I AM IM

On this happy day off, thoughts turn to work.  Where instant messaging makes it oh so easy to engage in professional conversations such as this:  


Doe, Jane  (not her real name) :    1343637 - please review. thx.
Doe,  Jill (not her real name) :    yesm!
Doe, Jane :  Yanks yots.
Doe,  Jill :    we sound so retarded!     chus a mimit
Doe, Jane :   jes keepin it weird!
Doe,  Jill  :    hahahah
Doe,  Jill  :    done, red to delete, green to add! I mean gween.
Doe, Jane:     you are vunderbar.
Doe,  Jill  :    now i want some candy!
Doe, Jane:    I always want candy.
Doe,  Jill :    what was Dan's name again?    uncle...
Doe, Jane:    Schumley.   You could also call him Nad (Dan backwards) or even Nadley.   He's the baby of the family - we pretty  much tortured him all the time.  haha.
Doe,  Jill :    ha! we did that with our baby sister, she turned out okay.
Doe, Jane:    He's okay too....just don't mention his bat legs.  haha.  Seriously.  Don't.
Doe,  Jill :    hahahah!
Doe,  Jill :    chan...fife...chan...fife
Doe, Jane:    that about sums it up!
Doe,  Jill :    that little icon is cute I like how he sniffs after he finishes crying
Doe, Jane :    oh yes - very cute!  I was looking for a cute one to send back, but couldn't find one that fit.
Doe,  Jill :    I know...we need MORE icons!
Doe, Jane:       yup!
Doe,  Jill :    oh that's great!      if you are really mad about something!
Doe, Jane:     good one!
Doe, Jill :    !
Doe, Jane:    Looks like the whole famdamily!
Doe,  Jill  :     that them!!!    wetarded
Doe,  Jill :     not that there's anything WRONG with that.
Doe, Jane:    don't go getting PC on me now...
Doe,  Jill :    I was hoping it did not offend you, but how do you ask something like that without offending somebody!    hell, I even offend myself sometimes.
Doe, Jane :   Believe me, my sense of humor is very off the wall and jaded.  I can find humor in anything, as long as that's all it is.  I know you wouldn't say something like that in any other context, and neither would I.  right?  right.
Doe,  Jill :    right!
Doe, Jane:    And I wouldn't say it to just anyone.  I have a friend here who takes everything so seriously, I can't make any kind of generalization comment like that or she gets offended.  Unless we're talking about men, and then she's worse than me!
Doe,  Jill :    cheeze is it my sister?
Doe, Jane:    Or your brother from another mother??
Doe,  Jill :    ok I can only get so deep at this time of night.
Doe, Jane:    I couldn't think of anything to rhyme with sister.
Doe,  Jill :    nope.    it's not coming.  It's 6:24.    I got nothing
Doe, Jane :    me either.  darn.
Doe,  Jill:    I love that last icon!!!!    That's what I look like right now!!!
Doe,  Jane:    Kinda how I look most of the time... ozoned.
Doe,  Jill :     lol!!!! I am getting giddy!
Doe, Jane:    my sister from a ___ mister.  Fill in the blank.  Your turn.
Doe,  Jill:     ooohhh good one...  sister from a minister mister?   sister from a sinister?
Doe, Jane:    close...
Doe,  Jill :    no cigar
Doe, Jane:    we'll have to work on it...
Doe,  Jill:    oh!     sister from a darky mister!    ok now I am offending myself.
Doe, Jane :     supposed to rhyme with sister and mister.
Doe,  Jill :    ook.    I am laughing so hard!    A darky mister!
Doe, Jane :    you're cracking me up too.
Doe,  Jill  :    this has got to stop. someone has to stop it.
Doe, Jane:    It would have to be blister mister or pister mister?  Okay - that's pretty bad.  How about twister mister?    Love the stop sign!
Doe,  Jill  :     I couldn't wait to use it
Doe, Jane :     You set that one up well!
Doe,  Jill :     thank you as i said i will be here all week


Now I can't wait to go back to work!  

Share a Merry Christmas...Here was ours!

Click the link below:


http://debmills853.tripod.com/lunaticlobby

Then click on the Christmas 2009 link next to the blue ball at top left corner for our christmas video.  It will download and play in your windows player.

On A Cold Winter's Night

She slipped into the room silently.  It was a room that would only admit the most sorrowful, the most despairing, those most thoroughly bereft of hope.  "Psyche Triage" said the sign on the door.  No one saw her, no one heard.

