Opening Wednesday 10am - Lo's Left Carotid......Closing 10:15 am....Hopefully

OK, my darlings......all the pre-op tests are complete and I am apparently in splendid condition for my adventure tomorrow.  I have decided not to take my laptop so you probably won't hear from me till Friday or Saturday.

Bless you all.......I love you........thanks for all your good thoughts.  Now don't forget what I have taught you.......especially "Don't Fall Down".

Fear not, Lo will blog again.

Hey, Mother Nature.....What Did I Ever Do To You?.....

I  would really be in  a state of Rant were it not for the fact that my Pollyanna persona and my Gemini duality keep seeing it as sort of a Good Thing.   (IT being the rain last weekend that made us postpone our Yard Sale.)   Hell, a person can live for a week with 17 boxes stacked in their Living room and on their porch, can't they?

"Sure, I  can", I told myself........"and I can use the extra time to collect even more stuff and put it in even more boxes."   And so I did.



Sob.  It is now the following Saturday and once more the forecast has called for rain today, so once again we have postponed everything.  Maybe the Pennysaver will give us a  refund for the ad?

Meanwhile, sigh, on other fronts I have just found out, after innumerable pokes, pinches, scans and invasions of the bod, that my left carotid artery  needs to be roto-rooted of clogs like my right one was last year and the Vascular Plumber has been scheduled.   Therefore, even if  the sun should shine for 24 hours next Saturday I will be unable to attend because I will be back in the condition where I can not turn my head from straight ahead to anywhere right of center for a while.  They make those stitches so damned tight........besides.......the advance weather checker has just informed us that it may rain next  Saturday too.   How fortunate that by now I don't even notice the 17 boxes piled in the living room and on the front porch.  So now it looks like we may try to have our sale the first or second weekend in December.  If any of you have any pull with the gods of weather, pulleeeeze put in a good word for us, will ya.?

I don't want any of you to worry about me........I am sure I will emerge just fine and 90% additional blood supply to my poor brain can only be a good thing, dontcha think?  I will probably take my laptop with me, but I may or may not feel like blogging.  Last time I was evicted from the hospital after only a day so it may not even  be worth schlepping the thing with me.  We will see, but, rest assured, I will try to keep you informed.

In the meantime, any good thoughts you would like to send my way are always much appreciated  and, I promise you that, if I should happen to be routed into the tunnel, I will  definitely send you Steve Jobs'   "Oh Wow 3x" message and it will unequivocably  mean only Good Things.

Love ya' all.

Moses' Tablets on Mt. Sinai May Have To Take Second Place

I am puzzled, perplexed, bothered, bewildered and generally discombobulated by the fact that nobody has really talked about it.  At least, I haven't been able to find anything meaningful said about it.

Am I the only one who was totally blown away by Steve Jobs'  last words?  
"Oh Wow, Oh Wow, Oh Wow".

Maybe it is because I am so much closer to the Exit Door than most of you  (though I don' t really think that's it)  but I was absolutely flooded with awe when I read about his last moments and last words........and, I must confess, tantalized with a fragment of hope.

I happen to consider Mr. Jobs to have been one of the most monumental, brilliant, inspiring,  evolved and enlightened people on this planet and his contributions to the rest of us cannot properly be evaluated yet. Consequently I take his last words and calm demeanor very seriously.  I would have been equally fascinated if he had said, "Oh, Damn, Ouch, No, no, no,  Why me?" or (my favorite), "Shit, Piss, Fuck".  I would have been thrilled if he had said, "Oy vey" (but I realize that is just the shred of my Jewishness speaking,) since, having been a dedicated Zen Buddhist, I guess it would have been more in keeping if he had muttered, "Carry Water, Chop Wood".

