# Things I have no reason to post elsewhere



## Cap'nSacto (Oct 6, 2017)

A little back-story.

I’m assuming there are at least a handful of us Boomers who chose living together over marriage. Janet and I met in college – I was a “drop-in” student – and we lived together for 16 years. We had three children; two sons and a daughter; who have all become extraordinarily intelligent people, and genuinely good people as well.

We lived a rather nomadic lifestyle at first, repeating a cycle of traveling, finding work, and settling for a year or a year and a half. I could usually get a job with my nursing license, and Janet mostly did waitressing. If I couldn’t nurse, I took any job I could find; brick hod carrier, handyman, strawberry picker, rice silo raker (back in the day when they wore only a handkerchief over the mouth and nose, if inclined).

Five years and two sons later, Janet grew disenchanted with nomadic life, so when my cousin in North Hollywood asked me to partner with him on a breakfast-to-lunch café venture, I did. We hired two waitresses, he prepped and cooked, and I did everything from ordering supplies and keeping the books, to busing tables and washing dishes. Janet went back to college to earn her master’s.

My cousin was a hell of a cook, and the café did really well. In the first year, we hired five more waitresses, two assistant cooks, and a sous chef, for my cousin was now called Chef. He started talking about opening up a second location in Studio City. He’d had his eye on this place. Built in the thirties. A steal. It would only smart for a few months because it was already set up with the basics. We’d only need new tables and chairs, a new dishwasher, paint, some electrical work…

Money was tight with two kids, rent extortion, and tuition payments. I was already having problems getting home in time for Janet to make it to her evening classes, and she often had to leave the boys with a neighbor; a nice lady, but I didn’t like the idea of a sitter. I was getting hardly any time at all with Janet and the kids; managing two cafés would have left me with barely enough time to sleep. So, I asked my cousin to buy my half. He was reluctant, but he did. And he was generous, but this delayed the opening his other café. He had to close that one down within three years. He’s still not speaking to me.

In order to stay put so that Janet could continue at the university, and to pay her tuition, I took two nighttime jobs; bartender until 1:30am, security gate-keeper until 7:30am. I also managed to put myself through a training school and became a certified x-ray technician. The boys were both in school by that time, so everybody’s hours worked out and we didn’t need a sitter. Then I got a job in the local hospital’s radiology department, and scheduling went all to hell. The boys went to after-school care. It was necessary, and the child-care place was ok, but I begrudged having to share parenting my kids with the staff. So, when summer break came several months later, I quit being an x-ray technician and became a taxi driver with a company that pretty much let me chose my own hours. I worked through the night and during the day while the kids were in school.

By autumn the following year, Janet had earned her master’s degree, our daughter was born, and I’d started a landscaping business. Janet took an office job, we got a bigger house, and I worked hours that ensured one of us was always home with the kids, convincing half of my customers that the peak hours for successful planting occurred late in the evening, and the other half that pre-dawn planting was unbeatable. And for a little over two years, all was right with the world. Then Janet landed the job of her dreams, and the corporate world became her world.

Now, here’s where my life starts sounding a bit like a bad romantic dramedy. We started socializing with fellow corporate people, and my landscaping business became an embarrassment for Janet. So, when a close friend of mine asked me to invest in his retail store, and help him manage the business, I did. I worked the opening shift so I could be home when the boys got out of school, but our daughter had to be in daycare until 3pm. Several months later, Janet got a pretty nice promotion, and we hired a great live-in nanny.

Janet started working late, and then later, and occasionally worked weekends and holidays. (Before you guess where this is going…no! We’d hired a _grandmotherly_ kind of nanny.) She took business trips that lasted up to four days. This wasn’t unexpected, and it wasn’t the end of the world for the kids; they loved the nanny; but I was getting really bummed. I hardly ever saw Janet, the kids saw little of their mother, she was pressuring me to look for a new house – something nearer to her job and her job-related friends, which was quite a distance from the store – and I was having trouble rectifying the store’s profits and losses, and couldn’t figure out where the problem was.

The state had just raised the sales tax (and resale tax), inventory and floor taxes rose sharply, banks were suddenly charging whopping POS fees for debit/credit card sales, and we had to upgrade our sales and security technology, so I chocked-up the wacky fluctuations to all that stuff and decided to just remain patient for five or six months while the dust settled.

A few months later, one quiet morning, I was giving the store a good cleaning and found a boatload of lottery tickets stashed under the lotto register – you had to keep separate registers back then; one for the business and one for the state lottery. On a hunch, I went into the office and checked our security video. Between customers, I ran a few weeks-worth of daily sales analyses. Then I went back a few months, and then several months. And then I called my partner in and we –_ahem_– talked. Turns out he had a serious gambling addiction and was funding it with the business’s money. Every year, that sonofabitch had been gambling away a _minimum_ of fifty-thousand dollars. The store’s dollars. (And it was worse than that, because I found out later that his father had been paying some of it back.)

I gave that felonious SOB two choices; disappear empty-handed and never let me see his freaking face again, or face criminal charges. He disappeared. It didn’t take long to sell the store; it was in a great location, and business was actually quite good. The deal was, prior to the transfer of licenses the new owners agreed to clear all the store’s obligations, including arrears owed to some of our vendors and distributors, and I’d walk away with a third of my projected annual income. That was it. I got a night job at a convenience store right away, and restarted my landscaping business. But a new house was out of the question.

Janet was not happy. A couple of weeks later, she left. She left all of us; me and the kids. Our sons were ten and eight years old. Our daughter was four. The nanny left, too, of course. Fortunately, Janet paid her severance. We decided the kids would stay with me so that Janet could focus on her career. I wasn’t angry about that at all. It was what she wanted, and she worked extremely hard for it. Until she got that first promotion, I didn’t even recognize how ambitious she was. So, in that regard I was kind of a dinkus. And she never, ever, complained about my rather unconventional approach to earning a living.

She bought herself a condo in L.A., the kids and I moved to the modular home near Eagle Lake in northern California that my Dad left to me. Janet came to visit the kids whenever she liked (had time), or if she wanted time with the kids but couldn’t leave home, I took them to her. Janet was my partner. We lived together for 16 years. But then she married her job. And that was ok with me. If we had a motto, it was You Do You. During our years together, she set out to break glass ceilings, I refused to work for "The Man". She yelled _social equality_, I yelled _give me liberty_. I organized community gardens, she organized women’s marches. Her, justice for all; Me, liberty for all.

