IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING

I am not dead. I just have not been able to write, I hope you do not shed many tears.One of these days I will write again.
Till then, I love you all.
Lo

I Have Absolutely No Idea What to Call This....Maybe Status Report.

Oh Fudge!   ........remember when we used to curse like that?  This is too puny for SPF......I jusgt ewant to let you know I am still here but still embroiled in chaos.  I will update this from time to time.  Perhaps July will be better. The Handyman comes to start emptying the dreck from the garagel.  43 years of junk going in.......maybe most of it can go out  tothe dump.  All prayers will be welcome.

Love, Lo

Thought For the Day

Yeh, yeh......I know...... I'm behind in the rent I havent paid my dues and I owe at lest 7,352  blogs.  So sue me.

This is just bit of a cheat.....I do not have the strength or time today 5to write a proper post, bhut5 I am letting you kow that I qam still rattling round here and will 5try to orgaize my mind to communicate shortly.  Menwhile3, I am just pssing along a bit of cheer from Bob Ringwald whose faithful emails....mostly funny.....keep me goint.  This is my favorite.




 
                                      INSIDE

                                       EVERY

                                          OLD                                         

                                       PERSON

                                           IS A

                                        YOUNGER

                                          PERSON

                                     WONDERING

                                        WHAT THE

                                              HELL

                                        HAPPENED              

                                  

Love, Lo


            

                                           
' 

You Asked For It......Lo During the Big War

I am only writing this because at least 2 of you clamored for more about my life as an Air RaidWarden Messenger during the big war.  I am going to have to expand on that subject a bit to give you the full picture of how it was during t6hos days, months and years.

I'lll never forget the day of December 7,, 1941 whebn I came home from a Sunday matinede movie and my Mamma told me,with great concern in her face, that we were at War.  That war affected the world in many ways, but for me, persohnallt ut was a multi-faceted disaster. 
Tenks gott, we did not lose any fmily members but moth of my most beloved cousins were in the armyand one, a medic trapped in the Battle of the Bulge had memories and invisible wounds which took a long time to heal.

A month after Pearly Harbor I found, to my horror, thst we were moving 3000 miles away from family, friends and my beloved Philly to Los 
Angeles California where we Knew no one and had no one except for a single cousin.  It mean being uprooted from my fi4st year of high school with kids I had grown up with to a huge, unfriendly unknown.  If  I had known the word and not b een so shy and inhibited I would surely have uttered my first "SHITPISSFUCK".

However, we will not dwell on ancient horrors......it appear4s that somehow I did survive this death blow and managed to enroll in a new high school (which I hated because everyone was so up[ity and all the girls except me were beautiful.)    Had it not been for a bottomless deep crush I developed on the school's greatest footbaall hero I would never have survived till graduation.

For one thing, early in 1942 when I had scarcely settled into a set at LA High the government decided t6hat all Japanese living in the US were potebntial spies and must be impriioned to protect the U>S from havoc.  No ,matter that the large Japanese population here were mostly at least 2nd generation Americans.....they all had to be banished to internment ccamps.....the one I remember was up north and was called Manzanar.    The sweet little Japanese girl I sat next to on home room could not meet my eyes anymore and within a month they all disappeared.  It felt awful.  

Next allsorts of laws were passed requiring blackout curtains on all windows and any sliver of light earned the trqngressor 30 lashes.  Periodically strange sirens would wail, being tested to warn us against air raids submarine attacks or genberal invasion.  It took  while till they got all that stuff organized and wworking decently.  I do not think the Japanese had yet figured out how to attck us from the vast distance over the Pacific, but undoubtedly they were working on it.

 Meanwhile, I managed to make 2 friends, both of whom had orniginally been from Philadelphia, but socially High School was not a success.  I filled my life with whatever I could gasther.....got a job working after school hand paintintg fancy bottles,the  intended  use of which I still wonder about from time to time.  I had to study hard because the stress rendered me supid and I had a life and death struggle with solid geometry....I don;t know why since I had gotten strasight A's in plane geometry back in Philly.....put it down to more stress.......I lear4rned to bowl and ws the proud achiever of a score of 130 several timnes and in between I   fantasied about and dreamed about Bert Schneider, the football hero who did not know3 I existed, but for whom I would run up and back down  4 flights of stairs between English and History in order to see him pass down the hall opposite me but not even seeing me.