I do not want anyone to think that I mean to denigrate my very serious and heartfelt feelings on this subject with humor.......I couldn't help speculate on what pronouncement I might be inspired to utter on my way out ........but, being a huge admirer of Zen as being the philosophy closest to truth and reason I must bring myself to admit that my own interpretation of his message, as best I can verbalize it, is that, finding himself in the tunnel between life and death,  he got a glimpse of something awesome that excited him to the possibility of  further adventures beyond the ones he was leaving behind.  

Face it, my dears.  It's what we all hope he meant  isn't it?   I guess I may be the only one dumb enough, naive enough, gullible enough, Pollyanna-ish enough  to put it in writing.   I just hope that on my way down the tunnel that is what I will be inspired to say.

Of course, I am willing to admit that what he really meant was simply "Oh Wow, Oh Wow, Oh Wow'.

I would love to hear your own feelings and ideas on the subject if anyone would care to share them.

Game Called Because of Rain.....Damn....or is it Hooray

I have only enough strength to utter a few grunts and monosyllables....... the big Yard Sale Project has had to be put off a weekbecause of rain.  (Yes, it does occasionally rain in California.....especially on the weekend of the big yard sale)   One half of me is rolling on the floor thanking every Deity ever prayed to  by man.   The other half is kicking the furniture in frustration.....not that there is really enough room to kick any furniture right now  because of the profusion of cardboard boxes full of goodies taking up every inch of floor space.

However, the bright side is that now that I have gotten the hang of this Make Way for Empty Space thing I am finding more and more stuff I think I can bear to part with and the extra week should help me organize a bit. (Ha).

Whatever, do not look forward to the promised tell-all blog for another week. 

Oy.......but I just realized that now I have to live thru another week of this agonizing waiting........better start an office pool on what day and hour Lois will deconstruct and sprinkle particles of herself over North Hollywood and adjacent communities.  Sigh.  Dammit,it IS  always something........

Holy Crap! What Have I Done? I Must Have Been.......

OUT OF MY MIND !

The thing that I have feared and hidden from has come upon me....no, the damned truth is that I have brought it upon me.....posted a sign, put an invitation in the PennySaver  and invited it into my driveway, onto my front lawn and godknowswhereelse.  Do I have to let them use the bathroom?

My dear friends, you must have guessed it.  Desperation has driven me to participate in a neighborhood Yard Sale and I have only a few pitiful  hours left before I must schlepp 4,327 boxes down the street or commit suicide (and you must know in which direction I am tending).

I had to hire an expert in the field to take me by the scruff of the neck and drag me thru my bulging domain uttering phrases like, "Here, this is something you don't need...it will be perfect". whereupon she literally pried It out of my gnarled, clutching fingers and dropped it in a cardboard box, stonily ignoring my whimpering and pleas.  I will not dwell further on this horror right now because it is taking all  my courage and dedication to keep myself from dragging all those boxes back in from the porch.  On the other hand,  it is more than weird that I find myself opening more cabinets and finding treasures I had forgotten I even had and putting them into yet more cardboard boxes  at moments when I am not looking.

To be a crazy hoarder is wretched.....to have been collecting stuff from the four corners of the earth and from several relatives from before Methuselah makes it worse..........and to be partly logical and dispassionate at the same time is total agony and chaos.  I am not sure I will survive till Sunday at 4 pm, but if I should be so lucky (or so ill-fated)  I will be sure to blog you all about it.  Sigh....Gasp.....Groan.

I wonder if collecting for 85 years before having your first Yard Sale will qualify me for the Guinness Book of Records?

Hmmmmm.  Now in which box did she put that adorable brass mouse with the wavy tail?...........

Just Passing on a Jaw Dropper

I was just reading an article that Ryan Air had to return to their flight takeoff point after some tape which had been used to repair the pilots' window came loose and the pilot's attempt to duct tape the window failed to work.

That pales in comparison with the final paragraph of the article, which I quote below.


"Ryanair has had quite a string of bad press lately. Earlier this month, the airline came under fire for its announcement that it will remove toilets from planes to make room for extra seats. This summer, the notoriously cheap airline gave a passenger in cardiac arrest a sandwich...and later charged him for it."