The gaps between our stances were wider than they seemed to be when we met. As of 1998 it was: her, as near the pulse as possible; me, as far off the grid as possible.


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## Cap'nSacto (Oct 7, 2017)

We talked quite a bit about stores today; products and lack of products, their ways of doing business; and it brought back memories of dealing with various vendors and distributors. The Merchandise Mafia. The biggies, like Marlboro, Reynolds, Anheuser-Busch. Man, those guys were cutthroat. Cutthroats to each other; Gestapo to the small retailer.


  I’ll never forget the day I was standing at the counter when a Marlboro sales rep walked in like the emperor of some vast continent. Immediately, he spotted a very small, seemingly insignificant two-tiered wire rack of Doral product sitting on the counter to my right. He introduced himself, smiling, even shook my hand. And then he picked up that little rack and threw it. Threw it toward the back wall, right past my head. And he yelled. “From now on, that’s MY spot!” 


  And then, I yelled. “Get your ******* ass out of my store!”


  “Oh, I don’t think so, sir. I am Marlboro! You don’t want to go there with _me__!_”


  But I did go there. And shit hit the fan. You are coerced into doing business with these people. It can cost you dearly if you don’t. Marlboro is a #1 seller. It’s a staple in stores like the one I had. It’s a necessity if you want good traffic. I had to eat crow, and forget about an apology. I did get excuses; “’Rep’ was having a bad day, but I can promise you, sir, bad days are very rare. We gave him a little time off. Everything will be copacetic next time you see him.” I actually flashed on that line in the Star Wars movie; “These are not the droids you are looking for.”

Nothing to see here, folks.

Anheuser-Busch used to go in and rearrange our cooler when there was another two inches of eye-level shelving they wanted. They never confer, they just go in and ravage. And you show the customer who buys the product that used to occupy that two inches over to the new location; way down there under the shelves, a row right on the cooler floor that you made yourself by rearranging a whole block of in-case merchandise. And the customer is not happy. He has to bend down and dig out a couple cans, or, if it's a tall-boy, lay each one down and roll it up the bit of wall to the cooler door. AB doesn't care one iota that that customer probably won't be back. When he did come back, I dug his beer out myself. I did that every time I saw him coming. I really liked the guy.


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## Pappy (Oct 8, 2017)

Great story, Cap’n.
I delivered bread for many years and the fighting that went over shelf space was brutal. It even went so far as one breadman slicing the competitions bread with a razor. 
My biggest problem was with small, independent companies who would wait until I had left and moved my product over and grab a couple of feet for themselves. 
Yes, it was, and still is a very competitive business.


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## hollydolly (Oct 8, 2017)

Wow....you have a lot of talents.... and one of them is definitely as a writer... great story!!!


....but don't leave us hanging... what happened to Janet?...is she still in the picture somewhere ..are the kids all grown... ?


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## RadishRose (Oct 8, 2017)

Yes, Cap'n what came next?

I feel like I've just been to the movies!

You're a good writer; I never once wandered from your stories.


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## Cap'nSacto (Oct 8, 2017)

Pappy said:


> Great story, Cap’n.
> I delivered bread for many years and the fighting that went over shelf space was brutal. It even went so far as one breadman slicing the competitions bread with a razor.
> My biggest problem was with small, independent companies who would wait until I had left and moved my product over and grab a couple of feet for themselves.
> Yes, it was, and still is a very competitive business.



Man. Even bread isn't safe!


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## Cap'nSacto (Oct 8, 2017)

RadishRose said:


> Yes, Cap'n what came next?
> 
> I feel like I've just been to the movies!
> 
> You're a good writer; I never once wandered from your stories.



Thank you. And you, too, hollydolly. 

I was thinking I'd continue the saga this afternoon or tonight. The kids are all grown now, with families of their own. Three fine people living three different lifestyles, which is it's interesting to me.

My insomnia got the better of me this past week, culminating to a crash day yesterday. I don't think as clearly when that happens (once every month or two). 

Today, I'm up early. Or, in normal people's terms, up when I should be. I feel real good today.


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## Cap'nSacto (Oct 8, 2017)

Ch-ch-changes

The first couple of months at Eagle Lake felt like a vacation. The kids and I hiked, fished, camped out. I was surprised at how well and how readily my daughter took to it. All the exploring and wildlife watching, learning to shoot, and use a real bow and arrow. Most mornings the kids would run outside and scatter, and come home late in the afternoon, smiling and dirty and full of stories and little collections of things, animate and non-animate. They stopped asking “When is mom coming to see us?”

Our new digs was a “manufactured” home made in the mid-nineties. Dad bought it new and put it on a nice little piece of property that he’d bought about ten years earlier with the intention of building a log cabin, but he never got around to it. It wasn’t mine yet, when the kids and I moved in, but before dad passed away in 2006, he’d already signed it over to me. Something I didn’t know until that time came.

When the honeymoon was over, and I’d had to start dipping into my savings to buy groceries and stuff, I had to decide if we were going to stay there, where firefighting, park rangering, and fish-and-gaming were about the only decent paying jobs available, and applicants were on a six-month waiting list just to be considered, or look for a place nearer a town or city where I could find work quickly.

I went to talk to my uncle, who lived in Susanville. Most of the men there worked in the wood mill. My uncle did for thirty years. But lots of boys grew up in Susanville, and most of them started work at the mill by the time they were 16. The situation was not as much that the mill didn’t need me, as it was that an outsider was willing to take a job away from some long-time resident’s son. I would not have been treated well, my uncle said. Plus, the commute would’ve been pretty dicey, especially in winter.

Uncle Johnny sent me to a guy in Spaulding who hired me to deliver propane. Things weren’t cheap up around the lake area, probably because most of the folks around there were tourists and didn’t actually live there, so the pay was pretty good. I can’t say the same for some of the routes. Especially when winter came. But as a rent-free resident, I did very well despite having to spend even more for groceries than I did in Los Angeles. When work over-lapped with non-school hours and I couldn't pick the kids up to ride along on my route, I left them in the care of one of the other permanent residents; a really nice couple named Chip and Ursula, who couldn’t have kids because she’d had uterine cancer. She was only 26. Until I met Ursula, I had no idea a woman her age could even get that kind of cancer. Chip built me a better TV antenna, and, when winter came, Ursula taught the kids to ski.

