I like Sunday's on the blog because I don't have to do much thinking or writing, you do. I also like to know what is going on in your lives and learn more about you. This is your day to update me on what is going on in and around you. If you need to vent, please feel free to do it here. If you want to ask me or the blog readers and posters some questions, shoot. Tell me about events coming up or that you just attended. How are you elderly relatives doing? How are you children doing? Need good thoughts and prayers for yourself, relatives or friends? Read any good books lately? Seen any movies lately? Have a movie that you would like to me to attend and review? I would be happy to brave the waters of the movie theaters for you before you spend your hard earned money on a really bad movie. Secrets? I am really fond of secrets. Been reading the blog for a while and want to make some new friends? Any day is a great day to post a message introducing yourself.
Since I have been doing updates about my life everyday I am going to do an entertainment update today. First up is Top Chef. The Quickfire challenge was to make a knock out dish featuring potatoes. Heck I can do that. Easy challenge in my opinion. The one I have come to like the best, Jennifer, won the Quickfire challenge. She not only won immunity from elimination but also was appointed executive chef for the elimination challenge. The elimination challenge was to cook a meal for three hundred soldiers and their families that were either being deployed or returning from deployment. All of the contestants were on the same team with Jennifer overseeing their work. Jennifer did a great job being boss. Michael V. won the elimination challenge and now has tied with brother Bryan each winning elimination challenge. Eliminated was a woman contestant, what a surprise since a man hasn't been eliminated yet this season, Preeti. Yes this week was a very emotional episode with the contestants working hard to give the soldiers and their families an outstanding afternoon. The contestants were very touched by the comments and reactions of the soldiers, with a few coming to tears. Still, I am not liking this season of Top Chef as much as I have liked the past seasons. The contestants are really boring. The challenges are weak. The dishes are bland and easy to make. Maybe I am just bitter that the producers of Top Chef were to stupid to have this season in the much more fun Portland then a gambling Mecca.
On to the Oscars. A while back I reported that the Oscars are now going to nominate ten films for the best picture. That brings with it a new way to calculate the votes. According to the Hollywood Reporter a preferential voting system will be used. The artticle states that the academy realized that with a field of ten nominees a winner could emerge with just 580 votes out of the potential voting pool of 5,800 members. In the preferential system, voters are asked to rank the nominees from one to ten. The system measures the depth of support as second and third place votes can be just as important as first place votes. Under the system ballots are first separated according to first choice, if one film wins fifty percent of the first place votes it is the winner, if not the film with the fewest first place votes is eliminated and the number two choices on those ballots are redistributed among the remaining films. Seems fair to me. Now I just hope there are better films the last three months of the year then there were the first nine months of the year. My choice right now as best film is The Hurt Locker. 500 Days of Summer and I Love You Man are the only other films really deserving of a best picture nominee although Julia and Julia isn't that far behind.
For you LOST fans there is a new series coming to ABC that many critics are saying will enthrall you. FLASH FORWARD staring Joseph Fiennes as an FBI agent premieres on September 24th at 8 PM, 7 PM Central time. For two minutes and seventeen seconds the entire human race blacked out. During the blackout everyone saw visions of themselves six months in the future. The news isn't good. Fiennes is the FBI agent determined to uncover the truth. I love the premise of this show and am going to give it a go.
The blog is now yours to either comment on anything I've written anywhere on the blog and/or to update me on your life. Your turn!
TODAY'S TRIVIA
Yesterday's answers: Observatories, years Haley's Comet was visible, all are casts, fear of animals (cats, dogs, birds), and Romeo & Juliet.
TODAY IS WHAT DO THESE THREE THINGS HAVE IN COMMON:
A boat, a cradle, Van Halen.
Football plays, hugs and kisses, tic tac toe.
Billy Joel, Sammy Hagar, Tony Danza. (actor, entertainer does not count, former occupation does)
Potato, rose, taste.
Paleontology, paleozoology, paleohistology. More detail than being a study of.
