A very good friend of my just sent me an email today that was rather short and to the point. The email said: "You've been quiet lately, what's up?"
Hhmm...What's up indeed!
Admittedly I have been lax in my postings here, and to those of you who think that is a problem, I am sorry. To those of you who think that is just the way things go in the world of blogging, I say: Thank You!
I have had a lot on my mind lately. Some of which I have shared with friends and family and I won't go into tremendous details here. I am not claiming that my life is any more complicated that anyone else's life on this planet. I have always found that life is a cycle of good, bad and indifferent things happening. In fact it is often possible to find the "good" in many "bad" situations. There ever elusive "silver lining" as t'were.
But I want to go on record as saying that the lining in THESE clouds is VERY well hidden!
So, lets just take today, shall we? I was driving to Sedona on my day off. I actually had an APPOINTMENT at the Sedona Pines Resort for them to pitch me the wondrous benefits of time-shares. And for my compensation was to be a gift of $75 cash, plus a free lunch at the resorts restaurant as well as free hotel nights in Vegas. All of this for me to sit there for 90 minutes and have them try their "low pressure" sales tactics on me.
But, as cool as the gifts and such were, the REAL draw for me was the chance to try my NEW camera in a fantastic location like the Red Rocks of Sedona! See...As SOME of you
know, I blew a metric TON of money I couldn't afford to spend on a Canon EOS 20D Digital SLR camera. I waited for over a week for the 3 day delivery to get the thing all the way from Brooklyn NY to my doorstep. After dealing with the tremendous disappointment of UPS telling me the package would be delivered on Monday by 7pm, and then learning that the packing wasn't even loaded on the TRUCK on Monday, I decided to go get the thing myself! Which I did! But, on the same day that I took into possession this wondrous miracle of technology which I had been researching for the previous MONTH (this tidbit of trivia is ALSO already known by some of you...) I had to take my mother to the Hospital for a scheduled MRI examination. So, this left me very little time for me to examine All the GOODIES that was in the shipment. And almost no time whatsoever to actually play with the big toy itself.
However, there WAS enough time for me to discover that the vendor shipped the wrong lens! Gah! You should know that the lenses were such a key factor in my decision to buy THIS package from THIS vendor that to have the wrong lens sent is heartbreaking! During the week I was waiting for the delivery of this camera et el I would frequently look at the webpage that showed me all the goodies I had just bought and I would smile with pleasure that I was able to find someone selling the lenses that I wanted at a price that was within reach.
So in learning of the error, and realizing the time difference between Arizona and New York, I had JUST enough time to call the 800# to obtain an RMA.
Finally my mother and I are out the door on the way to her appointment. Running late, but on the way. We arrive at the hospital and follow the directions on how to get into the very small parking lot of the MRI department. But something was wrong with the directions and we end up having to park in the garage and walk to the MRI Appointment. It's about 3 blocks in the heat at 1:30pm. with my mother who simply has no stamina for walking let alone walking 3 blocks in the heat! But...we arrive and she is eventually taken in to have the MRI done.
After the testing is complete, we head off to take another look at my friend Sherryl's Care Facility that we were scheduled to move mom into on Sept 1st. (For those casual readers of this blog, or just folks that may not know, my mother has been living with me for the past few years.) At the house, which is really a very nice place: newly renovated, comfortable space...I get the feeling that this move is not the right thing to do. But I don't say anything because I honestly want mom to get back on her own and to get involved with other people again because at this point in her life, she has no significant human contact. She doesn't have a car, and isn't physically capable of driving even if she did have one. She simply never leaves the house. Which is a "WHOLE 'Nother Story"...
Well...to speed the story up a bit, yesterday my truck overheated as I was on the freeway heading to Sedona. I got as far as Anthem and had to head back to Phoenix to deal with the problem. As I type this, the mechanics are performing Cooling System Surgery to the tune of some $600. (They originally quoted $700+!) I hope to have possession of my truck by mid-afternoon. However, this was not the "News of the Day", nor even the Hour. You see, at the same time that I was on the phone getting the news about the repairs, my mother was getting the news from her doctor that the results of the MRI show a possibility of an /Embolism./ Now without drawing out the story even further, we KNEW that she likely has a different medical condition called Normal Pressure Hydrocephalous, which is why we were there for the MRI in the first place. But the embolism is a bit of a shock, and far more concerning.
So...all in all it was quite a day yesterday. But, not to be too much of a "gloomy Gus", the evening turned out to be WAY better that I was thinking it would be! And no...I won't tell that story here...
One more thing before I post this to the site and expose more of myself to my friends (and strangers) who read this. There is something I wanted to share with you all that may help you out in times of personal doubt.
- Be True. All Will Be As It Should Be -
===Steven===>>