The room was bare.  Ugly plastic chairs lined up against plain walls, no pictures, no carpet, scuffed tile floors, no music, no TV, nowhere to look. Except at the people, lost souls who could only see an abyssmal absence of light, a black hole from which one might never return. One, a young man with his head shaven, tatooes covering both forearms, wept silently into his hands.  A young woman sat on the floor under the pay phone, sobbing into the receiver.  Another sat quietly with her husband, nodding as he spoke to her softly.  One man, handcuffs just removed, walked back and forth, feet touching the patterned tiles only.   Another young woman talked non-stop, to no one.

The tatooed man looked up as he felt a stream of fresh cold air pierce the suffocating room.  His eyes were red and filled with pain.  Somewhere in the back of his mind he heard a woman say "You know it will be all right, don't you?"   He thought maybe it was something his mother had said once.  When she was still alive.   Maybe that  was true, he thought.  He had been here before.  The only thing he really knew for sure was that he had to hold on.

It occurred to him that his situation was like a battle.  He was a soldier fighting for his own life.  He vowed to advocate for himself.  If one person refused to listen, he would insist on talking to someone else.  He would not back down from the medication mix-ups, the bungling bureaucracy, the failures of "the system."  But now, for right now, all he had to do was take the next step.  Talk to the counselor.   Even though this was a hell of a place to be, it was better than being outside, doing the things he had been doing outside.

And then there was a flutter, on the top of his shaved head, like the lightest touch of a feather or a mother's gentle kiss.   His tears flowed freely now, no longer tears of anguish, but a cleansing wash of relief. Even from this deepest well of paralyzing depression, he could see the stars.  And even though they were very far away, he knew it would be all right.

She silently slipped out of the room.  This night's work was done.

How's My Bedroom Makeover Going?


It's not finished yet, need the new end tables and the paintings for the bed wall...but take a look!  I am liking it.

Ready for Bed,  Houston

Give me sensory deprivation....that's what it takes for me to get to sleep these days.  This is what I look like every night before going to bed.

First goes on the BiPap, the piece of plastic with plastic "pillows" that fit in each nostril, allowing me to breath all night without sleep apnea constantly waking me up.

Second, I have to tape my mouth shut because of dry mouth and also the sleep apnea.

Chuck wants to watch TV?  No problem!.  I put on my sleeping mask with little eyelashes on them.

And lastly the gigantic earphones are the only ones we have that fit in my CD player, on which I usually have an audio book loaded to block out the tv and lull me to dreamland.

And that's why I have to take an Ambien every night.  Especially the nights I wear rollers in my hair.

I WOULD LIVE FOR ART  

BUT I WOULD STARVE

Anyway I have been working on these pieces for my bedroom this weekend and it has been great fun.  The ones in the top picture are finished and ready to put up and that's the fun (not) part.  I have been screwing eye holes in the back and I lost the picture hanging wire I bought the other day and it is such a hassle to get everything even and level.   Yeah,  I would live for art if I didn't have to hang the dang things.

USE YOUR RESTAURANT VOICE!

Little grandchildren make a lot of noise.  That is why you may see them in television commercials with their grandfathers, but TV commercials are only :30 long.  In real life grandfathers really don't spend too much time with the little ones.  You know why?  They hurt Grandpa's ears.

Even when you ask them to use their "indoor voices" the decibels are still unbearable.  That is why this past weekend they offered to use their "restaurant voices" and that seemed to work for a little while.  Try it.  Restaurant voices.  I guarantee it will come in handy.

"We fear change."  - Garth Algar, Wayne's World

I don't want to switch to Microsoft Enterprise Office 2007.  Please don't make me!  Learning curves, keyboard templates, a little arrow chasing its tail, RIBBONS....and this little magical logo that does everything?  The moniker already sounds outdated, 2007?  Come on!  and Groove 2007?  GROOVE?  That's a blast from the past.  And when do we put 2007 aside for Office 2010?  Why can't we just go directly to 2010?  Apparently Office 2007 offers more choices than ever before.  That's the problem! More choices, more options, more decisions!

I remember when all these mind-boggling choices first caught my attention.  I was buying pantyhose.  There were all kinds of different colors, reinforced toe/heels, all day massage, tummy control, sandal foot, regular everyday, satin shiny for evening, built in panty, etc.  I was immobilized.  I could not choose.  There were too many.  And of course that is the idea.  The makers want you to spend more time with their product.  The more time you spend, the more money you will spend. And novelty.  There always has to be something new.

This marketing idea has spread to every corner of our consumer society. Have you checked the fabric softener aisle recently?  So many scents and ways to soften your clothes.  Crackers, soups, pasta....I wonder how many people just walk out of the store without buying anything, too overwhelmed by the sheer volume of possibility?  And how many ways are there to clean a FLOOR?  Or wipe one's butt?  It is the paralysis of the infinite...avoid it like the plague.  Pick one and just go with it.   And don't ever change.