Then one day late in 1941,  my Mamma asked me if I would be interested in becoming an Air Raid Warden Messenger.  One of the tenants in our building hd volunteered to be Warden for our block or section or whatever and .  he needed a Messenger to ptrol with him to run messages back to headquarters in the  event of an event.  I put thoughts of Bert out of my mind anbd said,"Sure".  I seem to recall vguely several meeting in which we were supposed to be instructed in our duties, but I cannot recall a single bit of information which was passed to us at those meetings.  We received armbands identifying us as offical somethings and flashlights, whistles and an amazing looking Gas Mask (p4robqbl6 left over from WW1) all of which get slung over our shouldersw.....there may have also been a helmet of some sort but I would not swear about that.  Then we pr4oceeded to wait for the air raid sirent to summon us to our posts/rounds.  I cannot remember how often the air raid tests were run.  Of course, when the sirenbs went off we did not5 know if it ws merely a test or if Ja[an ws invading Long Beach.  Our ob was to patrol a certain area of the neighborhood and keep our eyes and ears open for any kind of trouble.  After the first few times it was really very boring.  We were si busy keeping our eyes abd ears open and not alling asleep walking that we rarely exchanges an words much less any conversation.  If there was no moon our main preoccupation was in not tripping nd falling down breakibg out flashlight or crushing our gas mask.  When the all clear sounded we went home abd took off our equipment and made sure we put it in a safe place where we would remember it when the sirens wailed again.  This went on perioliclly for the next 3 years and nothing ever happened to cause me to have to run with an mnessages to Headquarters......wherever the hell that was....I do not remember ever bein told where headquartes actually was tho I guess someone knew.

 I remember vividly the night I screwed up my courage and turned to the Warden as we trod the darkness and said timidly, "What are we really supoosed to do if anything really happens?"  He turned to me, looked mesquarely in the eyes and said, "Damned if I know."

Love , Lo

P

And For My Next Number......

This is just  a quick note........several of you showed interest in my brief  career (?) as an Air Raide Warden Messenger back during the Big  War which I entioned ib my lst blog.  Actually, I did write  blog about it a gzillion years ago.....I do not have the energy nor the wit to search back to find it, so I will attempt to recreate it for those of you young whippersnappers who missed alol that fun(?) in my next post. 

Unless something more exciting happens which needs to be reported.........perish forbid!

Love, Lo

Lo's Latest Adventure

So there I was the other night, nestled in my reliner listening to Books on Tape when, suddenly, the whole damned world went away.........the book stopped playing and I was plunged into a darkness blacker than I ever remembered, though perhaps the womb might have been as dark.....I do not really remember that.

Fortunately I knew it was not my failibg visionand had to be an electical failure of cosmic proportions.  The almost funny part was that I got up from my chair intendibg to walk over 4 steps to where I had a flashlight, but once having lost physical contact with the chair I did not know which te hell way was up.  I groped around cautiously for at least 5 minutes abd did bnot encounter anything and it was the weirdest feeling I have had since .......well, never mind.....it was weird and with each effort to find something solid I b ecame more panicky.  Had I suddenly been trabspoted to an unlit closet in the spaceship I am sure is hovering up there somewhere, occasionally shooting strange confusing rays down at me just for laughs?  Still groping and wondering where I was I finally, tenks gott, encountered Glass. A few gropes led me to r4ecognize a sliding glass door at the far end of the dining room and I nearly sobbed in elief.  At least5 I ws still in my own house, though how I had managed to get to that location without tripping over anything or feeling anything solid is still beyond me.  Anyway, I now knew how to feel my way to a flashlight and the world was no longer the depths of a coal mine.

I know they are always telling us to be prepared for emergencies and I have sporadically attempted to do ust that, but after having to dump the tightly covered trash can in my back yard that contained my emergency earthquake supplies because of creepingt mildew and the outdatedness of most of its contents a lot of which was cat food years past its use=by date, I have lost enthusiasm fo such projects.  I did remember that I had a brand new hur4icane lamp in the garage and I actually webnt out and found it, pristine in its box with insgtructions I could not read of course, so Igrabbed a few candles, lit them and stuck them onto a plate, made my way to the bedroom and did what any sensible person would do, I went to bed.

