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| Cinque Terre...north of Pisa, Italy |
I was so disappointed to hear on the news about Cremia becoming a part of Russia and don't think the vote was really fair. I just hope we keep the embargo on at least. Also scoffed at hearing how they said they could incinerate the US and thought about what everyone has said about the Russian's must be true. Why would that thought even come into their head? Do they not know the same could happen to them? Who wants to play that way anyway? I just flipped the news over to QVC lol.
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| Dubrovnik, Croatia |
And I am always ratting on what's wrong in the world yet never what's right. So an awesome 'Shout Out' for QVC (TV shopping channel). I've shopped on and off since 92 and think I choose them over the other shopping networks not only because the wide variety of products, but also the personable, likeable, and trustworthy hosts that have been on there for years. I was in disbelief to find Jim flipping over there lately. We ordered a lot from them this weekend. He got an weather alert alarm clock radio, steam valet, and Keurig Vue for upstairs morning coffee. I had to have a St. Francis stature for my garden, refueled my Wen hair products, and Cottage Farms flower fertilizer which I call 'Jesus in a Jar' because it will bring life to my dead house plants like Christ did with Lazarus :l I'm taking pics of this miracle because with all the traveling we've done and me getting sick after Christmas...they were past dehydrated and then booted outside a bit too early in order to use my Nordic Track hoping to sprout some veins for all this blood and tests they've been doing. I actually get to see the Doctor Friday and Jim is going in with me. I just hope I don't hear the word 'cirrhosis' from him in any context :/ I already know the Shellfish poisoning had my liver functioning less than normal. I was also happy to hear another with only 5% functioning beat those odds. I was scared to put wine in my pasta sauce this weekend and realized it went in my Pot Roasts, Fish and Creole dishes, rum sauce on bread pudding, Kahlua cream pies, Baileys Irish coffees during winter, sherry in my lobster newberg.... :(
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| Greek theatre in Taormina, Sicily |
On the mention of liver damage...I've been thinking of Tommy Mire, my old client, friend, then boss and proxy family. He had eaten raw oysters from Thonn's Seafood Restaurant in Slidell, La. along with 6 others but died from the vibrios virus 7 years later. The other 6 died immediately. He had me call in the priest and bring Amos right before he died in the hospital that Christmas/New Years week in 96 I think it was. The Priest was already there when I smuggled his Maltese into the hospital and threw him on the bed :l Tommy had just given me a few thousand to put down on my beach house. It was his old bar I opened as 'Southern Roads'. We were suppose to open it together as partners. Jim and I also met in his Slidell bar I tended/managed in Louisiana while working the clinic :} Mr. Mire was like my Proxy dad who spent all the holidays with me and a boyfriend I dated for a couple of years (whom Jim competed against and won easily lol!).
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| Mt. Etna before erupting in Oct. |
People usually don't understand "Proxy Family" unless they have none of their own. My parents gave up on and abandoned me at 15. Jim odd enough was abandoned at the age of 14 as well so we are a likely pair. Both of us were on our own for different reasons though. I never knew my mother's drug addiction (over prescribed preludin) spanned more than 15 years until recently so it was a relief to realize she wasn't naturally 'off' or rampant. My father just remarried a woman 7 years older than me and hell...as I always say...I didn't know whether to tell on her or show her my Barbie collection :o She was just a self absorbed young person like most of us who wouldn't allow him to have much to do with 'those kids from a previous marriage'. I never knew how much he suffered until later years when we started to get close again. He started going to church about 4 years after I left the state to grow old enough to get a job but ohhhh how bizarre it was signing my own report cards (and I was always at least an A/B student if not maintained the Dean's List).
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| Carnival Sunshine Dec |
We never had the tolerance or 'nerves' for chaotic situations or self created drama others seem to create (probably why I thrived so well with the sister's in boarding school before I was pulled out....and my St. Francis statue has me thinking of them when I would pray the rosary with them in their convent's sanctuary on peaceful nights voluntarily ;) Typical virgo I guess). Not that we can't handle a heavy ordeal. Jim has always been there for those in need. Just this weekend he witnessed a girl flip her SUV several times and landed in the back amongst shattered glass. He called 911 and stayed with her until help arrived. The others just got out to see if any help was needed and then just left when they saw everything was in control.
As for family...I just always heard my mom refer to extended relatives as "My Family" and growing up I used to think 'Wasn't it mine too?' Sometimes I am glad I was 'excommunicated' and consider it a blessing for the most part. It doesn't mean I didn't love my parents or wish I had family to run to. It's just that I found my strength somewhere else ;) I know running away from violent situations only made things worse. I'm not a perfect nor sheltered person and sometimes hate the complexities life spun me but believe there are reasons behind everything that comes into play.
So it's been a long dark journey for both of us but we know we're lucky to be blessed and that it is God's blessings of wisdom, understanding, forgiveness, love, endurance, and grace that has kept our heads above water in order to pull ourselves up and out of the hole we were put in. We don't even blame anyone. Not even ourselves. I believe it is just the way things are meant to be sometimes.
A sister in charge of our cottage at boarding school would always say to me... "We are lucky to be so blessed" and "Without Pain, the Joy in Life won't Show". How true. I still carry her words with me...along with my rosary and prayer card. They are there for when I lose my way :}
Posting trip photos again until I find all or any of the cameras battery chargers :l