Our first winter was kind of rough. Snowfalls that dumped five feet overnight, temperatures that froze the fluid in my car battery, and froze the doors shut, and, holy-moly, I’d never chopped so much wood before. But we had some really good times. I met an Indian guy - Maidu Indian - whose people lived in that area for centuries. Uncle John told him to contact me. I don’t remember his Indian name. He went by Wallace. He taught the kids how to use a real bow and arrow, and showed us where safe-to-eat berries and mushrooms grew, and how to leech and roast acorns. He helped me get some work done on the property, too, and his wife invited us to dinner at their place a few times. Fry-bread was the kids’ favorite, so she’d send Wallace over with a cake pan full of fry-bread on Sundays.

Janet managed to get a few days off to spend Christmas with us. She and I slept together, and that was totally awesome, but it was clear we were no longer …committed. She brought a ton of gifts for the kids. Most of the clothes she bought were too small. She leaned over to me and said, “I guess I should have asked you their sizes.” That was the moment I felt truly distant from her. A world away. Her, Nordstrom’s skirts, blazers, high-heels, and diamond accessories; me, flannel shirts, heavy jeans, work boots, and a hatchet for an accessory. She liked my beard, she said. I told her I liked her hair. I couldn’t think of anything else to like. Maybe she couldn’t either.

I needed to move before the following summer. The kids did well at school - classes were small and the teachers were great - but that winter they missed a lot due to outrageous snowfalls. And the house was intended as a vacation home for my parents and siblings (and me). So, we got a place in Chico, and I took a job driving a regional bus. But I was restless. I’m not sure why. I started dating, but just wasn’t feeling any connection, you know? Whatever it was that made me and Janet click just wasn’t happening.

Chico is a college town. I was in my late 40s. College “girls” had no reservations about asking me out, and there is an obvious “pro” to dating younger women, but you might be surprised to know (especially if you’re a woman) that the “cons” list is way longer. It seemed there were only two types of women in Chico; the ones who woke up with you after the first sleep-over acting as though you’d just gotten married, and the ones who made you feel like they’d be jotting you down on their calendar for every other Saturday soon as they got home, frantically rushing out the minute they’d gulped down their morning coffee.

And the clubs! Oh my lord, the clubs! $10-$15 cover charges (times 2), jam packed, Jello Shots and Screaming Orgasms, throbbing techno sound, pulsing neon, Clarence Carter! Clarence Carter! And the drugs. Pills. Pills of every shape and color passed around openly to smiling faces, up and down the bar and on the dance floor, in the restrooms and right out front on the sidewalk. They’d swallow them, and then ask “What was it?” …if they didn’t already know. Pills had become even more popular than pot. Pot was as much a daily staple as coffee. A slice of bread. But pills…pills were for those special times; fun nights, study nights, cram for the exam nights.

We moved several times over the next four years. The kids got old enough to fly to L.A. to see their mom. I jotted Samantha's name down on my calendar for those times. I worked managing restaurants for an outfit called Pacpizza. The first Pizza Hut they sent me to had just begun operating under their umbrella. Pac’s human resources department was difficult to contact and work with, they seemed confused about employee medical benefits, and their district manager was scrutinizing the sales analyses on a daily basis. Within two years, they had me managing three locations. I liked that job. It was a time of change for Pac and for Pizza Hut, and the work was intense, but apparently, at the time, that’s exactly what I needed. I'd have to say it was a time of change for me, too.


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## hollydolly (Oct 8, 2017)

oooooh....I can hardly wait for the next instalment..I'm on the edge of my seat here....


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## Cap'nSacto (Oct 9, 2017)

One very important person I haven’t mentioned yet is Derrick, my son from a relationship that ended six years before I met Janet. The relationship I had with Derrick’s mother lasted five years, which seemed long at the time. Looking back, it was a blink. But my relationship with Derrick has lasted over 44 years now, and won’t end until I die. What a special, amazing boy he was. He is one of the reasons - the first - that it was so crucial I find jobs that offered shifts or flexible hours so I could be at home for the kids. Derrick came to live with me permanently when he was 14. Until then, he lived with his mother six months out of the year, and with me for the other six months.

When he was young, schools had no problem with that. Basically, your kid’s school records belonged to you. When it came time to switch schools, the office lady simply made copies of everything and stuck it all in two folders; one for her, and one for me…to take to the other school.

(Minor note; my father’s ancestors emigrated to America from France during the Civil War, and made no effort whatsoever to keep the blood-lines pure. Dad; Heinz 57.)

Young Derrick looked nothing like me. People say he does a little bit now, but I still don’t see it. My mother is Korean. Derrick’s mother was a freckled red-head, and so is Derrick. I have some Korean features; mainly my coloring, but also my nose, I guess, and my eyes have a moderate epicanthic fold. Interestingly, Derrick’s eyes have a more pronounced epicanthic fold than mine do. I’m 5’10”, he’s a whopping 6’4”. My irises are nearly black, his are a beautiful sky blue with steel gray rims. He has a strong chiseled jaw, mine is more rounded. But, he is definitely my son. We had to show that in court three years after his mother and I split up, and my neighbor thought I’d kidnapped someone’s child. I’d been living there alone for five months, and suddenly showed up holding the hand of this very pale, red-haired little boy.

Good job, neighbor, I say.

Derrick’s mother started saying there was something “not right” about him when he was nine months old. I didn’t see it until a few months later. He didn’t sleep much. My mother said he was a fussy baby, but a more accurate word would be _irritable_. He very rarely cried, but his face told you everything. It was very expressive very early. If he didn’t like you, it showed, unmistakably. It was an almost freakishly intelligent face, too. You could clearly see he was doing a lot of thinking and assessing while he explored the world around his little quilt on the floor.

Derrick never really played with his toys, he very methodically deconstructed them, examined them, and tested them. Some, he put back together. Others were abandoned, particularly the less complex toys. He stammered terribly until he was about 10. He never seemed interested in making friends, wouldn’t wear shoes that tied or buckled or covered his ankles, never seemed to understand the concept of coordinating your clothes so that your shirt went well with your pants; color-pallets and current styles meant nothing to him. Those things probably sound insignificant, but what was concerning was that he was always so adamant about his preferences.

When he was in third grade, the school called me; they wanted to refer him for some tests. So, for three days, his mother and her new husband and I took him to what was then called an Achievement and Placement Center, for tests that took as long as two and-a-half hours. What the tests showed was that he had a high IQ - 144, if I remember right…or 141, maybe - and that he displayed obsessive-compulsive and anti-social behaviors. He was put in the school’s program for gifted children; basically, private tutoring within the school.

