Doc sings karaoke country for New Years ala Nelson and Coe!

I got him up there and I only sing a line or two. Take it away, Doc, you old rascal you! For a city dude, you can sing country pretty good.

2- Doc is an old drinking singer and I cant carry a tune!

Oh well.

1- Doc and I discuss our Xmas Karaoke DVD I actually sent to our 8 fans and I apologize

Don't be afraid. I don't sing on this video. I just talk which is what I think I do best. It just comes naturally to me, but I have always wanted to learn to sing, but don't count on a man to teach you. Our Xmas karaoke DVD clearly shows why Doc is not the man who will make a singer out of me. Oh woe is me. He thinks he is so smart because he can sing. Nobody had to teach him either, or so he says. Baa humbug.

New Years Eve party of the past

I am still having fun fooling around with photos. This first one I had to post because it was a karaoke New Years Eve Party at the Westward Ho. Pierre had paid $500 of the Tenant's Org. money for it, and then he fell into such mourning over his divorce he sent word he would not come (too drunk). So I tried to find a good substitute in my ex husband, Dean. He did come and sing a song or two and he was quite a hit with the ladies. But once Pierre found out about this interloper singer, he reacted with some jealousy. (This is how I found out he liked me) He continued to insist for years that I was not telling the whole truth about this night. I finally got so disgusted with his baseless accusations that I refused to discuss the subject anymore after two or three years. My idea was not to waste an expensive karaoke night. The show must go on!
The photo below is of me in my Christmas outfit ($3.50) complete with a necklace I found among my things that looks nice with it. I love this deep maroon. Doc and I sang karaoke all day Sunday practically, and we are planning some more karaoke days until our enthusiasm wears out. I will take his singing while I can get it!

Memories of Christmas pasts: Pierre's decorated lobby

I thought I would have some fun this week featuring old pictures of holiday parties. On the big one Pierre was standing beside me looking like a premonition of death, one of the worst pictures he ever took. Up in the corner, whitehaired and looking wild, was my ex husband Dean, Raymond and Gary's father. Chad is standing next to him, and his sons, Raymond and Gary are in the back. Dan is with his then love, Angelina, mother of Dante. Daughter Ronda and their kids, Jamal and Ethan, are down front. Dante is the one making faces.
Raymond brought Dean to the party without telling him my new companion was going to be there (Pierre) or that I even had one, I am sure for fear he would suddenly refuse to come, so he thought Pierre was someone from the Westward Ho there to help people like me have parties. The Concho room was so beautifully decorated by Pierre. What else was he to think? He knew I could never have done it. At the same time he was trying to shine up to me, (I kept pushing his hand away) Dean kept trying to talk to Pierre and ask him about his job as party helper decorater, and this made Pierre nervous who kept trying to avoid him by running outside to smoke. Unfortunately we didnt get all the nervous singers singing together until it was almost time to go home, since both Dean and Pierre were known for their singing, and Raymond could sing a lick or two as could Gary. This was in 2003 to my best recollection. Robbie the robot karaoke machine might have been there, as I hardly gave a party without it along when Pierre was with me. We all must have sung something! The decorated lobby photo was from 2002. I am sure that lobby has not been so lavishly decorated either before or since. Christmas decorater Pierre, there will never be another you. Enjoy.

Doc with "Robbie, the robot" cranked up for our after Xmas singing party!

Doc will soon banish the little dear back to my apt. We had to haul it down to his apartment to do our Christmas Eve DVD, as I could not get the words to show on mine. We have practically exhausted my supply of CDs to sing by today. I am going to try to get him to play more music on his keyboard this year. Since Doc scorned country western he had never even heard some of the songs I grew up listening to. We had a serious clash of cultures.
I had fun having Doc shoot an elegant cowboy photo of me for my front page. It would not take over a title which is why most everyone who tries to do that just has a big empty page (I wondered why, but there is supposed to be a photo there), so I decided to leave off the title of my blog since everyone knows it anyway and has to use it to get here. I got the idea from my grand niece's blog who has a beautiful photo of her and her baby on her front page. It's fun doing something different. I must go back now and look at the karaoke session we made today which reached a new low in singing on the tune for me. Doc did not know the country songs so he would not help me out. Hey, he played the piano and listened to jazz for years and did not sing since high school and church choir, not that he can't carry a tune. The gods are good and let some people have natural musical ability even if they waste it!

