Desertrose

CLAY BLOGGED

I am so sorry for your loss. I understand what you are saying about her being free now. I felt the same way when my mother died in September.

I went to "This Is It" Monday, and was very impressed with the dancers. This would have been an awesome concert, and it is sad that it did not happen because of MJ's death. Another thing that impressed me was how gentle a man MJ was when he interacted with the dancers, producers and others working on the concert rehearsals. He seemed to be a very gentle and sweet soul. I shed a tear over all the bad things that happened to him during the span of his life, even though they were not covered in the movie. It is a really good movie.

Lucky you. I love Steely Dan. Did they do "Gaucho." I hope they come to Houston. I am so there!

Happy that you have broken your spell of bad luck. I have a friend who is fond of saying "if it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have any luck at all." As for the bank, I had the same experience a few months back, and was pleasantly surprised that the bank refunded my fees. I gave them a sad story also, but did not ask directly for my money back. So they gave me their spiel about how much more it would have cost me if the checks had bounced. At that point, I did say that this had never happened to me before, and blamed it on Ike costs ( which happened to be true ), and told them that I felt I should get my money refunded. Then they said I should just have told them that I wanted my money back. Duh! Why did they think I was calling? Anyway they gave me my money back and told me that they did have special provisions for Ike victims. One thing I learned, was what you already knew, the direct approach works best, ask for your money back.

CONGRATULATIONS! MERRIEEEE :04: I had a couple of Sherries to celebrate, and now I am wondering if somebody sneaked something else into them even though I am home alone. How could they be so strong? Tipsy to say the least! Is that the way to spell Sherry?

I know the feeling. I wish I was going to the Gala. Too many things happening this year, plus I just got through fixing all the Ike damage that I had to pay for out of my own pocket. Maybe next year you and I can both go to Gala. Safe travels to every one going. Hope you all have a wonderful time.

WE'RE #1!!!!! NIP is back in first place!

NIP is now tied for No. 1. Please keep on voting! Good job!

NIP is no longer in first place. For those that are voting with the emails, we need to step it up so NIP can win the $10,000. Here is the link. Cookie Contest ends at 11:59 PM central time, October 15,2009. That would be 9:59 Pacific time, 10:59, Mountain time, 12:59 Eastern time, 6:59 Hawaii. Only one more day left to vote! Lets try to win this money for NIP! --------------------

I also know what a trial the long extended illness of Alzheimer's/dementia can be. I just hope that because my mom is already 96, she won't suffer too many more years. When she has a bit of clearness of mind, and even when she doesn't, she makes it very clear that she wants to die and hates the many indignities of her life now. Every night before she goes to bed she sings "Show me the way to go home," or "tired of living but scared of dying," or last night it was an obscure hymn, something like Lord, life me up in your arms and take me to the promised land. 50 pounds! Wow. Mom's lost a lot of weight already, but I guess she's got a ways to go. She does still recognize her family, more or less, but mom has vascular dementia rather than Alzheimer's proper. (It's a spectrum disorder like autism.) She has some cognitive functions, but she sometimes hallucinates and has episodes of, well, demented behavior. We did just recently find a group of doctors that make house calls--that has really been a boon as my mother does not like to leave the house, and at her last doctor's visit, she caught a bad cold. Now we need to find a dentist who makes house calls. LOL. Thanks for the Hospice tip, DesertRose. We're currently on another round of "change in condition" helpers--bathing, physical therapy, etc., but that ends next week. (Medicare will pay when the doctor states that she has had a marked decline, but they will only come for long enough to train the caregivers to deal with whatever.) We were told that she might qualify for Hospice care by now. I'll give them a call and see. For now, we're going to see how things work with a woman that sits with mom sometimes. I insisted we hire her twice a week, to bathe mom and give her the exercises the physical therapist has taught her. It's possible that if she does this regularly, mom will come to resist and resent her, but hopefully not. Mom seems to respond well to her. I'd love to know what it is about Alzheimer's/dementia and bathing. It seems to be nearly universal, this resistance to bathing. My heart goes out to you and your mom. Amazing that she is 96 years old. My mom also had hallucinations and episodes of demented behavior. That is so very hard to handle. I am in Texas, and all we needed to get her in Hospice was her doctor's order. After Hospice accepted her, there was never a problem with Medicare. With your mother's age, I do not think she would be denied Hospice care. If your mother can still play cards, they have volunteers that go to homes and play games and keep the patients occupied. My mom would have none of that. She refused to participate. There was a Hospice nurse that went once a week to take her vitals, temperature and such. If she ran a fever, the nurse would call her doctor and get a prescription for her. This was the doctor that had placed the order for Hospice. He was her regular doctor. Once she had hospice she never had to go back to doctor's office. We did have to take her to the dentist though, but he could not help her because she did not understand what he asked her to do and would not keep her mouth open and swallowed every thing, and that made sick to her stomach. Towards the end, a Hospice doctor did come to see her at home. Before she was under hospice care, she went through a gall stone episode, and had laproscopic surgery to remove her gall bladder. They had to give her a stress test to see if her heart was strong enough. She was already in a wheel chair, unable to walk, weighed about 60 pounds, could not communicate, feed herself or anything and she PASSED the stress test. She went through this surgery without any problem or complication. I still do not understand how a person in her condition could pass a stress test. The way that Hospice "weighed" her was by measuring her body since she was unable to stand.