Oooops, not true....I forgot that I had gingerly made my way out the fronbt door clutching my flashlight to see if the rest of the neighborhood was also pitch black and encountered a cr3ew fromn the power company making their way downb the street trying to find the source of the outage.  They asked permission to go into my back yard to examine the powe pole and line nd I gave thenm carte blanch before staggering back in and going to bed.    Contact with a human rather than a creature 3 feet tall with huge eyes did much to reassure me.  Fortunate0ly, my  Braille reader has a battery life of something like 60 hours so I was even able to create a semblance of normality by listening to a Dave Barry book...was I lucky or what?  Thus passed the darkest night since my adventures patrolling the neighborhood as an air raid wardebn messenger during the Big War.  Somehow....that was not nearly as dark......dunno why.  Pauline and I awoke to a sunny day with  appliances either buzzing happily (freezer and frig) and all the others eagerly waiting for me to push their buttons.

The only small disaster centered around the candles which I HAD blown out but which had puddled more wax than one could imagine might be in a little stub of  candle and which had dribbled out of the dish and onto my bedside bookcase, an assortment of old books and, of course, the floor.  I figure I got off easy.  I only had to reset one clock which was plugged in and was about 4 hours behind.

Oy Gevalt. Too muchexcitement.

Love, Lo

PS   I have since learned how to operate the hurrican leamp and have ordered 4 more.  The Boy Scouts had it right....Be Prepared.

aaaarrrrrggggghhhhh !!! Have I Got a Problem???!!!!!

During what I call the Big Blog Disaster one of my beloved readers wrote a comment that  tipped me off to an Ebay offering of the vibrat5ing chair cover that I was lamenting the loss of and was so eagerly seekiung.  When that blog got clobbered by the cyber devils I had to delete it and, of course, lost thecommentts.  Oy.
whicheverr one of you dear souls
Amazingly, in my frantic searches to find a replacement seat cover Ia was led to Amazon and thence to Ebay and managed to buy the  one offered there.  While I `await its arrival I want to thank the dear soul who tried to help me and let you know that you actually succeeded.  A million thanks and please let me know who you are.

Love, Lo

APOLOGY

Horrors! I do not know howa  it happened,, but I seem to have published  blog that was a working draft containing some undeveloped themes and leaviing out other parts.  If I ofended any of you please fo4give me.  I will try to repair the damage as soon as I stop screaming and hittibg my head against the wall.  Sob.

Love, Lo

Ooooops Sorry

Oh, shitpissfuck.

I started a blog a week ago ,,,,,,just me, without dragon.....and I was doing fairly well till I got to what was supposed to be the final pargraph and got bogged down in my own rhetoric.   So I set it aside till y ind cleared abd have been trying ever since to edit it without success,,,,,the comput6er refuses to obey my commands, pleas, threats  and Ihave been afraid I will lose the whole damned thing if I keep meddling on my own so I will wait patiently (?) till Charlotte comes tomorrow to help me out

Hopefully all will be resolved soon.  However, if you hear  blood curdlinbg scream echoing thru cyberspace you will know that something is amiss.  Don't give up......I am doing the bst I can.  And you know how stubborn I am........

Love, Lo

Oy Vey or Hooray,,,,,It All Depends

It all depends. on how you look at it. 

I am checking in with  a very petite, mni-blog just so's you'll know I am still here ranting, raving, griping and complaining and occasionally laughing out loud at how odd life is.

I saw (in a manner of speaking) my Retinologist the other day and was told that my vision, tho losing some ground, is holding up fairly well considering......considering 3what I am not sure.  After all these years of many visits per year he and I have a nice relationship and ofteb discuss deep subjects while he is peering into the deepths of my eyeballs and blinding me even more with some wretched ultra brigh light which turns the whole world magenta afterward.  In my usual brashm arrogant fashion I said to him, " Dammit, why in the hell aren't you guys working on a stem cell injection you can poke into my eyeball to restore the retina?" and he looked at me with a combination of surprise and delight and said, "We are working on that very thing."  Humph, I grumbled.....you had better hurry.......it'll probably be too late for me."  Whereupon he said, "Not at all......we may have something viable by  your next appointment."  (6 months)  At which moment I knocked him to the floor, smotheefred him with kisses and refused to let him up until he promised to put me t the top of the list for testing. 