Derrick began having mild seizures at age 9, and his doctor found a small benign brain tumor, inoperable at the time. Four more were found over the next several years, all benign, and two of those were successfully removed, along with that first one. To this day, he still has two in there, and he just wants them left alone. He was never prescribed seizure medication. The seizures were infrequent, and mild, and they stopped after that surgery. 

He is still a very intelligent person, and very knowledgeable. Still has some obvious OC quirks, but he learned to manage them. He served 25 years in the naval reserves with a Seabees unit, activated for a 9 month stint in Iraq and 8 months in Afghanistan, and his current civilian career is in robotics engineering. He has a small circle of friends who admire him, but they don’t really socialize with him. He prefers tinkering in his shop over going to their parties and what have you. They stop by his shop now and then to see what he’s up to. Derrick has been married three times and has two sons, ages 23 and 13. The 13-year-old spends every other weekend with him. Great kid. A freckled red-head. Loves baseball. Loves his grandpa.


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## hollydolly (Oct 9, 2017)

Wonderful story of real life.... Go.. Derrick,  Junior  &   grandpa....


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## Cap'nSacto (Oct 12, 2017)

For a long time, I felt guilty for moving the kids from place to place so much. A few times I managed to stick with a place (and a job) for two or three years, but I thought that might have been even worse for them; having to say good-bye to friends they’d gotten pretty attached to. It was easy for me. Might sound sappy, but I always felt I was taking my _real_ friends, and best friends, with me.

In any case, the boys tell me now that they liked moving around, meeting new people, exploring new places. They liked the challenges, too, like when we moved into an old mobile home in Nevada, out at the edge of the desert where there were only four other homes on this short, remote street. It was one of the times that I took very little furniture with us, and didn’t rush out to buy any, unsure how long we’d be staying, so the boys and I built all our beds.

Some construction company had used the two acres right next to the mobile home as a dump site, or maybe a holding area for stacks of lumber, ceiling and bathroom tiles, chicken wire and bags of cement, among other things. It was apparent that stuff had been there for decades; the tiles were vintage and the cement was all rock solid inside the bags. We built me and my daughter simple pedestal beds, but the boys wanted “pioneer beds”. They remember how we used rope to weave webbing to support the cheap mattresses I bought – bought those and some lamps and a small set of used dishes. They said those were the most comfortable beds they’d ever slept on. Could be because they helped build them, and they were more comfortably proud than actually comfortable.

My daughter seemed happy wherever we went, but she doesn’t talk about the old days as much as the boys do. Maybe some aspects of it were harder for her. But she doesn’t dwell on what’s past. She moves on. She can make a friend instantly. She sizes up strangers quickly, and then just talks to them, joking and laughing. Next thing you know, they’re going out and doing things together; concerts, wine tours, afternoons at the beach and such. But if not, she moves on. No biggie. While she was in the navy, she called the guys and one other gal in her unit “family”. They'd spend months cooped up on a ship together, went to a lot of ports together. Spain was the place she liked best, from a military tourist’s perspective. After five years of that, she left the navy – last year – and didn’t leave her navy family an email or home address. Just moved on to other things; a really good job. It’s keeping her really busy, she said. She’s never short of friends. Casual friends. But her true companion is her dog. This year, she bought a house. I’m anxious to see how that works out for her.

My daughter is like her mother in a lot of ways; strong, caring, managerial – that sizing people up in a snap? That’s her mom. When she just starts talking to them, and jokes and laughs with them, that’s her dad…that’s me 100%. She looks a lot like her mother, especially around the eyes. Blue eyes, strawberry blond hair; like three out my four kids, you’d never guess in a hundred years she’s ¼ Korean.

But this wasn’t supposed to be about looks.

Do you ever think about how your kids are like you as a person? I think about that after I look at how what I did as a father may have affected them, shaped them as people; the influence it’s had on their decision-making, the way they interact with people, how they view the world. That way, I don’t judge their behavior without considering the bigger picture. I grew up differently from them in almost every respect. I didn’t care for my father’s lifestyle, so I never expected my children to all grow up to become nomadic jacks-of-many-trades. My choices, in part, were a reaction to my upbringing. Makes sense that theirs are as well.

If, in some ways, my kids take after me as a personality, genetically or due to imprinting in their first few years, or whatever mechanism comes into play, how would *I* have been affected if my father raised me as I raised them? That’s what I ask myself when the kids make decisions I wouldn’t make, or when their view of the world seems a bit odd to me. If I was me, and I was also a product of all the particular choices and behaviors I made and had as a father, who would I be and how would I behave? And, of course, I take their mother’s influences into account.

Hm. Now it's just occurred to me that, just perhaps, I needed to move around a lot because I wanted to prevent the people we lived among from having too much influence on my kids. Maybe I was ok with just enough exposure and influence to illustrate how “these” people live before moving to a place where “those” people live, but not so much exposure that the kids picked up too much from any of them. Not because I wanted them to be like me – I never took it for granted that they would be – but because I wanted them to just be them. Anyway, that was my goal as a father; don’t mess up the kids, and don’t let anyone else mess them up.  

And, trust me if you don’t know first-hand, people are very different from region to region. Hell, we mostly moved around just within California, and could have for a century and not run out of idiosyncratic regions. That’s why I think it’s so ridiculous that we Americans act like we have only two political parties.

Still, maybe that was kind of selfish. Maybe they missed out on meeting someone truly inspirational, you know? Well, not going to dwell on that now. It's almost 1am; I gotta go to sleep (peacefully) sometime soon.

My youngest son’s only friend is his wife. Theirs is a common-law marriage; ten years old now. They don’t normally socialize with other couples. They attended her co-worker’s birthday dinner once. They took their kids. They have four kids, and life pretty much revolves around them. He works nights, she works days. When they aren’t working, they’re at home with the kids, or taking the kids to the park or the pool, or out for dinner and a movie. They spend all their holidays at home. Christmas and Thanksgiving dinner, it’s almost always just them and the kids around the table. Once a week, though, without fail, they have date-night, and I have the kids. Occasionally, they double-date with his slightly older brother, my second son and _his_ wife, but they are each other’s primary social connection. Or social outlet, as many like to say.

And I understand that because that was me. If my youngest son’s wife ever leaves him, he’ll likely shut down. There’s a good chance his co-workers won’t even know it happened. They certainly won’t hear about it from him. They’d just notice he’s quieter than usual, more serious, really focused on work. Also, that he’s losing weight, probably.