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9 comments:
Spent Thursday through Saturday at the Shelby Hamfest (swap meat for amateur radio operators). It's actually held at the county park outside Dallas NC nowadays. Great place, good sites, full hookups, pond with walkway around. Himself shopped and swapped to his heart's content. Since I'm not into diodes, tubes and transistors, I kicked back, read, crocheted, played some guitar, took short walks with Skeeter, longer walks mostly carrying Skeeter. Sunshine and blue skies all three days. Otherwise, a pretty standard week.
Came home to medication crisis, Mom upset because she'd been trying to call since Thursday PM (why didn't anybody call my cell?) First, she needs one med asap, no mail until Tues. Second, she's now in donut hole and SC discontinued GAP program beginning of fiscal year. Chat with pharmacist and a couple hours web research shows resolution is for Deb to go in and sign Mom up for AZ's CoppeRX card, download a temporary card which can be used immediately and get all prescriptions transferred to local pharmacy Tuesday AM and fill them out there. Must now call AZ, tell Deb she has emails with four links, the last direct to the card download site, and hope they follow recommendations. I said from the beginning it was nuts for her to be ordering her prescripts from here and having me mail them, but was outvoted. I don't think they realized that even if SC still had GAPs, Mom wouldn't be eligible as a non-resident. I also discovered the reason Sis was having a hissy over not having information she needed was that they've not opened/gone through the package I sent a week after Mom left with the allergist report, blood test results, insurance booklets, etc. Cross your fingers on the AZ transfer, please? They went through all kinds of unsuccessful gyrations to deposit refund checks in Deb's account, when all they had to do was go to a local Wachovia and deposit it into her SC account. I vowed not to be an interfering long distance care giving advisor, but...
Next week the craziness starts (jam, Ollie luncheon, dissertation study) and the following week it escalates (subtract jam, add two aquatic classes), then life should settle into a workable routine again.
Oh, man, DR, how annoying. I can't even imagine how you stayed so calm, I would be wanting to get on a plane and go yell at somebody in person.
I hope maybe this will be the wakeup call they needed.
Hey Bill, Sounds like you are needing to go to a movie? I don't know of any right off to ask you to attend...but will keep my ears/eyes open. I usually just wait for the DVD or watch it on HBO. :)
I agree with you on Top Chef being a bit on the boring side...what is the deal? But I am still watching. I think Jennifer is a good one to beat. Of course the brothers aren't too bad either.
What would have been your potato dish?
DR, the Hamfest sounded great. Nice way to get away and have some fun relaxing time. I like any kind of festival. The medication crisis...somehow I figured it would pop up. Don't you just hate it when you have everything working like clockwork, and then it all gets so messed up its hard to get it back on track and you are the one who will probably have to do it all. And its terrible Deb didn't get around to reading all the information/instructions either...but that's how it goes on some things.
I will keep fingers crossed it all goes well.
Drat! I missed Top Chef! But I'm sure I can catch a rerun, and I don't mind knowing who got cut. Must try to remember what night that show is on.
The Academy is a bunch of jerks. They are only complicating what is generally just a popularity contest anyway. I always watch the show, but can't tell you who won even the day after. It matters to the participants, not much to anyone else.
Now the news: Last Friday night, mom gave us all a scare. First she had a sneezing fit, then she threw up. I happened to be there, which was a good thing, though the staff knew what to do. When they took her BP, it was 200-something over 100-something. Since she's only taking half a 25 mg atenolol daily for BP, I told them to give her the other half. Didn't do anything, so we called the doc. Got a replacement doc covering for hers. He said, "Well, atenolol isn't very good at bringing BP down," so I told him I take Diovan and maybe I should run home and get one. "That's a good idea," he said, so that's what I did, and a half hour after taking it, she was perfectly normal again.
We didn't figure out what caused it. Not bad food, as nobody else got sick at all. She had for some reason drunk a huge amount of water. Drank her regular glass w/dinner, then two of the girls had given her some more, then the chef gave her a glass, then I did, all at her request. She's also been on an antibiotic for a pimple-thing on her leg that the doc thought might be becoming infected. So we figure maybe a combo of antibiotic/some kind of food reaction/ too much water all at once. She's been fine ever since, so I'm pretty sure it was a one-time thing.