Of course, that means that once more I face the situation of having to submit monthly or so to a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, but I will gladly endure that process (it really sounds much worse than it feels)  if it will give me back a smidgeon of sight.

Well, that is the news from upper Califa St.  Incidentally this ws writtenb without benefit of Dragon so all of the typos and errors are my own.  Sadly, you are being deprived of Dragon's inimiable humor and I have none of my own to offer today.  Don't despair.....maybe next time.

Love, Lo

You Are NOT Your Body

When I was a tiny tot of 4 0r 5 I vividloy recll stding in the kitchen and looking aroun the room and being convinced t6hat I was enclosedd inside an outer thing with 2 eyeholes and I was look out of them there eyehole the world.  I felt  enclosed bu6t totally separate from my outer container.......my phsical  body that is.    Ever since, I have felt  that my body is merely a vehicle  for my essence.....a very ingenious, convenient and useful container for sure,  but definitely not ME.  Okay, this is when you roll your eyes around and twirl you forefinger at your temple....Lo is over the edge.


Not so my deears.......and if you plan to survive old age you damnmed well better grasp the idea I am trying to convey.  Otherwise, as your body falls apart first this hhunk, then that one, you will have a lot of trouble maint6ianing you sense of self worth.  The good old bod is like a good old beat up car that is still doing its best to get you around and from here to there, sometimes in laughable fashion and sometimes unsucessfully,  but5 you are still there in the driver's seat, more or less intact but having to accept and adjust to the loss of functions.

For years I have been having to tamp down thr rage and disgust that overshelms me when I read a blog on which the writer goes to piieces over a wrinkle or a sagging boob. as if the world were coming to an end over the loss of a crumb of outward apperance.  I simply want to screm,
 Never mind about the outside shell you idiot, clean up the wretched mess of your real self inside!!"

The old saw abou6t the body being the temple of the spirit never reallly resonated for me until I recognized that thet were really telling m,e what I had alread figuered out in my mundane way,

I guess I am writing about this becase I see myself dragging this poor decripit carcass around.....and very cumbersone and inconvenient it is, by the way, b ut this dear old bod has served me well for over 80 years and I am revering it more and more as it becomes less and lesswhat it was.  Never mind that the eyes can't find my glasses, that the ears cause me to beg,"Say again, please"and that I wisely reach for my cane and the railing  when I attempt a flight of stairs.  Hell, I consider that it  is amazing that i still doing stairs  any which way.

Do not think that I am accepting all this decreitude quite as  gracefully as I have made it seem.......the number of shitpissfucks thqt issue forth from my no longer plump and luscious lips increases daily, and we will not try to count the number of times I scream, "Oh, for crisssake, Lo, look what you've done, or haven't done". 
But I am finding it easier to be kinder about it all.   As long as the inner pilot light continues to burn  blue I will cherish the remarkable structure that I dwell in.

And the best thing of all about not identifying with the outer covering is that I can go without a bra, boobs for all to notice and not give a damn.  Oy, does that feel good!
]

Where the Hell Have I Been?.....Damned If I know

Sorry, sorry, I AM sorry.  I know I have been off the map for ages and I am sure some of you have given up on me.

I have been struggling with a passel of stuff.......health issues, the loss of my caregiver, Florence, who hs gone on to bigger, better things and the frantic efforts to find a suitable replacement......oy vey....soch a lot of tsouris.   (that means Trouble right here in River City.)

Things are still in  bit of a mess, but I have one piece of good news......I have found a wonderful caregiver who is willing and seems to be able to step in and take care of me.  I have had another mniracle!   Her name is Charlotte.  I will tell you more about Charlotte in my next epistle.....today I am only writing this  to keep you from scrawling R.I.P across the picture of me you all have by your bedsides.

This coming week will be daunting, but I hope that things will smooth out after that.  \\I hate to keep repeating myself, but MORE LATER.

Love,  Lo

Dragon and Lo....Together Again

Well, here we are… I feel like I'm walking on egg's… No not possessive, plural eggs… I just had to submit to an update which I fear has destroyed all of the precious words that I've taught Dragon in the past. I expect I may have to teach them all again. Sob! I just tried my favorite expletive "ship this spot" and we all know that that isn't correct. I'm afraid to try Michigan the… I better type it…meshugina. Oy vey! How about that it did remember one of the. One of them. We will find out as we go along which lessens need to be repeated… Not that kind of lessons now you've got it. God give me strength!