Every one of my kids has a great sense of humor. Could be because they had to get one or they’d go nuts. They’re all funny as hell, but my second son, the middle son, is fantastically quick-witted. Observational humor that, while quite intelligent, sometimes verges on the totally inappropriate. So, occasionally, when he spews a one-liner while we’re in public, I impulsively look around to see who might be glowering at him. Needless to say, he has loads of friends. He and his (lawful) wife have people over all the time. They’ll use any excuse to throw a party, including Super-Bowl and World-Series parties, of course. After wearing out three barbecues, they finally had one built-in, out on their deck. Like his slightly younger brother in the previous paragraph, this son has never moved except when he’s had to for work (twice), or when they found a nicer house (once) close to a better school.

So, those two boys prefer to stay put. And, it looks like my daughter might stay where she’s at for a good long while, too. My oldest son, Derrick, has the wanderlust. His job takes him all over the world, and he loves it. He wouldn’t want it any other way. He and his wife own their home, but the house-sitter is there at least as much as they are. One year, she was there for seven months. It’s an older home, nice but nothing fancy, simply furnished - they don’t spend money needlessly. They save like crazy. They’re already talking about various places they’d like to retire to. Few of them in the US...near family.


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## Cap'nSacto (Oct 13, 2017)

When you log onto senior forum and anytime you go to the main page, five or six pictures that members have uploaded show up across the top. Once in a while, I’ll click on one I like. The landscapes, mostly, because I’m curious about where it was taken. Earlier this week, I saw a picture of a man, and could hardly believe it – I know that guy! 


  I clicked on the picture, and sure enough, it was my old grade-school classmate, my best friend in high-school, three streets away neighbor, and after I moved back to northern California, my boss! For almost 20 years I worked for him off and on doing remodeling jobs. And years later, I called him several times to help me while I had my landscaping business. He knew way more than I did about pouring cement, deck construction, and installing fountains and ponds. Once I learned, I didn’t have to beg him to come help with a job. He made _me _somewhat an expert...or at least, my clients thought so.


  Looking at his picture brought back a lot of memories. Great memories. We’d moved from a farm in rural south Sacramento to a suburb in Los Angeles. I had a hard time adjusting. Wearing overalls to school was definitely a no-no, and I hated the new clothes my mother bought me…dress slacks and white button up shirts, and a frigging tie! I was 10. I had thick black hair in a bowl-cut, my eyes were black, too, and I was short and pudgy. The brainy kids didn’t like me because I was ahead of them in most subjects – I’d gone to a small school, never had more than a dozen or so kids in my classes, and most years I had exceptional teachers. The cool kids were all tall and slender and tanned, and had long blond hair and blue eyes, so I guess they didn’t like me because of my looks. Also, I didn’t own a skateboard…yet.


  Anyway, this one guy, one of the coolest guys in school, asked me if I was Irish. I said no, but he asked me a few other questions, where I was from and stuff, and then we just talked all through recess. And the other cool kids came over and talked to me, too. And just like that, I was accepted. By the cool kids! And once you’re accepted by them, everyone knows you; it opens doors. He didn’t tell me his name that day. I just knew everyone called him “Rig”. He dubbed me “Rat” …maybe because of my black hair and short pudginess, I don’t know.


  We became really good friends. We went to each other’s houses after school, and his mother gave me an open invitation for dinner on Wednesdays. I went countless times. I had a crush on his sister for a few years; a red-head, like my future SO. His father started taking me out in their huge garage to show me his wood-work, and how he did it. Rig’s family was kind of rowdy, and so was mine (to a lesser extent). I felt at home with them, and kept in touch with most of them over the years.


  That’s why I got a chill when I saw his picture up at the top of the senior forum home page. Rig was killed in a motorcycle accident. I had a feeling his family wouldn’t want his picture there. So, a couple of days later, I sent a PM to SeaBreeze asking if she could take it down. She not only did that, she sent me a link to a thread someone dedicated to him. There were even a couple of poems written for him. 


  I copied the thread posts, and sent them to one of Rig’s sisters. The next morning, she called to thank me, and said it was good his pictures were taken down. She said I’d sent the thread posts exactly one week after the date of his death last year, and it happens they were having a big remembrance dinner that evening. She’d printed out some of the posts on calligraphy paper, to frame and set around the remembrance table, and she planned to read the poems aloud as part of the celebration. She invited me, but I wasn’t able to go. But I felt good, much better, about sending SeaBreeze that PM.


  [FONT=&quot]So thanks again, SeaBreeze, for that link.[/FONT]


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## Smiling Jane (Oct 13, 2017)

Very interesting and well-written diary, Cap'n.


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## jujube (Oct 13, 2017)

Pappy said:


> Great story, Cap’n.
> I delivered bread for many years and the fighting that went over shelf space was brutal. It even went so far as one breadman slicing the competitions bread with a razor.
> My biggest problem was with small, independent companies who would wait until I had left and moved my product over and grab a couple of feet for themselves.
> Yes, it was, and still is a very competitive business.



Yep, I merchandised suncare products in a high-volume tourist market area for two years (104 accounts)......it's brutal.  Managers would take bribes "under the counter" for good shelf space and then sell you out to a higher bidder.  Competitors would lie about you.  They'd damage your displays. Etc., etc., etc.

Two years was all I could take.


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## Shalimar (Oct 13, 2017)

Fascinating stories. If you aren't published, you should be!


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## SeaBreeze (Oct 13, 2017)

You're very welcome Cap'nSacto, glad you were able to share his memorial thread with his sister.  Been enjoying your stories here too, thanks for sharing.


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## Cap'nSacto (Oct 13, 2017)

jujube said:


> Yep, I merchandised suncare products in a high-volume tourist market area for two years (104 accounts)......it's brutal.  *Managers would take bribes "under the counter" for good shelf space* and then sell you out to a higher bidder.  Competitors would lie about you.  They'd damage your displays. Etc., etc., etc.
> 
> Two years was all I could take.



Wow. That's disgusting. Giving the rest of us a bad name.


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## Cap'nSacto (Oct 14, 2017)

Smiling Jane said:


> Very interesting and well-written diary, Cap'n.



Thanks, Smiley. Means a lot.


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## Cap'nSacto (Oct 14, 2017)

Shalimar said:


> Fascinating stories. If you aren't published, you should be!



Sadly, it's not enough to write well. One has to know how to weave a relevant story in a truly compelling way. In fact, these days you have to come pretty close to brilliance.

But I do try to tell my stories well, so thank you.


