After I lost Gary and Boman, my life has been one long plodding drudgery. I find it hard to have a reason to get out of bed. If I were in better health it might be different. Chronic pain and fatigue were already the bane of my existence. Now they feel a million times worse. Suffice it to say, I’ve lost interest in most things I enjoyed. Email. Websites. Stories.
I’ll update this site again should I find my way again, but for now I’m going let it sit as it is.

This afternoon at approximately 3pm, Boman died in my lap, my head touching his.
Words can’t express the depth of loss of Boman. He was so much more than a dog and those of you fortunate enough to be blessed with a special soul in your life understand what it is I’m saying.
I’ll post more when I’m not so worn out.

Tags: Boman, Death, Dogs, Kids

I need to update this website or at least make a post. For now this will have to suffice. It’s a big day at the RV camp today. steve has a birthday so it’s going to be tons of food, etc.
I’m looking forward to it. I find myself looking forward to a lot of things lately. I found myself smiling at people and helping them with their groceries at Frys last week. The warmth and sunshine is helping much more than I imagined it would. The real me is slowly emerging from the darkness that followed in the wake of Gary’s death. I’ve missed me.

Tags: Gary, illness

I woke from a nap with this poem in my head. It was my introduction to Shel Silverstiens poetry. Up until that day I had only seen his “Different Dances” book. The idea that he could do childrens books was a bit shocking to me. His adult oriented material is fantastic and thought provoking. His books sustained me through two bouts of cancer and the most difficult time of my entire life…loosing Gary last year while we were in Tucson. I introduced him to Shel’s work during our morning readings. It was a ritual. Every morning while it was sunny outside, we sat on the back deck while he drank his coffee, and I read a book to him. I don’t know if I shall ever recover from it, but Shel’s book “the missing piece meets the big O”, always rang true to me, though there are few items I feel missing in the story, it has sustained me in this awful time.

So I woke up with this poem on my mind and thought I’d share with you:

Does it fall upon hats
Or white Persian cats
Or on heads with a pitty-pat sound?

I used to think life was a bore
But I don’t feel that way anymore….
As I count up the hits
As I smile as I sit
And I spit from the 26th floor

Note: in the honor of fairness, the following recounted memory has been, what Gary would call “Texas Sized”. Where I come from it is simply the time honored tradition of not boring your audience.

We also believed making cookies for the moving men was not manipulation or a bribe ..but rather just “loving them to their goal”.

With that in mind, enjoy the following cautionary tale of roller coasters and kids first roller coaster rides. Otherwise known as “aw c’mon ya big baby! It cant hurt you!”

I wrote this in reply to a post from a friend who had convinced their nephew to go on a roller-coaster despite his fear of them.

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Tags: Coasters, Fear, Gary Tenace, Humor, Kids, Phobias, Rollercoasters

I just discovered this nice hidden feature in Safari on the mac. I wish I’d known about this all these years. I bought software to do this once so to discover it built in to the browser was a bit of a shock.

To grab a video, say, from Youtube, to play on your Iphone or Ipod later, or just to archive, do the following.

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Tags: mac, video capture, youtube

I’ve been more isolated lately and one bit of fallout from that has been a reluctance to update my site, open mail, or answer the phone. It’s part of the process, or so they say. There were days I felt nothing. In a way it’s as if Im one big scabbed over scar. You think it’s like normal skin until you pick at it and discover it’s not nearly as healed as you thought it was.
Right now my email is down except for my iPhone. A lightningstrike took out every computer I had that was working so I bought an acer netbook to help me along until I got them fixed. A few weeks later I rocked my chair forward and heard the screen go crunch. I’ll be down a bit longer while I processes the holidays. They were much harder than I expected. I’m asking for prayers and patience while I go through the healing process.
Randy

A few items of interest this week.

But first a question…if anyone out there understands the ins and outs of WordPress, I need some help on figuring out how to make a post sticky. In other words, the post about Gary I would like to stay at the top of this queue instead of being pushed downward each time I make a post. Any help would be appreciated. Pop me an email here. wordpress@papabear.biz

I’m thinking of joining Mustaches V Cancer. Does this mean I’m going to have to be better groomed? I fear I may be too late but I’ll look into this when I’m feeling a bit better.

I learned of this from the winner of the most natural beard contest who was featured on a local program here. Beard Team USA was news to me

A lastly but not leastly, David LaChapelle is, perhaps, the most amazing photographer I’ve ever seen. I don’t know why but his art really struck a cord with me so I wanted to share it with my friends and family. His Studio can be found here

Update: as of 10/12 the news is looking better. The HIV meds I’m buying on the black market are working and my viral load is coming back down. I’ve got a bit of a road ahead to get back to where I was before I ran out of money, but at least now the trend is heading the other way.

This fight over health care reform has left me shaking my head in consternation. I’m astonished that the people who are screaming socialism the loudest don’t seem to realize the irony in their objections.

If this reform doesn’t go through and these pills I’m buying off the black market turn out to be fake, my life expectancy is 18 to 20 months. I live in the wealthiest, most powerful nation on earth, and yet I have to go to India to by medication to save my own life.

I’m not asking for a hand out. I’m asking for a life line, a chance to save myself. They would rather stand and watch me drown just to prove theirs is the right argument.

I’ve already buried friends who died for no other reason than they could not get insurance. I just never thought I’d be counting myself among them.

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