Shipped shipped shipped… It seems to have a lot of trouble with the word for excrement. Ain't that a hoot… It can say excrement that it can say the diminutive. Sigh!

This will not be a long blog for a number of reasons… I have used up all my energy already for one thing, and I think I am still suffering from the wretched upper respiratory blight that has afflicted me for the past few weeks. I was just determined to try to get Dragon working again and I seem to have accomplished that. I'm sorry that we have not created any hilarious bits for your entertainment, but hope to do better next time. Hang in there you guys.

Love, lo

Bless your dear hearts......I love yez

Thank you SO much for helping me out with y Comment problem.......apparentlythat one odd post was buggered up totally.  Now that thinbgs are working again I an going to fetch my backup computer which contains Dragon and reinstate it here beside my old trust laptop on what was once the dining table.  Migod, I can't remember the last time it served THAT ouroise, tho I hve a vague recollection of clearing off 36 inch3s at the end fairly recently so that a friend and I could gobble a pizza.....or was it a Weinerschnitzel Chili Dog?.........onw of my unk food staples anyway........I hate feeding company on their laps.

This will not be a real post....I am just writing to relieve you all of the responsibility to participate inb my comment investigation.....not that I would mind getting comments for several hundred folks.......a blogger's dream........but it seems cruel to corce and coerce you as Ihave ddone with my piteous whining and whimpering.  I figure I can only get away with it because I am so damned old and I had better nbot overdo that bit of blackmail either.

For all of you fans of my Dragon blogs,  do not despair......the two of us will be bqck soon to confound tittilate and annoy you,  be patient.

As for news from upper Califa street.....I had a new animal adventure the other night.  There I was lounging in my recliner listening to books on tape when I noticed some strang furry activity at my porch buffet.  I knew it was not Possum.....too much fur.......I doubted it was Raccoon......this was black and white not black and brown, and it was not at all catlike so I schlepped myself up to peer out of the window to see what was invading my porch and found the most adorable Mama Skunk and her offspring munching way at the kitty kibble!   Now, I happen to love skunks and even their scent at a great distance.  I decided that, cute as they werem I did not want them to accidentally spray the porch and front wall of my house so I runinated and wrestled for a solution and decided the wisest and most humane thing would be to move my porch buffet off the porch and out of the courtyard to a site in front of the garage.  Sadly, I cannot see my patrons when they visit, but since I can't see much anymore anyway it is not a painful deprivation.  This way any and all including Skunks can come an dine and should my garage door get sprayed, it is metal and can be decontaaminated more easily than stucco and wood.   Those little darlings  were just beautiful though.......sigh......I guess that one sighting will have to do me.

That us all for today, dear ones.........

I have no intention of gtrying to proof read this so any goofs will be all my own work.  I do not for one moment believe that Ican compete with what Dragon cabn accomplish without evebn trying.  Hopefully we will alll be reunited shortly.

Love, Lo

Update to (censored)

For some inexplicable reason my last  blog garnered no comments except for one from my beloved, Joleave any old kind of comment if yoiu can.e Hagy , who somehow got an accidebnt blog wehich I never meant to publish and gbrabbed  back as soon as I could.  Ph well,ssince nothing makes much sense anymore I will not try to figure all that out.  I am writing this just to find out if the commenting sdystem stgill works or if I am doomed to remain commentless.

Please leave any old kind of comment if you can........if you see a few there you need not bother unless you feel  inclined to commiserate.  My favorite cpom[iter u[[ed and doed tpdauy and I am typing this myself on an unfamiliar keyboarded.
did not feel up to coping with Dragon.

By the way, I hadf a nice Thabksgiving because of a briloliant idea I got.....I made my turkey on Wednesday with the help of my lovely caregiver, Anne, so all I hadf to do on thursday was eat turke3y and listen to books on tape.  Hope yo =u all had a grand Thanksgiv ing.

Love, Lo

Update.......the Good News and the Bad News

 The bad news is that Dragon is dead.  I did NOT kill it......Windows Vista did/

We had to uninstall it and reinstall it from scratch.  Sob.

The good news is that I am the subbornest damned mule ever hatched, born or created from leftover parts.  I am determined to get Dragon working again.  Making some progress.  Managed to read
Susie the Singing Swine again with Florence reding it and whispering it into my ear.  I cannot read fast enough to satisfy Dragon.......but we made it.