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## Shalimar (Oct 14, 2017)

Cap'nSacto said:


> Sadly, it's not enough to write well. One has to know how to weave a relevant story in a truly compelling way. In fact, these days you have to come pretty close to brilliance.
> 
> But I do try to tell my stories well, so thank you.


You are most welcome. Some writers I have known have published their stories online. Some do quite well.


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## maggiemae (Oct 15, 2017)

Cap'nSacto, my husband was a general manager for a very large Travel Plaza chain in the South and the stories he would come home about various vendors was crazy!  Thank goodness, he retired before that job nearly killed him with the long hours.

Love reading your life's journey!


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## Cap'nSacto (Oct 16, 2017)

maggiemae said:


> Cap'nSacto, my husband was a general manager for a very large Travel Plaza chain in the South and the stories he would come home about various vendors was crazy!  Thank goodness, he retired before that job nearly killed him with the long hours.
> 
> Love reading your life's journey!



Thank you, maggiemae. 

Just about everybody believes they know how competitive cola companies are, and the lengths they will go to outsell the other...but not many _really_ do.


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## jujube (Oct 16, 2017)

Love your stories, Cap'n.


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## Cap'nSacto (Oct 17, 2017)

I got a couple of calls last week to set up pre-op appointments. Blood and urine tests, I expect, and probably a cardiogram. Those always turn out good. My blood tests are always excellent, all the numbers falling smack in the middle of normal range. That surprises me, because I don’t eat like I should. I used to. I grew up on farm cooking. I mean that literally; I lived on a farm until age 10, and mother’s cooking didn’t change after we moved to the city. I think she might have complained to my aunt and uncle about store-bought food, because they’d always bring farm eggs and chickens and vegetables when they’d visit.

When we moved to a house in the suburbs, the first thing mother did was put me and my brother to work building a chicken house. My brother hated that. “People are gonna think we’re like the Beverly Hillbillies,” he said. I remember my response was, “Oh, like you wouldn’t kiss Elly Mae!”  and he said, “In a heartbeat, but that’s got nothin’ to do with it.”

The neighbors called the police about the chickens. And we didn’t even have a rooster, yet. So, we moved the whole kit and caboodle into the garage, except for the wire fencing. We put that in there after having to gather eggs from the toolbox, a hardhat, a back corner under the workbench, and down in the grass-catcher on the lawnmower. My father, meanwhile, looked for a house zoned for chickens.

As well as the pre-op appointment calls, just this morning I got an email from my pain specialist with the results of a diagnostic test done on the 29[SUP]th[/SUP] of last month. The test is called an EMG; electromyogram. While sitting up, and then lying down, an MD stuck needles very similar to acupuncture needles in 30 different places on my arms and hands, legs and feet, my neck and and my lower back. The needles don’t all get stuck in at once, but one at a time. The needle is a probe that sends an electrical pulse into specific points of various muscles to measure nerve conductivity on a live graph while you’re instructed to _push_ and _relax_.

When she got to my hands, the doctor advised me these were very sensitive areas, and to expect a little more pain with needle insertion and during testing. It hadn’t been at all painful up to that point, and _at_ that point I would describe the sensations as very annoying, but not painful. She looked deep into my eyes after she finished with my hands, and said, “You have a very high tolerance for pain.”

The way she looked at me prompted me to look up pain tolerance after I got home. There’s an actual disorder. A sensory disorder. But I’m sure I don’t have that. I have a high tolerance for pain because I’ve been in pain for so long. Almost 20 years. That’s why I don’t like those pain level charts; Rate your pain from zero to ten. First of all, if it was zero I wouldn’t be sitting there in the pain management clinic. The pain management clinic chart should begin at 2 or 3. And secondly, pain levels are subjective. I get that the charts are intended only as a tool, but I worry that some doctors rely on them too heavily. I’m sure those doctors are out there. Therefore, thirdly, if I say 7, in reality it could very well be a 9 or a 10. And if a patient does have a sensory disorder, the disorder could go unnoticed.

Anyway, I am really bummed out about the results of the EMG. They showed bilateral carpel tunnel syndrome, which was a drag, but more significant was “evidence of radiculopathy” in my cervical spine at C5 and C7 with stenosis at C7.

_Radiculopathy_ is when part of a vertebra or the vertebral disk presses on a nerve root. I’ve got that going on in my lower back at three levels. The nerves are severely impinged, and can’t be un-impinged without surgery. _Stenosis_ is where the vertebra presses against the spinal cord, narrowing the cord pathway. That’s happening in my lower back as well, at L5 and S1. Fortunately, it’s mild to moderate, and reparable with surgery. (Severe stenosis can result in paralysis.)

So, I’m really bummed about the EMG results regarding my neck. I emailed back to my pain doctor. He had asked if I wanted to see a specialist about the carpel tunnel, and I told him “Not any time soon. Once I’m all healed from the back surgery, I want to get right to the neck problems, no carpel tunnel distractions.” He replied, “Good. I agree.”

I’ll read up on it, but I think all they do for carpel tunnel anyway is fit you for hand braces; is that right? My hands are a little weaker than they used to be, but they don’t hurt or anything. ‘Course, I could have pain tolerance disorder. layful: 
(I don't)


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## Vega_Lyra (Oct 17, 2017)

Captivating life journey...
Writing is cathartic.
Thank you for sharing.:wave:


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## Cap'nSacto (Oct 17, 2017)

Vega_Lyra said:


> Captivating life journey...
> *Writing is cathartic.*
> Thank you for sharing.:wave:



It is. Very much so. I really only started writing back in 2000, when I was laid up after a car accident. Once I started, it became almost a daily habit.

Thank you, Vega.


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## Vega_Lyra (Oct 17, 2017)

Thank you,Cap'nSacto. 
Keep on writing. :wave:


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## RadishRose (Oct 17, 2017)

You should be published. You can self-publish, I hear. 

Thanks so much for sharing your life; it's fascinating!


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## Cap'nSacto (Oct 26, 2017)

*A Child's Gift

*This morning, despite setting the alarm for 8:55 so I could make it to a doctor appointment by 11am, I woke up at 10:45. Luckily, the office is only about 12 minutes away. That is, when they aren’t working on the road. Which they are. The road crew posted signs that one of the two lanes was closed, though no one knew why, because both lanes were open the entire length of said road work. However, we drivers were unsure whether to trust the posted signs or our own eyes, so we merged from one lane to the other and back again, like a great indecisive caterpillar. After we finally trusted our collective gut, and broke up into the two lanes, we exchanged WTF? expressions and similar gestures of solidarity at the next stop light.

