Will you be my friend?

Two friends told me I had to join Facebook. A friend asked me to be his friend and join. My sister in law posted pictures on Facebook. I saw no need to join. I think I might be a little bit old for this type of networking. But I couldn't see the pictures unless I joined. So I did, join. Still can't find the pictures. Ann, where did you hide them? I am pretty sure they aren't there. I found other's pictures easily.

This is just what I need, a new excuse to play on the computer for hours. If this keeps up I will need to start wearing my tennis elbow supports. Anyway if you are a Facebook person I am asking you to be my friend. Find me at Janet T. Appel.

OH MY WORD, I APOLOGIZE

I apologize, I am so sorry. I eat humble pie. My blog about winter in California is not funny today. Winter wienies we should suck it up.

Just by a fluke I went on the Louisville Courier Journal web site this morning. This is the newspaper for my family and Marty's family in Kentucky. Look at the articles and videos for January 28 and 29. Many of the pictures are in my brother's neighborhood, Old Louisville. And there is a video about driving to Prospect where my folks live. The pictures are horrifying.

I knew it was snowing in Louisville and most of the East. Snow is usually no big deal. Until I went on the site I had no idea they had had an ice storm. In the last year they have had an earthquake, Hurricane Ike, and now this ice storm. The damage is awful. Trees down all over town, and the trees are on top of power lines, houses and cars. Power lines are down, streets are blocked by trees. This morning 700,000 houses and businesses were without power. Tonight around 200,000 are still out.

I immediately called my Mother. She and Papa Jack have one of the few homes in two states that has power. And my brother has power. Marty's cousin, and his aunt and uncle have no power, and won't for probably another week. People, it is in the teens! Cold, Cold, Cold! Mother said every tree on their 2 acres has been damaged. These are huge trees that are close to 50 years old. She told me my brother's home was OK.

I called Little Brother tonight and talked to his wife Ann. He is in Detroit on business ( the ride to the airport is worth a whole blog) We are hoping he will get home Friday night. She said they had limbs on the garage. Streets and the alley to their garage have been blocked all around them. Their basement is flooding because the ground is frozen and the water can't drain out. But they have power. She went to work ( head of nursing for Louisville/Jefferson County medical services, not her title but something like that) and has say 32 nurses, about 5 made it in, 25 doctors and 4 showed up. Not a day for the poor to get sick.

Marty's sister in Columbus, Ohio is dealing with the ice storm also. But it is not as awful as Louisville. That is not to say it is a good situation. But she has power. That is the most important thing, so she will have heat.

I gloated just a little about our easy California winter. I really did feel cold. But not like the folks back East. I remember this type of weather. And I am so glad I live in California. But I do apologize to family and friends for making light of winter problems.

Why bother with email and phones???????

Marty and I have email, our cell phones have voicemail, our home phone has voicemail, we both can text, I write a blog, we have call waiting ( I admit that I hate it and it's rarely used), and we have a fax machine. All of this is so our friends, doctors, clients, whoever can get in touch with us. We even have TIVO so we can pause the program if we get a call. We also have caller Id which comes up on the phone, on one of our TVs, and even has a voice. I can't figure out how to turn off the voice.

Marty and I grew up in a time when phone calls were expensive and important. So if the phone rings we feel we must answer it. We could screen calls and ignore the world. (We don't usually answer if we have company) We could not respond to email. We could never listen to our voicemail. But the point of all this tech stuff is to be in touch, to be available. We try hard to get back to people as soon as possible, usually within 24 hours. I feel if you don't respond, you are just rude.

We know people who never ever answer their home phone, sometimes answer the cell, their voicemail usually says mailbox full for days, and they rarely respond to email. Maybe it is just us they are hiding from. But we have heard others complain they never get a call back or any response. Why hide behind this technology? It would be cheaper to do away with the voicemails and give up the email. Then no one could bother them.

Again my question why bother? Who are they hiding from?

BABY, IT'S SNOWING OUTSIDE

I check Yahoo weather every day for Louisville, KY; Dallas Texas; and my town ,Oakland, CA. It's January, Louisville and Dallas have had and are having some serious weather. Ice storms, snow, sleet, winds, and waaaay below freezing temperatures.

Those people are cold and miserable. They are driving in dangerous conditions. We lived in Kentucky for a long time. Snow and ice was normal. The hair in your nose freezing was normal. Your glasses fogging up everytime you went from inside to outside or outside to inside, normal. Didn't like it, but that was just winter.

California in winter is another animal. I am not talking about the mountains. I mean San Francisco/Bay Area, San Diego, LA, The Valley. We might have a frost. It snows maybe every ten years and melts by noon. When we have a frost, by noon it will be in the 50s. Our coldest day (that goes to 50 for a high) might be Louisville's high. Our flowers bloom all winter, the trees start blooming in January, daffodils are a foot tall, California poppies are blooming. It is good to live in California.