I am going through the tutorial to learn the basic commands and I must say I am impressed.  If I can ever learn and remember theem it will be wonderful.  However, one small step at a time.

I will report in again when more progress has been made. 

Pray for me.

Do I have the only Dialog Blog in Cyberspace?

And if so, are we (Dragon and I)  George and Gracie, Rowan and Martin or Abbott and Costello?????u

OY !

The good news is that I have come to love Dragon.

T^he bad hnews is that, just nhow, in trying to obediently do an update which was described as a "must" I may have accidentally slain Dragon.  I certainly hve caused it to stop working altogether.  Damn and Hell.  Sob.  I am going away now to call my Computer Doctor and see if he can find the problem or I ay have to reinstall Dragon 12 and reteach it all my favorite words including SPF.   Groan.

If ever there was a more perfect moment for me to utter it, I can't imagineone so I will simply have to type it myself and ask you all to tune in tomorrow when repairs may have been accomplished.

Shitpissfuck........in spades!

Love, Lo

Annie or ""any" meet Rick or "wreck"… Or Lois is tattered, shattered and a few more things

you have before,,,,sigh….  You have before you a tattered, Rick no no no… Shattered wreck… Tattered array… Oh shipped… Sigh… Shit shit shit. Looking back I can see that shattered wreck may be the closest I can come, and it's close enough or perhaps even better than a tattered one I guess.  perhaps I had better start over.(for some reason today Dragon is having trouble capitalizing the first letter of the first word of my sentences… It also seems to be creating separate sentences where there shouldn't be Annie.… I wonder if I can  introduce Annie to Rick?…I think the word I was looking for is annie… Any.   up up up up,    what happened there and what was I saying?   Something about Draagoninmposing some strange phrasing on my prose.  Nevermind.....things can only get better… Or worse.


as I was trying to say, you havebefore you a tattered wreck of a human being who has just spent 15 minutes trying to don her morning schmatah.   in this case the word schmatah describes a shapeless garment that covers me from chin to ankles, processing… Proposed …. you can't do it, can you?… POS S ESS  …  you win… Having long sleeve long sleeves and deep pockets.   The problem is that when I wake up I am not the sharpest crayon in the box, and consequently I spent some time with my head  inside the garment and with arms inside flailing helplessly as I attempted to put my hands through what seemed to be sleeves that had been sewn shut. My ries,  moans and shitpissfucks were thankfully muffled by my head, being buried in cloth, but it was some time before I realized that I had not reached quite high enough, and as attempting to put my hands through the pockets… Upup up… A very frustrating way to begin the day, I'll tell you.  I can only say that I'm grateful that I did not punch through the pockets in my frenzy, thereby rendering them useless from now on. Must be grateful for small favors.

Having finally gotten my hands through the sleeves, and my head through the caller no no no… It's caller no you stubborn mule… … Oh, where was I… I finally got my head out through the top and  I was just about so worn out  I had the impulse to just crawl back into bedand wrute tge day off but I bravely forged ahead, shoved my feet into my slippers   (wrong feed in wrong slippers) and staggered into the dining room where the laptop lives and my day usually begins.
t Of course, before I even sit down at the laptop the most urgent thing is to measure out Pauline's rations for the day. The doctor sternly prescribed 7/8 of a cup of kibble per day, not one chrome? crumb  more, in this drastic effort to reduce her buy a pound so that hopefully she can clean her own fanny and relieve me of the task. I think it is working, but I'm not sure that either of us will live to see the day. She may be suffering hunger pangs but I am suffering the tortures of the damned not only being awakened at five and again at 7 AM for a few morsels to carry her over till breakfast, but faced with having my heart torn to shreds by her piteous looks during the day between feedings when she ply plateunges a dagger into my heart with  her pleading  glances at the empty platette and then at her mercilessly cruel enforcer. Yes, she gets fed five or six times a day in small portions, but apparently does not consider that an adequate meal by any means. I plan to take her to the vet next week for her way in to no no no, I should've known that would not  work… To be weighed praying that she has lost at least 3 ounces. Actually, I do believe that the diet is being good for her because she is more alert and more active.  I remember vividly how much better I used to feel physically when I was on a diet and losing a a few pounds. It was a tossup, though, betweebetween ckthe agony of being hungry all the time and the small pleasure from being able to move more easily. You can be damn sure that neither of us would be going through this if it weren't for the necessity of me following her around with wet wipes. oy vey.