Gotta love it!.........sigh.

I Think I Want to Be Somebody Else for a Change

Some odd thoughts have been popping up and down and in and out of my mind recently.....wispy, uncompleted thoughts.......fragmented, disorganized but determined, insistent to  be noticed and definitely repetitive in their meaning.  The gist of them has something to do with the fact that "I" ( as the entity which occupies this body ) was having trouble dealing with the ongoing disintegration of my "enclosing vehicle".  Been feeling a  bit like a turtle whose home /shell no longer fit well didn't navigate well and was no longer acceptable as a container for "me".    Worse yet......I hadn't a clue about what the hell I could do about this strange mismatch other than to just schlepp onward.  Very unsatisfactory to my way of thinking and I have been hoping for an idea to circumvent this undefined ennui.

Then today I was directed to a blog  from one of my favorite bloggers and found some beautiful, profound words which filled in the holes around my thoughts and and expressed them better than I ever could.

     "Is the self a cage from which one should struggle to be free?

      Or should we see it as a home?

      Is it both things?

        Maybe I should treat it both ways while I try to work through the conundrum. I can patch and  paint         the  worn walls, knock down the cobwebs, scrub the floors, fix the toilet, open the windows to let  in         some light.

    At the same time, dig at a spot on the floor with the spoon I hide from the guards under my mattress, ,                  take a handful of dirt out each day,  working on my escape."

The above was quoted from a wonderful blog  I first encountered today, thanks to the incredible Mary Moon of Bless Our Hearts.   The blog is called   "The Dishwasher's Tears" written by The Tearful Dishwasher and I am so delighted to have found it and him........for many reasons, not the least of which is that he clarified and crystalized my thoughts and described exactly the way I have been feeling inside.  I will try to expand on that.

The body and the persona that goes with it no longer feels like the real "me" .   Or, rather, it feels like somebody the real Me is just damned sick and tired of.   I have said many times that I feel like I have had a wonderful life (despite certain bumps  and detours along the road) and feel lucky and blessed with every bit of it.  I still stand by that, but suddenly, I am tired.   Not quite sure if I am tired of living or just tired of living as Lo and being this persona.  After all, 84 + years is a helluva long time to be with and part of an entity night and day, wouldn't you say?  The only damned vacation you ever get from yourself is when you are anesthetized for surgery and that is just a brief respite but not a really a renewal.   Besides, it's not much fun when the anesthetic wears off.

It keeps reminding me of all the stories reported by people who have died and been revived,  had near-death and out of the body experiences and every one of them seem to describe the same wonderful feeling of release in getting rid of and floating free of the body like being able at last to take off a choking girdle and agonizing bra and a costume that is cumbersome and at least 3 sizes too small to fit comfortably. 


 All in all I feel that the creature that I have worked on becoming for all these years has turned out to be a fairly decent job of work.  I am ashamed and sorry that I have not really utilized all my gifts and my full potential to the max,  but I feel that I have done pretty well considering some of the pitfalls I have had to navigate and conquer. No excuses.......I just took all the parts and pieces that came in the box labelled "Lois", assembled them,  took them apart and reassembled them in a million different variations over the years and am rather proud to say I have managed to have used all of the pieces without wasting anything, except for a few parts that were obviously my Father's worst traits and which I had no choice but to dispose of discreetly in someone else's  trash barrel so they couldn't  be traced back to me and returned, perish forbid.   When I consider the whole structure objectively I think I look more like I was created by Rube Goldberg than  Michelangelo,  but as long as I don't blow over in a strong wind I shouldn't complain.

And as far as who or what I would like to be if I could be someone other than me..............I swear there is no one I can think of on the planet  I would like to move in on and inhabit.   I guess I will just have to wait and see who or what I will be next.....right now, I think a Rock might be nice.