A dream come true

I got a phone call this morning and I am on a plane tonight. I am on my way to an all expense paid vacation to California to play in a Words with Friends tournament. It seems that certain individuals have become aware of my verbal prowess and they intend to make some cash while bankrolling my stay.

All I have to do is lounge around the pool and play Words to my hearts content.

I Missed the Boat Twice in my Lifetime

The first time I was in high school. I was in a gift shop in the Smokey Mountains and I was looking at some Gawd Awful Looking Dolls called Cabbage Patch Kids. They were pretty realistic looking for the 70's and I had never seen anything like them. They were complete with birth certificates.

I know you are going to say, "so what, there were millions of Cabbage Patch Kids sold." The difference is that the ones I saw were the ORIGINAL CABBAGE PATCH KIDS that Mattel bought the patent from. One month later the Mattel dolls hit the shelves and dolly history was made. The value of the original dolls shot up from between $50 to $100 to thousands of dollars each.

The next time I missed the boat I lived in Florida. I was looking in one of those weekend entertainment papers for local entertainment in the area. I saw an ad for a band called "Hootie and the Blowfish." I thought to myself, "who would want to go see a band called Hootie and the Blowfish."

ONE WEEK LATER THEY WERE THE BIGGEST HIT IN AMERICA

Oh, and did I mention that when I was in high school I threw away my entire Cincinnati Reds baseball card collection. Complete with Johnny Bench and Pete Rose Rookie Cards.

Standing up for what's right

Back in the 90's I was at a family reunion. My cousins,Sarah and Jane, and I decided to take advantage of the horseback riding at the park. We drove to the stables and got out to inquire about rates. We were told there was a tour coming in and someone would take us right out.

We walked around the barn which was well kept and looked at the horses in the corral. Everything was fine. I guess I should mention that I was a professional greyhound trainer and my cousin, Jane was a professional horse trainer. (hunting and dressage).

A guide rode in with several people behind him. The horses were obviously tired but seemed to be fine. I wondered why they didn't just get fresh horses from the corral but I didn't think too much about it. Then a very pregnant girl came out of the barn and told us which horse to ride. She went to get the first horse and he started to act up. He was obviously tired and hot and didn't want to be fooled with. She took her fist and punched him full in the face.

I was in shock! I couldn't believe what I had just seen. Then the horse started to act up more. She started punching him more. It took about 10 seconds for me to get my voice and I yelled at her to stop. She looked at me and told me that I didn't know anything about horses and she had to let him know who was boss. I protested and so did my cousins.

She would not listen and continued to rough handle the horse. Finally I told her to stop. I told her if she wasn't pregnant that I would be doing to her exactly what she was doing to the horse.! We walked off and tried to report her to management but they defended her. Once again telling us we knew nothing about horses.

That is when my cousin, Jane, told them she was a professional horse trainer and I was a professional greyhound trainer. They thought we were lying but to give our complaint some teeth we demanded a refund and got one.

I wish there was more we could have done but it was obvious it was a family thing and nothing was going to be done. I do know there have been no horses at the stable for years now.

Wonder Why?

Today is my day for brutal honesty with myself

I have been planning a trip to Florida. I wanted to just jump in my truck and go. It is not going to happen. My truck is mostly packed but I am so tired that I would be an idiot to take off on such a trip. Of course there are those that would say I am an idiot anyway.

But is was a goal and I thought with the proper planning I could make it. Looks like I was wrong. I am going to leave my truck packed. It won't hurt a thing. If I feel better tomorrow I have it in the far reaches of my mind to still go. But I know the trip will suck all my energy well before I get there and then I will have to have a couple of days (at least) recuperation. Then I have to get back again.

It's always good to have a goal and I keep trying to do my best every day. I will keep trying. I think that perhaps my best is within 20 miles or so of my house.

I even went to my oxygen place and they gave me 4 tanks of oxygen to take so I could breathe it every step of the way. They also have a Florida office for me to contact if I have a problem with my O2 machine or my bipap.

So you see, I have been making sure I am properly prepared. My recent courtroom fiasco (which worked out in my favor, mind you) and the drain on me from the power failure and helping my mom after her surgery should stand out as my most recent failures.

But I keep trying and I will continue to try because that is what people do.

When you were a kid did you jump in a phone booth and come out as SUPERMAN!

I was an Olympic Champion....