The appointment this morning was a pre-op wellness exam. The EKG looked great. Eight vials of blood were taken, and after the doctor fondled my balls, he stuck his finger well up my rectum and said, “Well, this is all good.” To which I replied, “You speak for yourself, I can tell you.”

When the doctor got through with me, I had an hour and a half to drive four blocks to where I was scheduled for chest x-rays. I had to fast for the blood draw. Fortunately, though I was in a rush, I’d thought to bring a banana and some water with me. Unfortunately, I’d forgotten my wallet. I didn’t want to drive back over that road to get it, and then over it again to radiology, so buying myself a decent lunch was out. I just went to radiology, wishing I’d brought, if not my wallet, a book.

The radiology receptionist asked for my name and birthdate, and then asked “What time is your appointment?” Without hesitation, I answered, “One-forty-five.” Even so, she advised me that I was an hour and a half early. “Everyone’s out to lunch. Would you like to go home and come back a little later?” “Not on your life,” I said. Her expression assured me that was a much larger investment than she had any intention to chance. “Just have a seat, sir.”

She handed me a clipboard and I sat to read and sign a form stating that I understood my financial responsibility should my insurance not cover the procedure (again, a chest x-ray) which was worded unlike any financial responsibility form I’ve ever seen. I read it three times and signed it feeling as though someone was trying to pull a fast one on me. Moments later, I was called to the back. I’m sure I hadn’t waited even 20 minutes. I figured I wasn’t the only one who missed lunch.

There was roadwork on the drive home as well. Again “this lane closed ahead” signs were posted though both lanes were clearly open, but we drivers were onto them this time, and sped along smoothly. That is, until we got to a crop of newly installed traffic signals, and our smiles and our up-stuck thumbs dropped as we all had to brake suddenly. Thing is, the new signals weren’t in operation yet. No red, yellow, or green directives. Just clusters of stoic, non-communicative rectangular boxes suspended out over the road, staring blankly. Again, we exchanged various gestures of confusion and frustration, not only between each other, but this time, with the cross-traffic drivers as well. We were a growing population.

When I got home, a bit flustered, a bit back-achy, a bit violated, I found a little stack of papers and books on my doorstep. In red felt-pen, in a child’s hand, on a sheet of lined paper but not on the lines were the words “To: *Sassy and *Sparky’s Grandpa” (*not their real names). Taped to it were a pristine Sweet Scents Shopkins Collectors Card, a #1 bauble that had likely once been attached to a keychain, and a paper heart colored with red crayon. The heart was smiling.

Under that was a very similar sheet of paper saying “To: Sassy, my BFF” onto which a book titled _The Incredible Present_ was taped, along with a hand-drawn and colored smiling Emoji with a speech bubble that said “From: Kathy. I love you.”

Under that was another sheet of paper, this one penned in green, that said “To Sparky from your friend Luke.” This one was taped to a book titled _Five True Stories of Baseball’s Best_.

These children, Kathy and Luke, are a brother and sister who live on my street, who happen to be the same ages as my two youngest grandkids. Because this general area is not always safe and tranquil, I do not allow my grandkids to play on the sidewalk. These two children are also not allowed to play on the sidewalk. So, one day, after my two and those two saw each other from across the street, I went over and introduced myself to the parents, and invited their two to play with my two in my front yard. We have lots of toys and art supplies and stuff here, and more importantly, a fence, which they don’t have.

In no time, I recognized that they’re good kids. Really good kids – polite, respectful, and obviously very excited to have other kids to play with. Mine shared a bag of grapes with them, they ran home and came back with four juice-boxes, the two boys shared each other’s cars, the girls played school. They’ve only recently met, and have spent such time in my yard only twice, when I babysat my grandkids. 

But these little gifts! Quite unexpected, and so sweet, and colorful, too. And they arrived on kind of a bummer day.

I left the little stack of affection and kindness on my desk, intact, just as I'd found it, anxious for the next day my grandkids visit; Saturday, probably.


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## SeaBreeze (Oct 26, 2017)

Very sweet story, nice to be loved and appreciated by the little ones Grandpa. :love_heart:  You did have a rough day!


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## NancyNGA (Oct 26, 2017)

Great story Cap'n.


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## Smiling Jane (Nov 1, 2017)

A couple of friends developed carpal tunnel syndrome. Both of them had some kind of outpatient surgery that involved releasing the nerve(s) that have been immobilized and caused pain. They wore braces while they healed, then the braces went away. All of my keyboards and work surfaces are designed to keep my wrists in a neutral position so hopefully I'll be okay. You could be doing something gardening or back when you were working that caused it.

I love the story about the children leaving little gifts. Not only are they grateful to have your grandchildren around, they're willing to express it. That's very sweet and kind of unusual, in a very nice way.


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## Lara (Nov 2, 2017)

What a pleasant surprise at 2am . I opened page one and thoroughly enjoyed your easy free-flowing writing style. Then I realized there were yet pages two and three to read. I read more but will revisit to finish. I'll go back to bed for now. Very interesting Cap'n. Thank you.


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## Cap'nSacto (Nov 6, 2017)

Lara said:


> What a pleasant surprise at 2am . I opened page one and thoroughly enjoyed your easy free-flowing writing style. Then I realized there were yet pages two and three to read. I read more but will revisit to finish. I'll go back to bed for now. Very interesting Cap'n. Thank you.



Well thank _you_, Lara.


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## Cap'nSacto (Nov 6, 2017)

Thinking about my kids today. Derrick is 44. Then there’s Finnian and Taylor, who are 30 and 28, respectively, and my daughter, Maud, who’s 23. Taylor’s the one with a lot of kids. Six of them, including a step-daughter.

He and his first wife, were pregnant when they were 16. He was 17 and working by the time the baby was born. They lived with me, sort of, in a little guest cabin in my backyard, until they could get a place of their own a year and a half later. They married when she was 18 and pregnant with their third child. Taylor’s wife left him and the kids (deja-vu) after their youngest started school. She’d fallen in love with a cowboy, and moved to Texas. Soon, Taylor met Anne, and they’ve had two kids, making 5 plus his step-daughter.

But I was thinking how different from each other Finn and Taylor are. Derrick’s another breed altogether, and he’s doing great. They’re all doing well for themselves, but, of course, Taylor will lag behind financially. This does not worry him. He’s a _Come what may, I’ll handle it_ kind of guy. He trusts himself, and he has every reason to…he’s either been there or he’ll figure it out using reason and common sense, which he has in abundance.