A s  for the new little critter, Tootsie  is doing beautifully... I still have a lot of work to do training her. She'll let me pet her, scratch her chin and neck, her back and  the base of her tail, but she still won't let me pick her up and put her on my lap. When she goes out (which I permit once in a while). She has been very good about coming back when I call her shrieking "Tootsie" and lots of "here pussy pussy pussy pussy" accompanied by much clapping of the hands and some meowing noises. Sometimes she comes back even when I don't call her and I am thrilled to find her lounging on the Mexican tile floor of her sunroom waiting for me or some treat.... I am sure for grilled chicken livers (which she only gets a few times a week… You think I'm going to spoil this cat? Not a chance.

if you think life on Califa Street is deadly dull I Baig to differ known no… I beg to differ.  there are times when it is utterly amazing and the mind-boggling.  Take the day ecently when Florence staggeed in wringing her hands and moaning in a tremulous voice, "there is a body in the walkway." Now I must explain that Florence is a fearful person and she is especially fearful when it comes to creatures of the animal persuasion. Nevertheless, the statement shook me up I must admit, and I carefully inquired, "you mean a body like a person or a body like an animal?" I was very relieved to hear that it was some sort of an animal, (not quite sure how I would manage to cram a human body into one of my large garbage sex… Saks, no the hell with it…).  I was pretty sure that Florence's eyes did not rest long enough on the corpse to determine whether it was cat, squirrel, opossum or raccoon, so I had to schlep out to the walkway and take a look myself. The poor departed turned out to be opossum who had probably eaten a snail that had been poisoned with snail bait. (Not in my yard… I never use the stuff).  One thing I have to say in favor of opossums… They have that wonderful stiff tail that provides a handy handle for picking him up and dropping him into the trash bag. I think it would've been kinder of him to have expired on someone else's walkway, but I guess he figured  that the chances of having a few kind words uttered over him were better here than any place else on the block. His place is already been taken at the porch buffet by another possum and life goes on as usual on upper Kelly for street no no no…… Callis does street know you haven't got it yet. Kelly is a straight…. The hell with it. But I must ask how many of you have been stirred out of your lethargy by having someone announce that there was a body in the walkway? I will tell you, I have almost gotten to the point where nothing surprises me anymore.  no, that's a lie… I just never know quite what. Florence or the Dragon have in store for me.

That does it,My dear ones. I have to go away and ponder why Dragon fails to capitalize the beginning of some sentences and I can tell , it ain't going to be easy.

Love, lo

what the fark… What the fork .....what the flock…… What the F you see Kay?

As you can see I am having a terrible time teaching Dragon my favorite dirty words. This newer version seems to have a built-in editor, which refuses to accept new words that begin with, end with, or contain the letters "F UCK". I sneaked that one past it by spelling out capital letters. Why Dragon needs a censor is totally beyond me, but then almost everything is the day… Totally beyond me. That is.

Actually, I am writing this blog to explain to you my dear followers why I don't simply correct the errors that Dragon makes, and to do that I have to give you a short course in the mechanics of my vision. I'm going to print a letter on the not… The letter "O" will be a good example.
        

                                        "O"

The space inside that O is a little larger than my field of vision in my good  . I… No no no… What we want here is the word "E why he"… I think I'd better.type it.…eye.  The left eye has no central vision… Only peripheral vision. So it is useless in any detail work like reading or seeing a morsel of food on my dinner plate that is any larger than a lentil. Not only is the field of vision  very small, but it also has a thin film of of something like a white  mist obscuring its clarity. So that's what I have to work with.

Now someone has suggested that instead of leaving the gobbledygook that Dragon sometimes produces, I should go back and correct it. There are two problems with that idea. First, what would be the fun in that? Most of the humor that I dish up lately is due to Dragon's misinterpretations. Frankly, I love my blogs as interpreted by dragon and refused to give them up just to make things easier for you guys. Secondly, and you'll have to try to get your mind around this, when I am looking at an error that Dragon has made it means I have to bring the cursor to the spot of the error. Needless to say, when I am looking at the error. The cursor is not within my field of vision. If I move my eyes to the spot where the cursor is. I then have to move them back to the spot of the error to judge the distance the cursor has to travel and continue with this back and forth motion until I've managed to bring the cursor to the error. As you all know, at this point, the cursor is no longer a nice black arrow or even a puny white little hand, it is simply of small vertical line. You have no idea how long it takes to locate that vertical line and position it correctly to correct the error. Take it from me, it is agony and if I had a better way of doing it. Believe me, I would.