...in my own backyard.

We would get Olympic fever EVERY year instead of every 4 years. All of us (Pam Billy, Rhonda, Rusty, Sissy) would start to train for the upcoming Olympics every summer. We were sure we would be gold medalists in the decathlon because we held our own mini decathlons in the backyard.

We had a Point system and everything. I think it was 1st - 10
2nd. - 8
3rd. - 6
4th - 4 ... etc.
Everybody that participated got at least one point and everyday there would be other kids in the neighborhood participating. Everybody had their strong points so it almost evened out in a way because we showed no mercy to the little ones. We couldn't. Once we started "do overs" we would be "do overing" all day long. So we didn't do "do overs" unless a parent would show up to protest and then as soon as they left it was "no do overs" again.

My strong points were wiffleball homeruns and the marathon. Our marathons were who ever ran the longest won.
Billy was the bike riding champ.
Rhonda and Rusty would duke it out for the free throw championships.
Rusty won the weightlifting automatically. Having the event was just a formality.
Sissy was a champ at crossing the bars. Only the big boys could beat her and sometimes not even then.

I remember on day we were having a high jumping event. We judged it by how high you could touch. We forgot that we were bigger and Rhonda and Sis were much shorter than the rest of us. One day we declared Rusty and winner and Wimpy was there. He started laughing. He pointed out that Rusty was taller and only jumped a couple of inches off the ground to touch the highest. Poor Sis was half his height and could almost touch as high as he did. So Wimpy declared Sis the winner which was actually fair. I think we stopped doing the high jump after that because we realized we couldn't accurately judge it and we did try to be fair.

We did have a long jump though to see who could jump the farthest. We had 100 yard dashes (or however long the yard was). We had Basketball and Wiffleball. There was the long jump and the bicycle marathon. The bar cross on the gymset as well as our version of the parallel bars (which were hooked on to the end of the gymset.

It was great fun and it would take all day to host our events and if we happened to finish we would take a break and have a monopoly game.

I went to renew my driver's license today

They wouldn't give it to me.

I had: 1, my current license
2. my birth certificate which I had sent from (out of state) and unfortunately some goofball stamped it and signed it but didn't imprint the seal on it so the DMV wouldn't accept it.
3. My marriage certificate
4. my Divorce papers
5. My medicare card which until today I thought was my social security card but apparently it is not even though my social security number is on it.
6. my voter's registration card
7. my West Virginia Housing ID card which is certified by the State of West Virginia...including fingerprints.
8. I also had my motor vehicle registration as well as the disability placard which is registered by the state of WV.

I got all those documents just by presenting my driver's license which is not expired and they still won't let me renew my license unless I get another birth certificate from the same people who sent me the other one.

Birthday Blog 2012

The day started out great. I was still up at midnight playing words with friends. I had a 113 point word right off the bat and a couple of wins. Birthday wishes started pouring in.

Yesterday my nephew called me out of the blue. He came over and joined Eddie and I at a Power Baseball game where we won 14 to 2. He treated me to hot wings and Eddie bought me some onion rings. I only eat onion rings once a year but they looked so good I couldn't resist.

Eddie and I finished up watching season 4 of True Blood. Can't wait to see season 5. I couldn't believe Sookie went back to pussy Bill!!!!

I polished off my night with more words and I will be leaving for Florida on Friday if everything goes as planned.

Happy 50 years on the earth to me. I beat the spread by 1 year so far.

What Great Olympians Do You Remember?

I remember watching Olga Korbut and the entire Russian team for that matter. I may not remember their names but I can still see their faces.

I watched Mark Spitz get all 7 medals

I remember Bruce Jenner and Dwight Stones.

I remember Vasily Alexiev (sp) Russian Weightlifter

I watched Sugar Ray Leonard and Mike Spinx get the gold

I watched Florence Griffith Joyner and Carl Lewis slay everybody on the track

I watched Nadia get her 10's.

I also saw Bart Conner and Kurt Thomas rule the Men's Gymnastics. Kurt Thomas invented the Thomas Flair...the first time I saw someone have a move named after them.

I watched Greg Louganis dive to perfection and did my best (always falling short) to dive just like him.

I watched Abibi Bekela (sp) win the marathon barefooted.

so many more that I just can't think of right now. I lived for the Olympics and we would go out and start training every 4 years. Sometimes it would last for months!