If You're Going Through Hell

[KarenK]

Same here, one for the tv and cable box, one for the sound bar, one for the blu-ray. No way to combine them into one.

I still only have my old Trac phone from 2008, long dead. I just don't need a cell phone. Who would I call?  I only used it in Kentucky or at my cabin. No texting for me either. Don't understand why that's become so important (there I go being old again). I'd rather have a live conversation.

[Margm]

I gotta have my cell phone.  Keys left pocket, phone right pocket.  Always figured Mr. Dillon needed one and he would not have to send Chester 10 miles on horse to get Doc Adams.  All I want to do is call and talk or answer phone though.  

[KarenK]

Funny you should mention the Gunsmoke gang. I was listening to the Country Classic music channel and they played "Tumbling Tumbleweeds". I didn't know until years later that Festus was part of Sons Of The Pioneers. He had a beautiful voice. Sad, but so many singers of that era are gone now. I can only listen to it for so long . I start to feel sad and have to change the channel.

[Gwenivere]

I only have a basic flip phone too.  Can’t take advantage of all the handy apps nor access the internet which would be handy.  I just hate they are larger.  Thus one fits in my pockets easily.  I always get asked  if I want texts.  I do get messages on this phone, but I can’t reply to them.  It’s usually the drug store or a doctors office anyway. Or T Mobile or spam.  I’d really like to get streaming TV.  It would be only one remote with Direct Tv. I have a remote for the stereo Steve hooked up for big sound.  I kept it tuned to video and just turn it on leaving the remote by the TV.  But, as I said earlier, right now I can’t fathom spending an after with a satellite guy.  It’s an odd conflict considering I pretty much live with it on all evening with no one to do anything with.  Of course, that in itself is pretty depressing.  

I remember my parents watching Gunsmoke.  I didn’t like westerns back then.  Bonanza was popular too.  Only Micheal Landon. Now I love them.  Weirdest one I enjoyed was Cowboys and Aliens.  What an idea.  Sorry, fatigue brain.  It’s kinda all over the place from chronic pain and fatigue.  🥺

 

[KarenK]

I have an expensive(but very old now) Bose speaker system and Onyko receiver that Ron installed many years ago. After he left, some part of the setup quit working. I couldn't afford to have it checked out or replace anything. Robert & David are very good with computers, but know nothing about sound systems, so Robert bought a sound bar for the tv last year. It sounds okay, but I miss the sound of helicopters landing in the room.  lol

Western have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. I've seen them all, series and movies. When other 7yr. old girls were playing with dolls, I was sporting six guns, chaps, and a cowboy hat. My first love was Roy Rogers.

I ended up marrying one of the indians😄

[kayc]

12 hours ago, widow'15 said:

Marg:  I totally understand you saying you can't open the video boxes with Billy's name.

Yes I get it too.  It's very hard for me to open the shop door, now it's been ransacked and taken over by mice, but I can't even clean it out, the emotion is very hard.  So are looking at pictures, mementos, even after all this time.

[widow'15]

14 hours ago, Marg M said:

I will say my boobs know how to call Kelli on the Kindle.  I went to sleep and the Kindle fell on top of my chest.  I kept hearing Kelli say "Mama, Mama" and then Bri came in laughing.  Somehow I had camera phoned Kelli in my sleep and she and Brianna were just laughing because I have no idea how to use the camera phone on the Kindle, didn't even know I had one.  I kept seeing some ugly gray haired woman with half a dozen necks in the corner screen and Kelli hysterical laughing.  I still don't know how to camera phone. 

Oh Marg, you are a hoot.  Love how you can make me laugh with your words.  Thank you for that.  😂  Dee

[widow'15]

13 hours ago, Marg M said:

I have to keep having him repeat (this has happened so often), names change, always fictitious names, which is good cause I could not pronounce theirs.. Finally I have to tell them they need to transfer me to someone who understands my language.  I speak "southern great grandma" English as my 2nd language.  So, they do.  

