Subject: Life
Current mood: Drained
I seem to be a part of an epidemic - "It's been a long time since I posted anything", or some variant thereof, seems to be popping up on all my friends' blogs. And so it begins mine as well...
My extended absence from networking sites can be partly explained by work - I was swamped! Since the end of last month, however, I have had a major slowdown at work, so I'm mostly catching up on filing. We have several major installation jobs coming up so I am going to be busy soon...
Meanwhile, where do I begin...?
Well, I suppose I should update you all on my surgery... My release appointment is Monday at 8 AM. Everything is well - my knee is stable and strong as ever. It has ached a bit lately, mostly, I think, because I sit around too much and it's cold here. Well, it it's cold for Dallas, anyway... It makes my knees BOTH ache! But otherwise, I have no trouble with it.
YAY! No more doctor after Monday!
My ADHD nephew is growing like a weed! Since my last post, he has grown about 3", looks his mother in the eye (she's 5'4"), and has started back to school. This year Michael has consistently brought home good grades - usually 1 or 2 B's and the rest A's. Yesterday he brought home one that - as I remember - was a first: ALL A'S! I am so PROUD of his progress! He was getting decent grades, but HATED the pubic - I mean PUBLIC school he attended. He goes to a private academy which specializes in learning differences like ADHD - about 100 students, with only 8 in his class! I wonder how I might have turned out in a situation like that - My graduating class was 1197, and the largest in the state! We were ranked nationally for size as well!
My 42nd birthday came and went - my mom took me to Shreveport for a 1-night stay at Sam's Town Hotel and Casino. I lost over $100 but had a good time! I got some nice gifts - a few new DS games, like Brain Age, which helps train your brain and staves off mental issues. Well, some - loss of memory, reasoning, that kind of thing. Twistedness is hopeless! I started several times to sit down in October to type out a few thoughts... Then someone wanted to plan some project or other (which never went quite as planned anyway) and derailed my train of thought! I have, I think, become more cynical of late, but I still maintain my basically optimistic outlook on life. I say this because I have begun noting places that would be good hiding places for a body. But I have not tried to use these places for such as yet... I have also noted that I probably will never find a lady with whom I will get married again. I am rather rooted in my current position, and am getting old enough that, should I ever have a kid of my own, I'll consider myself lucky to see them graduate high school! And most of the women my own age, or close thereto, are either taken, or carry enough baggage with them to send my entire family on a week-long cruise! 'Nuff said...
Thanksgiving was held at my uncle's and aunt's house - the one who had cancer in his nose. He's doing fairly well - he's griping because he was HOPING to be over his surgery before I was. I didn't have the heart to tell him it may be another year or so. Meanwhile, he's developed other issues - mostly in his shoulders, for which he ALSO had procedures done to correct them. His meds make him sleepy most of the time, which ALSO irritate him to NO end! It was good to see him, though. Also, his kids, their kids, and my aunt's kids were there, and it was good to see them again. I really would like to have more reunion-type affairs to see all my relatives - I have never met anyone that admitted that. But I would. Most of mine are relatively sane, interesting people.
Christmas was fun this year - we went to east Texas - Marshall and Jefferson, to be precise. We really enjoyed the trip! We stayed at the Hampton Inn in Marshall - my mom has become addicted to nicer hotels than the Motel Six - and rode the Christmas Train in Jefferson, visited Santa Land and took the Christmas Lights Tour in Marshall, and shopped both places. A side note about the Christmas Train and Santa Land: the two attractions are similar. They are tours through a different set area with Christmas light displays set up.
They were really cool! Not for everyone, but definitely a nice family trip. Santa Land was in your own car, and the Christmas Train was (Duh!) on their own train. The Christmas Lights tour in Marshall was sort of the same, except the city set up light displays at different places throughout the city, and you rode in a bus. The driver pointed out the different displays as he drove. Then he took you out into the neighborhoods of Marshall to visit the homes and neighborhoods with special displays of their own. We even had a quest to find Baby Jesus - at one juncture in the tour the driver pointed out a bright star, made of Christmas lights, over eastern Marshall, and like the Wise Men in the Bible, we followed the star to find where He lay. Naturally, He was just a doll, but the thought was neat.