Finn, on the other hand…him, I worry about. He has planned well financially. He is also rather miserly. He splurges on himself if he wants a thing badly enough, in which case, in his mind the purchase is justified, but he gives penny-wise gifts to a short list of recipients at Christmas, and only at Christmas. He served 23 years in the Naval Reserves, and banked every dime of that money, including the thousands he got every time he “re-upped”. He earns six figures at his civilian job, and puts 50% of it into his savings. His wife earns about the same, and saves even more than him. They keep separate finances, each paying half the mortgage and utilities, then he buys food and she buys household items. They take vacations on their annual cash rewards from their credit cards, plus they’ll each throw in an extra $500 to $1000, depending on where they go. They did that for their East European trip, but didn’t need to for their Alaskan Cruise.

Anyway, Finn is the planner and oft’ times miser. Taylor disgusts him with all the kids and the huge Christmases and Easters and birthdays. I disgust him to, for not sticking with a career and planning for my retirement. So, (until recently) if I ever needed his help, it was a loan. When I had to live with him and his wife for a year (after the car wreck), they charged me $350/mo. I don’t judge because, also being human, I don’t feel qualified, but Taylor was livid that his brother charged me rent. That was one of the things that widened the chasm between the two of them.

To clearly illustrate the difference between Finn and Taylor; at my home in a small town up north, I fell from a ladder while using a hand saw to trim some tree branches away from my roof. Finnian happened to stop by about 15 minutes later. He took my credit card and rushed to Home Depot to get me a chainsaw. While he was gone, Taylor stopped by. He finished trimming the tree before Finnian got back from Home Depot.

Finn will get me a better tool; Taylor will just do the job for me.

Finn jokes that I was lucky to be in a car wreck that resulted in my getting enough money to comfortably see me through my forced retirement. Taylor wishes I hadn’t had to go through all that, that I’d been able to earn a living until I began collecting social security at some point.

To that, Finn would laugh and say, “Yeah, of course, but it was kind of worth it.” To which Taylor would respond, “To you, sure. Because now you won’t have to help him in his old age.”

…that is, if he would respond at all in this hypothetical. Taylor keeps harsh words to himself. Finn, never. Not at all. And because of that and six other reasons, chances are, Finn will live longer than Taylor. It's Taylor I worry about most.


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## maggiemae (Nov 8, 2017)

Oh, what a sweet story about "A Child's Gift"!  Made me want to cry with "happy tears".


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## RadishRose (Nov 8, 2017)

Your children are fascinating people! I love reading about you and your family. Thank you.


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## Cap'nSacto (Dec 2, 2017)

Back surgery is done. I checked into the hospital at 6am, and was wheeled into the OR at about 9am, or so I was told…I was already under anesthesia. I’m not sure what time they finished, either.

My son basically dropped me off - like I told him to. To me, it's just senseless to wait around a hospital while someone has a lengthy surgery. He said his wife woke him up at around 4pm (he works nights), because she hadn’t gotten a call from the hospital yet. And hour later, too worried to get back to sleep, he called the hospital. They said I’d just gotten out of surgery, was doing fine, and the doctor would call him back soon.

In reality, at some point during surgery, I started to bleed and the surgeon had just decided to begin transfusion when he finally got the bleeding under control. He’d also found that I have an extra nerve root. Each vertebra has one pair of nerve roots, one nerve root on either side. At level L-5, I have two nerve roots on one side and one on the other, and one of the double nerve roots was crushing its twin. The surgeon had never seen this before, but he knew (obviously) he couldn’t remove either one, so he had to arrange them so that they would never again be in physical contact with each other.

So, the bleed and the “surprise twin” problems kept me in surgery a few hours longer than anticipated. But I was released on day 3, as planned, and my son took me home with him to stay for a few days. I have been home since the 26[SUP]th[/SUP], and my granddaughter (22yrs old) is staying with me while she’s not at work or school (she does both part-time).

It’s been a week and a half since surgery and I feel really good; getting around the house just fine and spending time out in the yard in the evenings. I’ve resumed my nightly walks, though my granddaughter insists I do it before dark in case I trip over something we didn’t see. I’ve stopped taking at least half of the meds I was prescribed after surgery as the only pain I’m having now is some discomfort at the surgical site.

Some side notes; The surgeon said that twin nerve root is obviously a birth defect, and so I’ve likely been in pain since birth, and grew accustomed to it, which would explain my high pain tolerance. Interestingly, my brother, who died when he was four, was also born with a birth defect in his lower lumbar called spina-bifida occulta; incomplete fusion of the two halves of the sacral vertebra; When my older son saw my incision (while it was still bandaged) he said, "Jeez, Dad, it looks like they extended your butt-crack half-way up your back!"

Anyway, I’m doing well. Just have to remind myself to not bend or twist.


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## RadishRose (Dec 2, 2017)

Glad it's over with and successful! Wishing you a speedy recovery.


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## SeaBreeze (Dec 2, 2017)

I'm glad everything went okay with your surgery, that is odd about the extra nerve and I'm glad they were able to do something about it.  Please take care of yourself and take it easy, hoping that you recover quickly and completely.


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## NancyNGA (Dec 2, 2017)

Sounds like it was a serious operation, Cap'n.  Glad you are recovering so well!


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## terry123 (Dec 3, 2017)

Love your writings!!!  Glad you are doing well after surgery.  You live an interesting life.  Would make a great book.  I have definitely lead a sheltered and boring life!!


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## maggiemae (Dec 5, 2017)

Wow, you sure did well with that type of surgery!  Glad you are on the mend.  Sounds like you will be back to normal in no time!


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## Cap'nSacto (Dec 5, 2017)

Terry, thank you. I enjoy writing, always have. At times, it helps me keep life balanced.

Maggiemae, I was told by my surgeon that I am rushing things a bit...impatient was the word he used. The granddaughter who's staying with me agrees, so I'm going to relax more and stress less (about housekeeping and stuff). I feel really good, but the doctor says I need to give the healing process a good year.


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## maggiemae (Dec 5, 2017)

Yep, listen to your doctors.  Hey, all that housekeeping stuff will be there regardless of your health!  I sorta get stressed out with thinking I need to dust this or I see a cob web in a corner and a floor needs a good cleaning but then I think...girl, you got the rest of your life to deal with this.  And if I don't get it all done, someone else will have to deal with it!  Take care of yourself....your kids and grandkids are more important than any housekeeping chore right now!


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