Marg: Same with me.  I find myself on my laptop and telephone a lot lately as I make changes to different accounts in preparation for my move.  After asking them to please repeat what you just said more than 3 or 4 times, I have to tell them, in a very nice slow voice, you are speaking to a 79 year old lady with limited computer skills and vision problems.  If you want me to understand you, you are going to have to speak slower.  So far, haven't had to ask for "southern grandma" English.  Will keep that in my memory bank.  Dee

[Gwenivere]

I only have a basic flip phone too.  Can’t take advantage of all the handy apps nor access the internet which would be handy.  I just hate they are larger.  Thus one fits in my pockets easily.  I always get asked  if I want texts.  I do get messages on this phone, but I can’t reply to them.  It’s usually the drug store or a doctors office anyway. Or T Mobile or spam.  I’d really like to get streaming TV.  It would be only one remote with Direct Tv. I have a remote for the stereo Steve hooked up for big sound.  I kept it tuned to video and just turn it on leaving the remote by the TV.  But, as I said earlier, right now I can’t fathom spending an after with a satellite guy.  It’s an odd conflict considering I pretty much live with it on all evening with no one to do anything with.  Of course, that in itself is pretty depressing.  

I remember my parents watching Gunsmoke.  I didn’t like westerns back then.  Bonanza was popular too.  Only Micheal Landon. Now I love them.  Weirdest one I enjoyed was Cowboys and Aliens.  What an idea.  Sorry, fatigue brain.  It’s kinda all over the place from chronic pain.  

I was like you, Karen.  Not much for girl stuff.  Total tomboy.  My uncle had a ranch so it was target shooting and exploring the mountains for me.  At home it was toy cars, catching lizards, playing football and walking the walls around the neighborhood.   

Call in for things are a challenge indeed, Dee.  I always ask for the persons name and often write it down phonetically.  Sometimes I get a regular name, a treat!  I was in the phone with Direct TV yesterday and the young woman was so fast and knowledgeable about doing tests of my equipment and I was a dinosaur trying to follow instructions.  It’s really disheartening to feel so slow.  It was that and moving around in pain that gets to me.  My memory is so short from fatigue.  Have to call Amazon today to gripe.  They cancelled an order I made a week ago saying they didn’t sell the item anymore.  It was a gift and now too late to get anything else by xmas to y cousin.  Gifts just aren’t as fun even they come late and why didn’t they tell me a week ago?  These dark days of the PNW do not help.  Getting up to darkness makes it worse.  Getting darker by 4 still.  It’s like living at night all day.  None of this is healthy, add in the pandemic, for one’s brain and outlook.  

 

 

[Margm]

I made AT&T promise me they would forever have flip phones.  I have no idea what these numbers mean, but can tell you some difference.  They kept their promise.  I still have a flip phone, a new one.  I could accidentally get on internet while playing with both of these phones.  AT&T sent fear into me when they wrote everyone they would no longer be on the third tier, by 2022, I had to be on the 4th tier.  I had my sister and I on the 3rd tier.  I brought both of us  up to the 4th, and my near PhD sister could not work it and I could not show her how because Bri had fixed mine to where I don't have to get on internet (wi-fi, or whatever they call it.).  I am able to add in contacts.  My younger sister, who teaches college students, was unable to do anything with it while it was costing me more each month.  I had to drop her and she intelligently went to "Consumer ?" and bought a big phone.  She does not know how to use it, but will after Christmas when she goes to get it activated.  My son has started paying his insurance and I won't ask him to pay his phone unless he gets a new one.  "I cannot ask" is a problem of mine.  I can give, but asking is impossible.