I also liked that, although not all the light displays were Christmas themed, no one said a word about any of it. In fact, both towns seemed to be revelling in the Christmas spirit. The season was enjoyed in Marshall by Christian and non-Christian alike. But I was heartened when, in this secular age of extreme political correctness, my sister pointed out a letterboard for a fast-food-chain restaurant with the message "Jesus is the reason for the season" proudly displayed. I won't elaborate much more, as I will turn an update into a rant...
On a sadder note, my cousin George passed away not long ago. He was very ill, with a lot of battles in the OR to help them, and it turned out to be too much in the end. His ceremony was nice, in his church with many of our relatives from my mom's side of my family tree showing up. Now, George was closer to us than many of the Franklins, largely because we lived closer to them than the rest. He and my father had a lot in common with each other, although they were not the same. But he and his wife Sarah babysat me (and eventually my sister) when we were both younger, and my parents returned the favors as well with Bill and Susan, their kids, so the respective parents could have time by themselves - VERY important in any strong relationship, it seems. Bill and Susan remembered their father to us, and many of their stories reminded me of my own father, who passed away suddenly over 5 years ago. I know my mother and my sister were sniffling, so my misty eyes didn't bother me much. He will be missed.
Now for the main reason for my continued absence from the Web - I fell victim to a terrible
evil. Something worse than drugs, booze, ANY addiction one could think of. And the dealer of this horrible curse is targeting our children, who then suck us into their obsession.
I speak of the evil known as WEBKINS.
Michael's sister (Half-sister, really, but they'll BOTH argue that you can't have a half sibling) got one last year. Then she gave one to him. He infected my sister, who got them each 2 more, and herself 3, and then she decided not to suffer alone - she zapped me. I got a reindeer Webkinz. I resisted at first. He sat on my bedroom desk for 3 whole days. Then - I visited the website, entered the code that came with him...
I was hooked.
Webkinz, for the childless, are plush stuffed toys. They're like Beanies and Pogo.com and Barney, all in one. Take the focus on children from Barney, the games and such from online game sites and the Beanie Baby toys and tie them all together, and you get an addiction worse than tobacco or liquor. Especially for adult children like me. The web site has games that allow you to earn KinzCash, a virtual currency. When you "adopt" a "pet" Webkinz, they get a room, and you get an account and 2000 KinzCash. If you adopt multiples (a certainty if you get sucked into adopting one) you get a room for each one in the same house. You play games (many of which are geared toward learning) and earn more KinzCash, and you can buy food for them, "cook" with them and buy furniture for them. You can even buy additional rooms. Even a yard.
It's more like having children than pets.
And if you overspend, you start playing more games to earn more KinzCash. They spotlight different activities every hour from 4 PM to 10 pm Eastern Time during the week, and 9 AM to 10 PM Eastern on the weekends. You find yourself logging on every hour just to collect the prize, or enter the drawing, or play the game, or whatever is spotlighted.
When you log into the website you're greeted by your pet (or more likely, the last pet you highlighted when you last logged off) with a kiss and some cute sentence ("I'm happier now that you're here!" or "Iw was bored, but now I'm ready to be adored!" or some such nonsense). You can buy a TV for your pet(s) and watch a cooking show, or a ventriloquist whose dummy tells jokes ("My friend the tuna swam to Hollywood. Why? He wanted to be a starfish!") or a variety of silly shows.
You can dress them. You can send them to school, where they earn a "diploma". You can play games with them - I made a game room and put an air hockey game into it. I've even started taking pictures of them (PrintScreen, open Paint, paste, edit, save as JPEG).
I'm telling you - THEY'RE EVIL! Since I got the reindeer (his name is Oscar) I have bought 3 more - a polar bear (named Ivan) a leopard (named Kathryn) and a black and white cat (named Shauna). I know the five stores near me that sells them, and am on the e-mail list of 4 of them.
Someone just shoot me...