Of course, there are many commands in the Dragon lexicon that I could probably use to make this process easier, but since reading is so difficult for me. I just haven't done it yet. There is one command that I know that is called ", U, and Dio… No no no… How could you not know on do…,, Sigh… "undo". (Dammit, do I have to do everything for you?). Anyway, back to the command which I will not attempt to verbalize again, I did use it a couple of times, intending to simply erase the last word that I wrote, and instead any race almost the entire document I had written. There is no future in that I can tell you. One of these days I will tie Florence to the chair and force her to read to me some of the instructions and commands I sorely need, but I don't feel like doing that today.

I am glad that a few of you agree with me that Dragon has greatly improved my blog. This or at least given them a tantalizing flavor. They didn't have before. I know it's a dreadful decision to impose upon you, but you simply have to choose between gobbledygook blogs or no blogs Abdul up up up up… And all… At all. Frankly, I liked Abdul much better.  come on now, be honest,didn't you?.

I hope that makes everything perfectly clear… No pity. Please… Just understanding. Okay?.

What? You Mean It DOES Make Sense?

the traysdamn you, the matter wake-up Dragon0133...…Not the mom go… I think we better start over.

(As you can see, Dragon and I are cuddled up together indulging in a indecent and sometimes humorous foreplay… I have no idea what the hell the foreplay is in preparation of… Perhaps the the climaxing result of this strange action might be called a blog.)

As I was trying to say, the phrase I have probably uttered the most times in my life, and with the most frustration and the most perplexity is, "But that doesn't make any sense." I remember from my earliest days, wringing, my fat little hands togetherwhile observing the behavior of the adults around me in total puzzlement and saying those words to myself in whatever form of baby talk I was using at the time, something akin to "what the Fox talk… Sigh….What the what's wrong, did you throw up…             no community Tilia get over here it over here.
Get over here dear … Oh shit… I forgot the Mike was on while I was talking to Paulie… I think I'd better write that phrase out myself… If I remember correctly, I was trying to say, "what the fuck?" please excuse me for a minute while I go into the classroom and teach Dragonthat all important word.                             fuck

What the flock… What the Fox… Failed again. Never mind.We really must get on with this.

As I tottered, limped or staggered through the rest of my life, I decided that nothing was ever going to make sense because we are all Meyer did no no no no… I think this Dragon is Jewish….we are all mired in incompetence in difference,in slaw …sloth and stupidity. But perhaps, more importantly in insanity! Not one of us including me is free of some kind of crazy addiction, which forces us to actimplausibly, even if we know better.For example, why did this person continue to adopt needy cats until our house was full of 12 or 15 of them and my life was a living hell ?I could go on but I won't.

this all reminds meof aold story of a man seekingthe answerto the mystery of life travels to Indiato consult the head guruwho happens to reside oh crap… Sorry about that… Who happens to reside at the top of it nearly unclimb a ball mountain. We did nothing but a canteen of water the man climbs and climbs and climbs  until he finally arrives, bloody and exhausted at the top where the Masters cave is located. Inside is a serene little man seated, of course, in the lotus position, who looks upon him kindly and asks how he may be able to help him. The man gasps, "oh wise one, what is the meaning of life?" The little man smiles and says, " my son, Llife is a fountain.". The man loses it completely rants, raves and utters a number of "what the fucks" and says "I traveled thousands of miles, climbed this Chevy Mountain….shitty mountain, without food, little water, get bloody and worn to a nubbin, and you tell me the meaning of life is that life is a fountain?

The little man looks perplexed and a bit bewildered and says, "what?? You mean life isn't a fountain??"

I know, I know, you probably all heard it before but it seems so fitting. I couldn't resist.

Now you'll have to excuse me… I have to go and teach Dragon a few words and then lie down and put cold cloth cloths on my head.

Love, LO

PS..needless to say, this documenthas not been proofread/