Fooling around customizing my blog some

By the way here is my new Christmas beanie hat and my new purse given me by my son Dan. I love it! We must show off our Xmas finery. Doc reeled when he saw this beanie. I love to surprise him. He has been burning, burning and so you will get a CD that features him at his best and me at my worst. Cause he can sing. Love, Gerry

Catching up on blogs, my own life and family

I have been kind of staying home today and seeing what needed to be done. I have been wanting to put in a blog list on my front page, because I think they are neat. They make the blog look very active with a feed into all these other blogs and it is so easy to click on one and travel. I wanted to do it for my son Raymond and also so it would be easy for visitors to find his blog, Cowboys and Bohemians. He has just been customing it so that it looks very dramatic.
I have returned to the family site again and again to read what everyone is saying about their Christmas and see the photos still being posted. One grand niece just posted a darling picture of her and her toddler son on the occasion of his first Christmas with his two dog friends. The dogs will probably come to think they are babies. And vica versa.
Doc is down burning our karaoke country DVD which I have decided to send out to a few of you who I know especially like singing and such. We laughed until our stomach muscles hurt. Doc is so much fun to sing karaoke with because he can actually sing, he jokes, the whole time, and says all this stuff to me about my less than admirable singing. I just go for laughs. He admires my boldness while not being able to sing. I never have had so much fun. because he gets all my jokes. Most people I have known who could sing took themselves very seriously and just could not tolerate a non singer singing as he can. It's anything for a laugh. My sister Ann actually asked for one. I sent one to my niece Cheryl who has got a sister-in-law who can carry the tune better than I can, but not much better. Her brother-in-law is the better singer, so I think she will appreciate my longing to be taken seriously as a singer. She has longings to sing, too. This DVD will encourage her.
I am sending a few journalists one. If you wanted to be on my list and weren't let me know. This DVD is definitely good for a laugh and a deeper look at the talents of Mr. Doc.
It's been unusually cold here today. We even got snow in Cave Creek, north of Phoenix. That is UNUSUAL. So thanks, Connie, for this snag, it fits the occasion today. Connie's blog is Windswept Whispers on my blog list. Check it out. Love that horse!

Family meets before a trek to cousins' house for dinner and great good time

Here are my grandsons, Ethan and Jamal, with their Mom Ronda and Dad Chad. Ethan is showing off his neat Xmas gun, of course.
Dante, below, took his usual striking photo, but his dad Dan frowned, so that is what he will get.



Here I am last of all in my Xmas finery. After we exchanged gifts to my house we drove out to Linda's son Tano's place where he, and his wife Debbie, and his sister Carissa served an Italian dinner: meatballs and sauce cooked the old fashioned Italian way learned from a Sicilian grandmother, green salad, rolls, and baked ham, and all kinds of great desserts, including cheesecake with a raspberry sauce. I brought a serving of that and some fudge home to Doc as well as the dinner complete with meatballs. These guys are very generous with the take home meals. Everyone went home with something. Linda's other son Scott had come in from Los Angeles, but my son Raymond stayed in Los Angeles and he said went to a diner for a hot turkey sandwich. We talked to him on the way home. All the kids played and played. Carissa and Rich have two, Jed and Clarke, and Tano and Debbie two, Gianna and Sammy, who are all the best of friends. We always have a lot of laughs out to Tano's. Linda still did not feel up up to par but she was there to enjoy visiting with her daughter and family from SF. We could not have had a better time. I was sorry my son Gary missed it. Oh, yes we exchanged more books. I brought 3 home from my niece Carissa who passes out books by the armful.
Doc was pleased to be included in the festivities with some of the feast. He stayed home and burned DVDs of the karaoke singing, which we decided was quite funny. Some lucky elatives are going to get a DVD, I decided, who might be able to tolerate it, and friends. This is Doc's life now days, I don't know what he would do if he could not make videos. He was in pretty good form last night, so he was happy. Some of the guys in the family are worried about jobs, but that seemed to make the Christmas joys all the sweeter. Time to worry later about all the jobs lost or might be lost or cut back. A wonderful day!

