of life she is hesitant to try new things so I'm both amused and very curious about her adventures. She's made numerous contacts and has been on dates with about 6 men; one of them had promise but the distances, and other logistics, were too formidable.

We share some similarities; neither of us have dated in quite some time and we could stand to lose some weight. She is more personable and outgoing and better looking. We could both use a good What Not To Wear makeover.

Our social and group activity levels are in the basement as is our disposable income levels; we both work for small companies where the men are all married or way too young. This makes it hard to meet men and to maintain dating activities. Personally I'm not sure if I have the energy and resources to scour the planet for a mate but this would certainly change if I experienced a bit of chemistry with someone again.

So, I watch my friend and entertain the idea; sometimes I do a search at match.com or other site and spend an evening reading profiles.  Will I ever be so bold?

THE DREAM REMAINS A DREAM

I've had my little break now.

My vision was to be all cozy in my easy chair drinking hot tea and catching up on my reading; I started East of Eden by John Steinbeck back when Oprah selected it for her book club, but it has been languishing on my nightstand along with a book of poems by Billy Collins.  Did I get to these, or any other reading material?  No.

When I finally took my nose away from my computer monitor and accessed the status of the rest of my little world, well, it was a mess, and it would not let me get intimate with my easy chair or spend the time lost in Salinas with the Trasks or Sailing Alone Around the Room with Collins.

Instead I did what I always do. I tasked. It was more linear than usual which was nice, and I did get a lot done, but I'm still looking forward to that special day when my surroundings are peaceful and tidy and I can lose myself for hours in another world. 

MULTITASKERS ANONYMOUS MEETING

When: all day Saturday
Where: favorite living room chair
Challenge: Step AWAY from the Computer

Multitaskers Anonymous?  If there isn't such an organization, there should be for people like me who are slowly developing AAD because we've taken multi-tasking to new outrageous and unhealthy levels.

Last night is a case in point; after yoga I jumped right into TV (Angel) with simultaneous chat activity; with that underway, I added in printing envelope addresses on my computer, updating my checkbook and managing a phone call and a little sisterly IM
session. Needless to say I did not do any of these things very well.  Yet every night I pile on the tasks and by the time I log off for the evening I'm totally wiped.

The Hamster Time Chat is wonderful with both familiar and occasional chatters hanging out. The TV show(s) of the night provide us with a mutual backdrop to the stream of chat and banter, but it's obvious we are also all working away at the Project de Jour and whatever else catches our interests or needs to be done.  It makes for a very casual atmosphere where no one feels they have to be on the ball, or perhaps I should say ' on the mouse', every minute. I enjoy this time and the people immensely, even when not much is going on.

Yet it is good to take a break when the head starts spinning, not specifically from chat, but from the whole multitasking - computer-centric routine. Therefore, this Saturday will be the first 'Meeting' of Multitaskers Anonymous.... "Hello, my name is lifeonhold, and I am a multitasker-aholic...."

......Step awaaay from the computer. It will still be there waiting for you to return.

BALANCE

I'm not exactly 'gellin' like a felon' these days and I apologize to any readers out there for not being happy, witty, and, um, very Christian in my posts lately. This, too, shall pass.

On the positive side, I've excercised after work both nights this week, and tomorrow night is yoga. I used to love morning exercise but I just can't make the committment to get up and out these days. Finally after months of Stubborn Resistance I'm doing after-work exercise and finding that it has not Destroyed My Life as I'd expected. hee. silly goose.  Soooo, I'm anticipating good things from this. 

DO NOT CALL LIST

The National Do Not Call Registry is being attacked in court by telemarketers. They say that it restricts their right to free speech among other things. This is absurd. Just because someone has something to sell does not mean we are obliged to listen. I have already decided and resolved that I will never buy anything from a telemarketer, out of principle if for no other reason. By signing onto the list I am actually saving telemarketers money on their futile calls to my number. They should be glad all the strong-willed sales-resistant public are declaring themselves; the resultant pool of available numbers should make telemarketers more productive.

THE STING CONTINUES

Tomorrow is the meeting with the new Health Plan provider and agent where we will have the opportunity to ask questions about the new plan. I don't want to attend the meeting because I'm still seething about the change and I'm afraid my seeth will overflow in the form of some very pointed questions. My stupid coworkers seem to think the change is no big deal because as long as they see the words "Health Plan" at the top of the paperwork they assume that means actual "coverage". I will not be a trouble maker by interperting it for them, but I sure hope some eyes open tomorrow.

Our company's president told me he wanted something that is positive for both the company and employees, and certainly not something that hurts anyone. Well, I don't know how he can think that shifting more costs (which could be considerable) to the employees and downgrading the content of the coverage is something "positive" for employees.

