Eleven Days Later

Eleven Days Later

Remember the CNN Lady, you know, the old woman in that white housedress, who cried out, "I've fallen and I can't get up!!"?? Remember her? It was an ad for a radio controlled alarm an oldster (or other such person in need) would wear around their neck -- press it and help will come before the person in need might expire --I think she may have died. Yes, apparently she finally did, one last time, not get up.

Same thing with the "Where's the beef?" lady. She died, and it seems that there were some Mama Cass-type jokes about her choking on a Wendy's burger when she met her demise.

My reaction to all Mama Cass jokes: Hardee-har har. Or is that just a few chuckles, all "Hardees," yuk, yuk, yuk.

Mama Cass was much younger than those two women. But she sure carried her weight, and still yet does, when it comes to these morbid humor jokes. Which brings to mind Karen Carpenter, but here I am, back after eleven days, and already getting off the track.

I'm feeling a bit like that old lady who fell and couldn't get up. Last Friday my main PC got destroyed by what appears to be a sneaky, insidious, worm-like virus. All of the MS Office Suite is kaput, as is the Norton Suite, which obviously was a day late and well more than a dollar short.

Fred the Flake came over to repair the damage. Exposed for the poseur he is, I realized that the situation was even worse than it appeared (to quote Dave [1]). Midway through his bashing about the damage, it was clear that I knew more about fixing, saving, repairing, deploying damage control efforts, and what to do, than he did. But too late, the Flake had inflicted damage beyond repair on the machine. Adding insult to injury, Fred the Flake was in desperate need of some personal hygiene. After he left it was time to burn incense, spray the area with Lysol, and take a shower for fear that the PigPen [2] style reakage might be hovering or lingering on my person. Yechh!

Then Sunday evening my back went out. I could barely move. Getting off the bed to go to the bathroom was one of those slide and wiggle, painful maneuvers. I couldn't find a position to lay in, sit in, stand in, nothing. Major back pain, from just to the left of the small of my back, going up about an inch, and and down about seven inches. Ouch, ouch, ouch.

Monday morning my office neighbor was kind enough to drive me and the PC down the block to the local PC Repair place. Drive me a block and a half, as I could barely walk, much less shlep a CPU down the street.

Kudos to Bob at 21st Century Computers, who repaired, restored, rewrote, and then cleaned up and fixed my poor machine. If only there was a guy like Bob to repair my aching back.

Well, the back is improving, but far from healed. A friend and associate recommended Peter Egoscue's book, "Pain Free," which I will get on the next trip to the local B&N. Acccording to this friend, the book offers some exercises and methods of relieving the pain and preventing recurrence. Since his back woes sound exactly like mine, it is worth a shot. As opposed to going to the doctor to receive a shot.

I've been trudging along, using my broken laptop [3] with the main PC's monitor, and a spare PC which is an old, slow, cranky thing. Kind of like one would imagine that CNN lady might be like.

The Pause That Refreshes?

The pause from the blog [4] was an interesting exercise. A check of the Discussion Log showed a much higer than average hit rate on the blog's home page. More readers when there's less content? Nah, no kidding oneself here: most likely it was mostly those who regularly check this space out, seeing if there's anything new.

There were a number of essays, items, and articles which came to mind. One topic kept very much top-of-mind, having to do with my late uncle, flatulence, and hospitals. I may yet write that one, but not tonight.

That other blog of mine, Dean On Baseball, will also be getting into high gear. Ah, to be a sportswriter, on the Baseball Beat. Man oh man -- those lucky writers actually get paid to watch, write, report, and consume Baseball. Now that's a way to earn a living! That's also a whole different ballgame, another pause in my bloggitude.

One more aside, while on this tangent: Susan and I [5] have this fantasy of being a roving Official Scorers duo. We'd concentrate on Yankee games, but travel the whole AL circuit over the course of a season. But back to the topic at hand.

Doc [6] wrote a nice comment [7] about the pause, which I suspect sent some readers this way. A friend suggested I do an egosurf search, to see if the blog was getting any mentions. Of course a suggestion like that gets acted on!

So off to Google [8] I go, as well as using the Weblogs.com [9] search utilities. Holy Cow! Mentions, links, referrals, comments! Wow. It is ever so humbling, and even ever more so gratifying.

The most difficult piece [10] I've written hereabouts got the greatest mention. There's definite comfort in the comments and observations made by many. The general gist of the comments is this: we all have family issues, we are not alone in this. The specifics may be different in each of our situations, but the big picture and the emotions are a shared experience.

Well, before wrapping the return to blogarhythmia, and on the subject of family, I must mention that it is my daughter's 16th birthday today. The lovely Liliana is smack dab in the middle of her teen age years! She's driving, she's into music, she has begun to carve her niche in the world. Sixteen years ago today my life changed for the better when she was born. My first child, whom I love more each passing day. Happy Birthday, Liliana!
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And so, as you can see, DeanLand has resumed, the pause was a worthy experiment.

Coming soon, maybe: I might just give a recap of what it was like to be in Orlando during the brush fires, and staying at the very nice Caribe Royal while attending a very busy business meeting.

It feels good to be back.