Hi Dr
Sounds like a great time at the Hamfest. Good to get away or at least try to get away from problems.
The problem with your mom just makes me cringe. Why in the world would think it would be better to order the drugs from SC? When I go away I generally call forward my home phone to my cell phone since mom doesn't like to dial the cell phone. Must be an age thing.
Sis sounds completely disorganized and truthfully, she seems overwhelmed with the care of your mom. People overwhelmed usually turn simple tasks into difficult ones.
Good luck on your busy next two weeks!
Bill
Hi Dona
I always need a movie to go to! That is my escape. I'm even open to review movies on DVD or HBO.
I would have down sweet potato fries spike with little bits of my special swiss steak recipe.
Hope things are well with you.
Bill
Hi Pat
Top Chef is Wednesday at 10 PM. Early for you, late for me.
I not only watch the Oscars, I watch the red carpet before it and I also record all of it and watch it the next day.
Wow what an awful scare with your mom. That is out of sight blood pressure. To much water actually makes me throw up too. And how lucky it was that you were not only there, that you were smart enough to suggest Diovan, and that you had it to give to your mom!
I'm glad it so far has been a one time thing. How awful it is that you had to deal with that once, let alone more than once.
Bill
Mary, I anticipated this sort of thing, while hoping it wouldn't occur. And, as I said, I vowed not be an interfering l/d caregiver advisor, knowing how I resented people without a clue, who'd not seen Mom in a year or more, telling me what to do. And knowing my sister, I knew she'd be even more defensive and resentful than I was, if I offered suggestions. However, when I can't "fix" things here on demand, but can tell them how to fix things there... the phone call didn't go well. Mom was pleased, Sis was ticked (nice way to put it). Since I'd already anticipated that would be her reaction when I called, I was okay with the conversation. D is obvously overwhelmed at the moment and this was one more thing that needed to be done and she didn't appreciate additional duties. Yes, it may be a wake-up call for her. Just hold good thoughts that she does what needs doing, please.
Dona, thanks for the crossed fingers. See above and please keep them crossed. The AZ RX program sounds like it will be a godsend for Mother. I'm just sorry Sis is so resentful about having one more thing to do. I truly don't think she had a realistic idea of what she was getting into, when she said Mom could move out there and all the problems would go away.
Pat, I'll continue to hope the "spell" was a one time thing and that your mom continues to go along as well as she has before it occurred. Thank goodness your meds worked on the b/p, as those are truly scary numbers.
Bill, we killed call forwarding, as we never used it and Mom would call the cell, if we didn't answer at home and she needed anything. She just has to press "1" and it speed dials. Yes, I think Sis is overwhelmed, between all the unpacking, trying to figure out what goes where and what goes to storage and not having a realistic understanding of Mom's needs and what was involved in her healthcare. Until you've lived with it, few people realize, as most of us here know too well. Since I anticipated that and anticipated D's reaction to anything I might suggest (most suggestions being ignored or considered exaggerations when Mom was here and when we talked about the move) I'm not surprised and, therefore, not too upset at her reactions so far, altho a bit disappointed to have my expectations realized, I guess.
All will settle eventually. Sooner rather than later I hope. I also hope Mom didn't pick up on my perception that Deb resented that she had one more task to undertake. D's over-reacting to the situation, but I did that so often, during my learning curve, I can't blame her. Caregiving is not a simple thing and it's easy to feel overwhelmed and look at everytihng as a crisis and/or one more thing you don't know how to fit into the schedule or how to best deal wtih. I still wish D could have moved here, but there must be a reason God decreed otherwise.
Hi DR
You tried to tell your sister how much was involved with your mom, it was her choice not to listen. She is getting a reality check, I just hope she doesn't decide she can't deal with it and sends mom back East.
I kept the call forwarding for a number on reasons, three extra features came with the phone and I hate call waiting so I tubed that in favor of call forwarding.
I will pray that all settles in Arizona pronto. I wonder if Deb is giving of signs of resentments in other areas, if only one your mom might not pick it up, if several she no doubt will.
Bill
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