5 minutes ago, Gwenivere said:

 Total tomboy

Same here Gwen.  I had a football numbered shirt and remember getting into the stance in the front yard, only there was no one to play with.  Possibly I was one of the first "trans" people around.  I covered my dolls at night, had my playhouse built in the little pine grove with the perfect room.  Distain for the pretty tea sets Santa brought me, I wanted tin cans, boxes, and rooms divided by pine straw, imaginary walls.  I was at football practice for my dad's younger brother, all the games.   My dad was winner of all kinds of awards, including golden gloves.  I was on the sidelines with him for my uncles football games.  I never had any problem with who I was.  I was female.  At that young of age I had "crushes" on my uncles friends.  One little guy that ran the ball down the field with none catching him.  He lived over on the other side of the creek (Bayou) and Mama picked him up hitchhiking one day. (You could do that back then, he was a friend).  She told him how much I adored him.  I'm sure my freckled red face was fluorescent, I hid down on those big floorboards.  He thought it was cute.  I was mortified.  

Unfortunately, I have the news on and they are so disheartening with our ousted leader trying to take control like we were in Venezuela.  This world is not my world.   

[kayc]

19 hours ago, widow'15 said:

So far, haven't had to ask for "southern grandma" English.  Will keep that in my memory bank.  Dee

I love that!  I find dealings with "customer service" nowadays is so stressful, it's changed so much over the years from them listening, caring, trying to solve problems, to being rude, abrupt, unhelpful.  And yes, speaking too fast...that's IF we can even get someone whose first language is English!  I love the southern grandma English, that's too funny!  Never thought of it before.

18 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

I only have a basic flip phone too.

I loved my old flip phone, back then they were easier to handle too without them slipping out of your hands.  The ones now are so big and flat!

I don't use the apps either so don't feel alone.  I used to be up on the newest and greatest when I was working but can't make use of cellphones here, no coverage unless I buy a booster that I can't afford.  Not willing to dispense with my landline yet and can't see the added expense of cellphone contracts, just have one for travel.  Unfortunately can't plug my ear buds into this one, and don't know how to use the bluetooth in my car.  My son never has time to show me, so I don't use the phone at all while driving, have to pull over to make a call.  I only use it for emergencies, like when I couldn't find my son's place because the GPS quit giving directions and there were no signs, nothing marked!  He's way out in the sticks of a burned up town.  Don't know how his place was spared!

18 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

I was like you, Karen.  Not much for girl stuff.  Total tomboy.

Me too, as a kid I remember playing in the gravel with my dump truck (my favorite toy) or up a tree with other girls shooting bees at boys with our slingshots, all in fun!  I was always up a tree when I was a kid.  Maybe that's why I'm allergic to bees now, payback!

18 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

catching lizards

Oh yes, I loved lizards...and snakes.  Still love lizards now, although not so much the snakes. 

Gwen, gosh I'd give them the riot act (Amazon) for that one!  I'm so sorry!  I had an order that was supposed to come several days ago, tracking doesn't give any clue where it is or when to expect it now!  Will call the post office & see if they can give me any idea.

18 hours ago, Marg M said:

Distain for the pretty tea sets Santa brought me

I do remember having them & dolls when really little, but I preferred being outdoors & playing with my dump truck & snakes!  My sisters were all so much older so I had to play alone until getting friends when I was older, so I liked things I could interact with, dolls just didn't cut it.

[KarenK]

No snakes or lizards for me. I remember the boys pulling heads off grasshoppers. Yuk!

We played Cowboys and Indians a lot. I remember climbing a wooden fence and jumping off and hitting the old wire clothesline at neck level. Almost broke my neck and had a red welt across my throat. Ah, the good ol' days.

 

 

[Gwenivere]

It’s a wonder we all survived growing up with how much protective stuff kids have to wear today.  Never had that for sports, riding a bike, no special safety seats for babies and toddlers.  Think there were seatbelts, but not mandatory to wear so most didn’t.  One of the Least fun memories I have was somehow hitting my crotch and bleeding and my mother was convinced it was menstrual.   I told her about the fall but she made me wear a gawd awful pad for days.   I knew about that stuff from school, but knew she was wrong.  Longest few days in my childhood life!  My mom hated I was a tomboy.  But guess who was the first person she called when she saw lizards in the house?   Had to do catch and release as they won’t eat in captivity.  It was more a test of skill to be fast enough to catch them.  We had a monster size blue tail thing in the neighborhood no one successfully caught.  You couldn't grab it by the tail, they broke off and they’d grow a new one.  Used to see road runners around too.  Those things were fast.  Cowboys and Indians was popular too.  Everyone wanted to be the sheriff.  Neighbor had a treehouse to 'hide' in, like our parents couldn’t figure that one out.  Duh.  Anyone do secret clubs?  Oh,so serious those were!