This year the middle part of January has been really cold weather (for us). We had frost, it was down in the 30's and only got up to about 45. Our furnaces cut on in the middle of the day. We have no heavy winter coats, we have no long johns, we are cold. We are freezing, And we get no sympathy from friends and family in the rest of the country. We are cold and no one cares!!! We know the rest of the country is sub zero. But we are Californians, we are sun people. We don't do cold.

As a friend said at church, Sunday, "We are winter wienies."

WEDDINGS, WEDDINGS, and more WEDDINGS

A very busy day marrying couples. I arrived at 1:00 and sat for 40 minutes. Then it picked up. It was a steady flow of weddings. I married a couple and then did the paper work and married the next one. I think I did 8 or 9 weddings. I lost track. I do know I was there until nearly 5:00. They have to be punched into the computer by 4:00 to be married. So lots of people.

No crazies today. Just lots of love. That doesn't mean there weren't some who didn't meet my old fashioned Southern idea of proper attire or correctness. This was the day of tattoos and bosoms. And the tattoos were all across the bosoms, and other parts of the body. It also was the day for beautiful men's suits. I swear one groom's suit had to have cost $1000. It was a perfect fit, beautiful rich black you just wanna touch it material. The groom was about 25 years old. I don't know how he could afford this suit, but he looked drop dead gorgeous in it.

I had one couple who was heavily tattooed. Large words on her bosom and shoulders, and up and down their arms. They had strange looking witnesses, and the bride also was a little goth looking. The bride was falling apart, she was visibly shaking and getting paler. I told them they could sit while I did the wedding. They said no, they could stand. They got paler and paler. Oh my word was she in love and so was he. Their voices became softer and softer. It was if they were the only people in the room as they said their vows. After the wedding I had them sit down, I thought they both were going to pass out.

One couple did not want to see each other in their wedding apparel until the bride walked through the door. So they dressed and he waited up front in the wedding room. She waited in the bathroom until we told her to come out. He was in black dress pants and vest, white shirt and tie, and a huge silver cross. She was in a ecru on white strapless floor length brocade dress with a shoulder length veil that was over her face. They were radiant. There was only me and one witness. But they wanted the feel of a fancy wedding and dressed as if 100 guests were in the wedding room. She was so cute, she said she refused to cry because that would mess up her make up. She did cry after the wedding.

Lots of love in the wedding room today. No weddings that I really didn't want to do. They were old enough, no 18 year old babies. They were happy, they were all so in love. And some were so eager. My last couple was so cute and eager. They were large, I looked a little bit dainty next to them. He was in a nice black suit, she was in a nice white cocktail dress. Even though she was large, she was absolutely beautiful, in an Elizabeth Taylor way. As they said their vows he had a little tear spillage. But the bride was so funny, as I started to pronounce them ( By the power vested in me . . .) she started bouncing. This woman was bouncing like Tigger. I almost laughed as I pronounced them married. Such love, and a perfect ending to my day.

READING

I read voraciously. I am in a weekly mystery book group. And I read lots of other books. Sometimes I like the group books and sometimes I don't. And the same for my outside reading.

Janet R our book group moderator receives 100s and 100s of books from publishers. We get to read them and if they are good we report back to her and the group. And we return the good books for her to read.

I picked up one a couple of weeks ago. Honestly Dearest, You're Dead by Jack Fredrickson. He isn't an author I was familiar with. And from the title and the cover I thought Chick Lit or a vampire story. Wrong. I really, really liked this book. The writing is sometimes humorous, very descriptive, and lots of plot turns. Old ladies watching porn, bad dressers, teen love and fights with city hall. All this and murder. The writing is more dark than humorous, but the humor is very helpful to relieve the tense parts. Sometimes I did need a score card for all the players, but I kept up.

I am not sure if quoting from the book is legal, but I am going to do it. The main character has a thing about Wal-Mart and Oreos. It runs through the whole book. And almost makes sense to me.

"I have a theory that, when the apocalypse comes, everyone will be living inside Wal-Marts and won't learn that the outside world has ended for at least a generation or two, and then only because the Oreos run out. For by then , the last of the cities and towns will have long since crumbled away, obsolete as buffalo skins, as dozens of generations will have been born, lived entire live, died and been recycled into puppy food inside huge, windowless Wal-Domes."

This continues on for a page and a half. Loved it. The book is worth reading just for pages 26 and 27, The Wal-Mart Essay.

I CONFESS . . .

I am a from scratch cook. Marty is a from scratch cook. Both our families are scratch cooks. I wrote about Rao's an Italian brand that was worth using, It tastes great, it looks good ( no tomato skins floating in the sauce), it is worth opening the jar. I don't use canned sauces. But trust me Rao's is good. I wrote about this brand in a previous blog.