Doc and I sang and sang on Christmas Eve...

We were dressed like in these photos. I wore this hat through half of my songs especially for my drunk song I always sing to Doc (Jose Cuervo) Each year I sing it I get a little drunker. He was sitting there looking scared at what I might do next. Course he sang his drunk songs with a lot more authority than I did. I must say I think I was better this year by not practicing. I found out you can wear a a simple country song out by singing it too much Well, Doc just would not let me stop, he was having so much fun, so this video is going to be about two miles long. Now I am going to withdraw my offer to send it to everyone whether they want it or not. You got to say that you are up for it, because I don't want to kill anyone with kindness. If you keep quiet it won't hurt my feelings, but Doc and I sure had a good time. (Thanks, Connie, for all your creations in getting me blog decorated for Christmas)

4- Doc dreams of the rich cheerleading seniors of Sun City

3- My rival told Pierre I was too ugly for him

Now we just as well get down to the bottom of this ugly business, if we can. I was going to quit posting this series about ugly, but Doc called me all afternoon and said they were good, and he wanted them posted. So I decided to tell some more ugly stories while I was at it. I was running around with my sister Linda in Los Angeles and one evening she introduced me to a guy and said, "This is my sister, Gerry." This guy said, "Oh, is this a case of beautiful sister vs. ugly sister." I was a little overweight while Linda still had her starlet figure. I can't tell you how long that remark of his stung. We do have a lot of ignorant people in America who think it is perfectly all right to make denigrating remarks about your looks right to your face!

Now this sister LaRae was another beautiful sister, cheerleader, model, never gained more than 5 pounds in her life, but long after she left high school where the trouble started, she confided in us what staying thin had cost her--bilimia! Which came back to haunt her again and again when she got low and binged for comfort. Only unlike me, she could not bear to let food stay in her body long enough to show up as ugly pounds! People thought she was naturally slim and beautiful. It would have killed her to get ugly. Well, maybe it did kill her somehow, since she died of ovarian cancer at 50. She had symptoms but she was thin, how could she really be unhealthy? In fact, she requested her doctor do a vaginal hysterectomy at 46 because she wanted to wear a binki. She swam. She looked great in a bikini. Do you know how hard it was to watch this beautiful woman die? To see her turn into a skeleton? She paid a higher price for America's obssession with being thin than I did following the herd to obesity.

I am proud of this photo because in it, I somehow managed to match Pierre in looks pretty well, since he was his fattest and I was at my thinnest for several years. But so many women thought he was good looking that I got a lot of flack for being his choice after his divorce. The one who thought she had the inside track called him and told him I was too ugly for him, and she wanted him to go away with her. He said she was too young for him. And he was right. It wasn't long before his health failed and I had to watch this Mr. Good Lookin' turn into a skeleton, too. He never looked more handsome than the week he died. He had lost all that weight. He was so slim and handsome he was haunting!