I'm angry that he wants me to swallow his 'spin' and put on a happy face while being screwed over so blatantly. I feel betrayed by the company I work for, and it hurts.

HAPPY, CALMING THINGS

I did not want my Journal to be so top heavy with recent woes, but did help to write about them even if only to express myself to the great cyber-void. It has helped me move on to daily activities and a few small joys which I'll share here to balance some of the woe-ness I've imparted today.

Good thing #1: Cleaning vegetables brings me a sense of peace, particularly in fall and winter. It is best done when all else is still and quiet, but in the winter I sometimes enjoy listening to A Prairie Home Companion at the same time. This is pretty sappy, but it generates a 'warm home' feeling that is a nice complement to New England winters. Some people create their own, but the rest of us import.

Good thing #2: Despite my recent woes, I did not resort to the comfort of tortilla chips.

Good thing #3: Yoga, even just my weekly class, has helped everything.

Good thing #4: My birdfeeder is up and the house sparrows and squirrls have returned. I am eagerly awaiting my other visitors, the cardinals, chicadees, woodpeckers, and most of all, the wild monk parrots from the Connecticut coastline. They arrived last year at the very end of October, so I'm counting the days now. The wild birds at my feeder and nearby tree always give me a lift, every day.

There. That's four good things for today.

ANOTHER ECONOMIC SLAPDOWN, Part 2

(continued from Part 1 below)

The middle class is being destroyed. I've seen it happening and I'm very frightened about the future right now, not just for me, but for friends, family, the people I went to school with, the people I've worked with over the years. So many are experiencing the same economic suffering. We are middle class people who have worked all our adult lives and been able to afford a certain moderate lifestyle in the past; we're intelligent, capable, dedicated people but we're being absolutely hammered. Our jobs are going away and if we have jobs either our salaries or benefits, or both, are being eroded.

The first companies I worked for in the 70's and early 80's not only had Health Plans, but Dental also, and they funded their own pension plan for each employee. The pensions went first, shifted to employee funded 401k with some employer contributions. Next were the rounds of layoffs in the late 80's and into the 90's (which finally got me in '95 after 14 years). Dental coverage disappeared, and now Health Plans are being pillaged. Pretty soon they will be benefits in name only, so empty of real coverage relief that they will be virtually worthless to the average employee.

When we lost manufacturing jobs the middle class shifted to lower paying retail, sales and service jobs. Now these are drying up, too. What comes next is frightening. In order to keep the economy healthy a certain portion of the wealth needs to be spread broadly across middle and lower incomes. When the middle disappears, or becomes so burdened with expenses there are no buyers then even the retail, sales, and services dry up. Eventually this cancer will work its way up the economic foodchain; in fact it's already beginning to happen.

I don't see anyone addressing what's happening to our country. The problems are systemic and very bad news for more and more for America's workers. We are becoming a country without a middle class, like in South America. I hope I'll be able to look back on these worries one day and see how wrong I was. God help us.

ANOTHER ECONOMIC SLAPDOWN, Part 1

Yesterday the small company I work for unveiled details of the new Health Plan that we're going to in November. It will save our company money, but it does this by limiting coverages, raising deductables, adding exclusions, and most importantly increasing copay amounts for prescriptions. From my point of view, our new Health Plan is great as long as no one actually needs to use it.  It made me break down and cry. A lot.

Perhaps other employees (mostly engineers) can adsorb a $45 - 90 monthly increase in prescription costs, but I, and many more in my wage bracket, and lower, just don't have it. Our disposable income has been long gone and we've been cutting costs for years. Personally I haven't had a raise in about 4 years yet have had to adsorb two increases in rent and other increases during this time, plus taking on more work at my company. 

A CHALLENGE TO MYSELF

I'm about 10 days into a "Lifestyle Change" of the diet variety and starting to see and feel some very modest and appropriate results. Unfortunately what I have to lose is the same 40 pounds I lost in 2000; at that time I was very close to my goal, but now I get to do it all over again. 

At that time, life, or should I say work, intervened. Our A/P - Purchasing person left the company because she felt overworked and underpaid; I took over all of her job plus almost all the job I already had, which was not even in accounting. With two different work streams to juggle, I was at full tilt and at highest efficiency every minute of every day just to keep up. By the end of the day I was too exhausted and pressed for time to exercise or make the effort to eat right. Goodbye successful regime.

After 18 months working like that, and eating a lot of comfort food and quick dinners I regained most of the weight. The situation finally changed after I threatened to quit if I didn't get some relief.