My mother just passed away September 21. She had Alzheimer's, and the disease had reduced her to less than 50 pounds. She had not recognized me for the last 8 years. She suffered a great deal, like you say, this is a cruel disease. She lived long enough to see her 90th birthday on September 16. I am already a contributor to the Alzheimer's Association because my aunt on my father's side also had the disease. She lived to be 99 years old. I contribute in her name, and now I will add my mother's name also. One organization that was very helpful to my mother was Hospice. They have a special branch that handles Alzheimer's patients. It does not have the time limitations that regular Hospice has. They sent a trained person to bathe my mother three times a week. (my mother would not allow us to bathe her, and we could not force her because she also had osteoporosis and her bones broke easily). They sent a nurse on a regular basis, and all medication for infections and so forth was provided by them. So was the oxygen that my mother required for two years, and the adult diapers. Previously my father had to pay for all this on his limited income. My mother was on Hospice for over three years. They were wonderful and extremely helpful. I was worried that my mother would deplete her Medicare, but it does not work that way. It will not deplete Medicare. Only stipulation is that the patient will not seek treatment for Alzheimer's. That does not mean that they will not provide medication for fever, ear infections and stuff like that. I am posting all this information in case someone has a parent and needs help. Hospice helped a lot. BTW, my 93 year old father did not have to pay one dime out of his pocket for the Hospice care. He is on a pension. Hospice billed Medicare, and what Medicare paid, they accepted. Hospice does send an intake worker initially to evaluate the patient to as to eligibility for the program. I am assuming that the patient has to be in the advanced stage like my mother was at the time.

Thanks again. Only bad thing about this is that it had to end! This was a lot of fun, and I appreciate all the effort that you put into it.

THANK YOU LDYJ. THIS HAS BEEN A FUN THING TO WAKE UP TO IN THE MORNING!

Yesterday's choice was a lot harder. It is No.1 for me every time.

I calls it a TIE!

No.2 is a work of art, but I have to go with scruffy Clay in #1.

Number one shows the essence of Clay. The other one shows how good looking he is. I am going for No.1 because for me it shows how happy he is doing work with children. I love the expression and smile on his good looking face.

All the Clay fans that I know personally love the #2 photo. If it doesn't win, I will be very shocked and surprise. that is a big favorite. No.2 for me!

I just love the way you phrased this Couchie. You sure have a neat way of being "poor."

No. 1 is sexy with long legged Clay. But it is posed, and I can never resist Clay's smile, and No.2 looks very natural to me. Even his eyes are smiling. That is a genuine smile if I ever saw one. I love #1 but I have to go with smiling Clay. So it is #2 for me. Not fair to pit these two photos against each other.

I had sense of relief when I saw that this pic of Clay had won. (And I cannot believe how invested I am in the results!). I had actually voted for the other pic because after tons of internal wrastlin'' I went with hot Clay because that has been my internal criterion throughout- vote for pics where Clay looks handsome, droolworthy, GAH, etc. But this pic of Clay and that child is one of the best pics of capturing Clay's essence ever. ever! I loved that it made it into national print -was it TV Guide or People? The picture exudes Clay's humanity and his playfulness at once. That man is just so darn lovable. In his Q & A he talked about how ironic that he got to kiss the most popular attractive girl in his class during Oklahoma and was the envy of his friends. I can only believe that he was struck with the irony of all those women of every age being head of heels for him when he performed. And now that he is out, some still find him sexy as hell. I must say that combining the sexy with the humanitarian is almost more than a girl can take. For me, those inlcuded his Afganistan visit and was it Somalia where he did that brief video for the malaria tents? I cannot tell you how many times I watched that video. I cannot wait to see him again. I have a feeling that things are being carefully orchestrated to re-introduce Clay to the public. The hot, surfer dude image captured so well in our banner was no accident. And that he looked like that when doing some official business (I am assuming) with Decca, tells me that perhaps this is part of an image that will introduced. The fact that he answered a question about a calendar and indicated that one might be in the works suggests to me that multiple formats will be used. Hoping so at least. I cannot wait. To see him. To hear him. Me too! I so hope that your feelings come true!

No. 2 is just too beautiful for words.

WORD!

I can't believe that I am having to choose between "Splendor on the Grass" and leggy sexy Clay! Just not right!