Marty cooked tonight. Hallelujah!!! (And he cleaned up) He sauteed diced chicken, put in fresh asparagus. cooked some fancy pasta called tortiglionini , combined it with the Rao's Arrabbiata Sauce and put it on an heated plate. A lovely meal. We also had a mixed greens salad with my home made blue cheese dressing. The sauce was as good or better than I can make from scratch. And it was ready about 3 hours faster than I could make it. This was worth the $9.00 a jar. It says it will serve 6. Not at our house, maybe 4 1/2. Still a bargain when you factor in time and materials. So maybe some store bought products are OK to use. But I am very careful. Scratch cooking is still 98% better.

As to my blog about Meniere's disease ( look at the blog below this one), I have done a study over the last couple of days. You should not drink with Meniere's in an active mode. Trust me, wine just makes me dizzier. I can hardly find my wine glass.

IT'S RAINING, IT'S POURING, THE OLD MAN IS SNORING

Rain, we love it and hate it at the same time. California is in a severe drought. Some of us are on water rationing. And those of us who are on rationing are bitter about you water wasters. We so need every drop of rain, but as a Californian, after about 2 hours of rain I want to know WHERE IS THE SUN?

I really am happy it is raining. Really I am. But does the sun have to go away? And couldn't it just rain while I am sleeping at night. I mean really: an umbrella and a raincoat with a hood, not a good look; dangerous driving conditions ( no rain for months or years really makes for slick roads when it rains); and just icky depressing weather. I know every drop is drinking water. Every snow flake in the mountains is crucial for our drinking water. But we are spoiled. We are Californians, and we don't do bad weather.

We plan for a picnic and we know the weather will be perfect. We want to walk on the beach, climb a mountain, have dinner on the veranda. No problem. We don't have rainy days. We need to work in the yard, no problem, it isn't going to rain. But after several years of no rain, it is a problem. And we have the problem now.

When we first came to California in 1978 there was a drought. There was water rationing. A huge shock to someone from Kentucky. Kentucky is a very wet, humid state. Water is not a problem. The only rationing I had heard of (and don't remember )was from WWII. But we learned how to ration water. And I still remember the poem/rule from Herb Caen.

If it is yellow let it mellow, if it is brown flush it down.

For some reason that offends some of my family and friends. But trust me, we are following that rule and are within our allotment set by EBMD.

PS: The old man is snoring: I never understood that part of the poem.

Where did the door go?

Inner ear problems, Meniere's disease, vertigo, just plain dizzy. All of these are nearly the same, just a little bit different. They all mean you are dizzy, the room spins, you can't walk the line for the cop.

Around 30 years ago I was very dizzy and laid down on the floor. At that point I couldn't figure out how to get off the floor. I had no idea which way was up. I was on the floor and very still, and the room was spinning and whipping around. I thought I was having a stroke or something really bad. With great effort I pulled the phone down and called Kaiser, they put me on hold. So I called 911. The paramedics arrived and told me to go to the emergency room. I wasn't having a stroke but I needed a doctor. They said it would cost a fortune for me to go in the ambulance and to get my husband or someone to take me. It wasn't life or death. The husband was on a plane, the son was in elementary school; so the neighbor took me. I had/have Meniere's disease.

That means the fluid in my ears sloshes and I have no sense of balance. To me often the room is spinning. I see the walls move, very fast. When I walk toward a door, I may miss the door because it moves. I am walking and I just lurch to the side. I often look like I am drunk.

The weird thing about this disease is it will wake you up in the middle of the night with a spinning room. I have rolled over in bed and jiggled the ear fluid. And the motion I feel wakes me up. I watch the room whip around me and try not to throw up. I feel the motion, and sometimes it is really unpleasant. If I have an attack during the day, I can only keep from falling out of my chair by holding on to it. Sometimes I walk by holding on to the furniture or the wall.

I will go months without more than a mild feeling of motion. And sometimes it is full blown spinning. The attacks will last just minutes or days.

I woke up several times last night with the room whipping by my head. And then it would quit. The alarm went off and I sat up slowly (always I move slowly when moving up or down). I then staggered to the end of the bed and grabbed the bedpost. Then I studied where the door seemed to be. Could I hit it or would I bounce off the wall? I made it through the door the first time. In a couple of hours, I was fine.

One of my biggest fears is an attack while driving. Besides the danger of not knowing where things really are, explaining to the cop would be awful. Please sir, I can't touch my nose. No sir, I can't hop on one foot, nor can I walk that line. Please sir, let me just take the breathalyzer test.

I am in AWE

My friend Janet Rudolph is amazing. She has a mystery business, she runs our weekly reading group, does PR work for Left Coast Crime, and publishes an international journal. She runs her home and works to control (I say control because the dogs are big, active, and very strong) two wonderful dogs and a lovely cat. She has beautiful roses and orchids all over the property. And she writes several blogs. Her new one is Dying for Chocolate. Look down to the left and you will see it as a blog I follow. Read it and mark it as a favorite. Pass it on to your friends.

Chocolate, mysteries, puppy dogs and cats. What a well balanced woman. Oh, she is married to the lovely Frank. We all love and adore him too.