Now after an additional 18 months floundering around trying to get the pieces of my life back togeher (yet another story), I feel able to focus and try the weight loss thing again. So, I'm hopeful. Again.

ALL IS FORGIVEN

Well, the great Journal Fiasco of October 4-7, 2003 has passed and all is well at Message In A Bottle, and, hopefully across all of AOL Journalland. The Blogger Family has put away their knives and cement boots until the next time their precious journals are distorted by some AOL flunkie who forgets to flip some kind of software switch.

Most of us Bloggers will never understand any of the behind the scenes software stuff. Heck, we don't really understand electricity, or trigonometry, or what JLo sees in Ben Affleck. We leave all that to others. However, when something goes wrong with our stuff, and we know things will go wrong from time to time, we want to know exactly how to get real help.

We want to know how to reach the janitor when the plumbing backs up. When sewage is flowing over the sides onto our beeuuuttiifffuul precious journal words and Journal Life As We Know It is coming to an end, and we reach for the Help button, we do not want access only to the canned Help for Idiots. We want an e-mail address or some contact for the actual living responsible person who is AOL's Journals Am Us.

Apparently there is such a person, but access must be restricted only to those who pass the initial Idiots Journaling Entrance Bar. Perhaps when a Blogger gets 1000 visits or posts 100 entries, an e-mail will arrive from a guy name Hal who is AOL's Journals Am Us Guy. Hey, if you ever need me, just enter BLOGMASTER in Keywords and then enter !!!!!!!!!! in the space next to the Journal icon in the Secret Help Page; this is a highly restricted area. If you reveal the Secret Help Page to a Blogger Newbie your journal will be scrambled. Scrambled, I tell you! Press ACCEPT, if you accept these Terms of Help Service. If you do not accept your journal will be scrambled. Again. Bwah.

NO THANKS TO AOL, AT ALL

I think I fixed my journal formatting again after HOURS of trial and error, loads of frustration and NO help from AOL. The Journal Lady would not forward my note to her to Tech Help because, uh, that's not her job. And probably there is no Tech Help out there to forward to. And if there is, they're tired of hearing from Journal people and their problems with AOL's shit software and useless Journal Help page.

I'm not sure if the problem is fixed or not, but a test entry and edit worked out ok. I have to thank Highwaygirl and her problems last Friday night with Hamster Time for giving me a clue as I took shots in the dark in finding a solution. I went to my Internet Options in XP's Control Panel and deleted all cookies, Temporary Files, and set the Days down to 8. Now things seem to be working.

I'm not sure if the problem was caused by so many people visiting my site during it's day (Saturday) on the Today's Top Five selections. At least 300 visitors dropped in and the problems began that evening. I visited other Journaler's pages and noticed they also had format problems just like mine. I would think that AOL would know about this now and update their useless Journal Help page with some simple instructions. It doesn't matter that it was an XP setting that needed attention, it affected one of their features and is apparently a common problem. It would have saved me, and others, MANY HOURS of frustration and 'journal abandonment'.

COMPUTER MYSTERIES

First I let Microsoft.com analyze, download and install "Critical Updates" to their XP operating system. It seemed to go successfully but then I couldn't access the internet. Troubleshoot, troubleshoot, reboot, reboot. That took about a Quarter of the NFL New England - Titans game I wanted to watch.

Then I get into this journal and decide to make some changes to the All About Me section. Since past entries go into an older entries file I wanted to add a link to my first entry about the start of the journal. Apparently this is a Big Do Not Touch That; adding the hyperlink, or trying to, made the entire entry some bizarre computer monster that I have been unsuccessful in changing. The entries seemed to lose their boundaries and did not line feed, and it added plus signs between words. (fixed now, see next entry). Help was, in the tradition of Help, unhelpful. If any computer-types wander in and have The Knowledge, please Help. I'm going to watch the last 8 minutes of the game.

A SUDDEN CHILL

The first good chill of Fall has arrived. It began this Monday and meterologists tell us rather callously, "Get used to it, folks."  My body is rebelling against this advice. It doesn't like this cold and is threatening to *really show me* by throwing out alarming cold symptoms. I've been very tired all week with intermittant chills and scratchiness to the throat. All this could be due to heavier allergies. No matter the cause, I'm draggin'.

My mood turned outright sad tonight. Our usual yoga instructor, Melissa, the physical therapist, was not at tonight's class. Instead there was a substitute instructor who announcing that Melissa's husband had been in an accident and died. Her husband had been at his boat in the marina by himself, fell, hit his head and drown in the water of the Sound. Most of us recalled hearing the news story, but we did not know of the connection to our instructor. Things happen so suddenly, a sudden chill that brings winter into a family, a life. My prayers are with you, Melissa.