[KarenK]

Gwen, that's my laugh for the day😄  My mom didn't want a tomboy either. I remember when Debbie was born and my mom thought she could finally have her "girly girl". Didn't work. She was a cowgirl through and through.

[Margm]

[Margm]

I'm sorry, sometimes I don't know how to post things.  I liked this though.

[Kieron]

Gwen, when I was a kid, my friend Nicki lived about 5 blocks away, and her dad built her and her brother 2 separate treehouses, just tiny things with a small platform lip to stand on, in 2 large white pines (I think... the kind where the trunks are straight and lack lower branches, only really branching out high up).  Anyway there was a long thick rope with a big knot at the bottom, and it was suspended on a bar or something in between these two platforms.  it was big enough to stand on and hold the rope and swing back and forth.  We used to climb up, one to each house, and the game was to stand on the rope, drop down, swoop and "rescue" a toy of some kind from the "alligators" down below where there was just sand or dirt, and swing up again, Tarzan-like, to the opposite tree house.  I don't recall how high up it all was (probably not very) but I'm sure my mother would've had a fit if she'd known.  🤣  No helmets, no nothing.

[kayc]

My friend had an old willow tree with sturdy branches and cascading leaves forming "rooms" so we pretended it was a house, we were always up in it!  I loved it.  I lost contact with her about a year after she moved in 5th grade, we used to get together but my mom must have decided it was too much effort to drive me to her new place out Santa Clara (we were in South Eugene).  I've always wondered about Susan Brayden and Sheila Farmer, my other childhood friend that moved after first grade.  Way too common a name, tried finding her, nope.  We were always giggling together.  My little sister still has her childhood friend, I envy her that.

Nope, no helmets or child restraints in those days!  Those of us who survived were lucky.

[Gwenivere]

I remember names of kids I grew up with.  Only know where one really is as we cross paths now and then.  Going to parochial school was 8 years of siting in alphabetical order so your class seating was always the same.  High school was my nightmare.  Catholic too, but typical being shunned as I wasn’t popular like in the other school.  Bodies changing, new people in the older classes who liked to torture newbies.  I don’t know how I survived.  I do remember delight so many of the popular kids wound up unprepared for real life, had married, had kids, grown fat or just weren’t special anymore.  I had come into my own and was having a blast unencumbered.   From 17 on, life was great.  Guys, jobs, partying, crazy friends up for anything.  I had my rock too, my mom, who told me to wait for that time, that high school didn’t matter beyond grades.  She was right. The cheerleaders were now stressed out mom’s and I was wearing hip huggers and waist chains with so many adventures.  Driving my spots car and teasing guys.  Best days of my life except my early childhood and then finding Steve.  

Thats what makes this aloneness so hard.  Going into 7 years of something I never knew, ever.  At an age you don't form tight bonds as people are settled into their lives, many with kids and other family.  My sister and I are so far apart in age, we might as well be only children.  No connection there.  When I was on a bedtime and little, she was legal for bars so out with her friends.  The big thing I remember is she smelled like Jergens lotion as that was the thing then.  My mom lost 2 kids between her and I.  What a difference that could have made for some connection.  My extended family was huge as a kid.  Now all scattered or dead as I came along so late.  I so miss being a part of life.  

[nashreed]

I was lucky to have connected with a grade school friend through Facebook. He lives here with his wife and son. At least I do have one friend here. I was a stereotypical "nerd" in Catholic grade school. Funny thing is- I wasn't smart, but I had glasses and fit the part. When I went to High School with actual smart kids, I could no longer portray that charade, so I became a basket case- dressed all in black and was left alone. Grade school is the last place that I actually was able to make friends. I had two really good grade school friends that just up and decided they didn't want to be friends one day, and that shattered my ability to have any confidence in making friends. I guess I should be glad for Facebook! It also gave me a place to vent about the madness of the last four years.

[Margm]

We called him "Billy the Kid" because after the kids were grown, he adopted Christmas as his own.  I know I have put this  picture on here before, but it is Billy and Christmas.  He would take all of his presents, and the kids made sure he had a lot to open.  And, he would be so slow, savoring every piece of tape to remove gingerly.  All I could do was just shake my head.  I actually loved it, but thought the kids could not afford it and I fussed at him.  He quieted down about presents, but our kids actually loved his enthusiasm and I had to tell him I made a mistake, the kids (and family) loved his joy of opening presents.  So actually, he was Christmas more than my childhood happiness, Santa coming to our children and grandchildren.  He was all of our's "forever kid."  Not only did he relish opening them, he had already said things he wanted next Christmas, for his birthday, Father's Day, etc.  

I'm just opposite.  I'm so hard to buy for.  I don't want anything and my enthusiasm is the same as The Grinch's.  Maybe I just miss his happiness at Christmas and I really am a Grinch.  I slide through the season and just want to get it over with.  It is Brianna's favorite holiday.   I love my family, but we all still miss "Billy the Kid." 

[MartyT]

How can you NOT miss someone who clearly was as much fun as your own Billy the Kid, Marg? No wonder these days are so bittersweet for you. Your Billy was a gem ~ and so are you! ❤️

[Gwenivere]

Christmas has and never will be the same without Steve.  You weren’t a grinch before losing Billy, right Marg?  I wasn’t either, but I sure am now.  In my heart.  That propels doing the decorating, enthusiasm for finding gifts, joy in the lights, our sacred traditions together and laughing.  I so miss his laugh.  He came to love Christmas more than usual from my love of it.  He called me the resident elf.  Still have a sticker he out over my office door saying 'Gwenny's Workshop'.  Losing the volunteering really hit hard too.  I saw all my Xmas jewelry when getting a med out of the drawer last night.  Lots of bells on a necklace and bracelet.  Not worth wearing now, I don’t  go anywhere it would matter.  All my trips out are errands or to kill time.

Can hardly believe it's the eve.  I’m sitting here as usual, hurting, dreading lunch and going out for mail, have counseling because I’m so depressed and nixed the idea of getting Chinese food as I never have since he left and really don’t want it to add to the pain.  I’ll get a to go burger and call it fitting.  I don’t need more reminders of what all has been lost.  

I want to dissolve into a puddle of tears this year.  Has never been this bad.    It’s the physical pain and losing Ally that has made this almost unbearable. I did finally feel some true gratitude for Melody this morning.  Her prancing around with my slipper and vocalizing because I was awake.  Normally I just looked at it because she wants to eat, and I knew she did.  But I so appreciated her prancing around me.  Me.  I matter to her.  Even when food is over, she watches everything I do.  She knows me.  We’re partners in this life thing.  She doesn’t understand what I feel, but it’s all OK with her.  

The grinch was the grinch because his heart was too small.  That’s not what’s wrong with us.  We lost half our huge hearts.  They don’t work right anymore.  Santa can’t bring us that gift.  

 

[KarenK]

Gwen, my heart just breaks for you. Christmas is far from the same here, but there is still a "we" with the guys. I would be devastated as you are if it were otherwise. I've never been a Grinch, but the "spirit" has definitely waned. Enjoy very little Christmas music and gave up the fun day of after Christmas decoration/ornament shopping years ago. The tree this year is probably the first one in 10-12 years. It is comforting in a way to feel a little bit normal.

If you feel up to it at all, start a new tradition. Go for Mexican food.

Mel loves you. She knows something is very wrong and is doing her best to help.

Luv Ya,

Karen

[KarenK]

Wishing a peaceful holiday season for each of you and yours and a brighter future for the new year.

Karen