The camera does not lie: it reveals our confidence in our faces

I have gotten fascinated with what the ordinary camera as well as the video camera reveals to us about ourselvs. Now this gawky school girl picture is more like I envision myself when young. Gawky, that was me wearing those granny glasses forever when granny glesses were not in style, but I broke one too many pair so that was my fate. I hardly recognize that glamorous blonde as me. I was very surprised when I saw this photo, but I guess it must really be me, but not a aelf that emerged very often. I remember my mother saying how ugly she always was. I saw a glamorous photo of her when she was about 18 and I hardly recognized her she was so pretty. I get it now. She did not feel pretty.
I have been studying these videos as I describe what it was like to be called fat ass when only a few pounds overweight. When a man tries to kill you you know that you are very ugly in his sight at that moment. I know I was not pretty in my mother's eyes either, as most childen are, at least while they are babies, but I think my mother reflected the feeling of being unloved to her children by not knowing how to love them. Not only did her father not love her but her husband did not love her either. My father's behavior was not that of a loving husband. Mother always said that she saw a lot more love expressed between her mother and dad, and her dad was still hurtful because my grandmother had to worry all the time about other women. Even when she was old lady, not long before he died, she claimed he had a girlfriend he visited all the time.
I find the videos a fascinating study because I can almost see the lack of confidence I have in my looks in how I laugh, in what I concentrate on. I think my looks today reflect the extreme nervousness I suffered when I was a child. My nervous system was being systematically overloaded with the worry and stress my alcoholic father and my predators caused until my health broke down. I think this nervousness remained a defining characteristic because the stress factor did not improve for quite a long time after I was an adult. I think my nervousness even made other people in the family so nervous they would avoid me! Strange.
Now look at Doc in all the videos. He is very calm in comparison. Very urbane and sure of himself. So that's why it is hard for me to understand why he slipped and slid into alcholism. I think maybe it was boredom because he was not really interested in business. He says he wasn't, but his people did not encourage any pursuit of the arts. The German Lutherans would not have thought music and art and acting respectable or practical. Without a bit of support it would have been pretty difficult for him to become an artist, even though he said he painted about 600 big canvases and always owned a piano. I think he had to get homeless before he could take an entirely different path. Being homeless and broke was so traumatic that he began to medicate himself with alcohol.
I tried my best to marry up as far as looks went. My exH's sister was one of the most beautiful women I have seen. He was also considered to be very good looking. But I always thought he had a screw loose from the severe trauma he had experienced when his mother died when he was 4. He did not have an easy life after that, and he and this beautiful sister just older took out their pain on everybody they could. I rmember hearing how his sister attacked her stepmother once and tried to beat her up. I think she scared her to death. I disapproved of how severely she beat her kids, with spatulas and such. I would get very mad at my ex if he punished the kids too severely, and he was never as mean as she was.
But Raymond inherited enough of his good looks, he attracted a great deal of attention.

Look at that kid standing behind his cousin Camille wwo was graduating. Talk about a pretty boy. Because he was so pretty in high school, I always worried about him attracting predators. A good looking child who attracts a lot of attention will cause you to have to guard them as though they were precious diamonds.

Daughter Ronda looks more glamorous here than I was ever able to look in my whole life. Even when she was a baby, people would stop me in the street to ooh and ahh over the beauty of this child. I guess my father did not see me as precious enough jewel to be in danger when I was small, but I always thought Ronda had to be guarded. Her younger brother who was tall proved to be a wonderful guardian angel for her. His looks were less spectacular than Raymond's who was destined to become an actor, but they were plenty good enough to attract attention on the basketball floor. His physical powess was always a magnet to girls. Of course my oldest son Gary was just adorable, too. He has never lacked for attention.

I did succeed in seeing that my kids would never be called ugly, because I know how that hurts, just because you do not have the conventional kind of good looks. My exH was not able to handle my off beat looks when he was drinking. He just said whatever he thought even if it was cruel.


And here is Dan handsome and that precious grandson Dante looking so cooool. He is a teenage heartthrob at 13. His mother is already going mad trying to guard him.

2- My exH beat me up for being fat and ugly

I could not believe that putting on weight would bring on such abuse from my exH who drank and smoked. He would call me 'fat ass' constantly even when my weight gain was very gradual, and then this became part of the reason, I was sure, that he would threaten physical violence and sometimes carry it out. I put on about 25 pounds the ten years I was with him. I told him that his ugly behavior while drinking did not inspire me to stay a perfect size 10. In fact it caused me to eat for comfort after he had terrorized me when drunk. This got to be our pattern throughout our marriage. My exH never put on a pound of weight but could not acknowledge that drinking and smoking was every bit as bad as overeating. He had a much worse temper than I did, which he invariably lost under the influence. Then I had to wonder if I would survive the night. I guess I was digging down to some of these memories in these videos with Doc, trying to get at the reasons I started putting on weight in the first place.
Alone and poor with two kids to raise since I hardly got any help at all from him, I put on more weight over the years. I never really trusted men again, although if a BF threatened physical violence I soon sent him on his way, as I had to do with the father of my next two children. I vowed I would never tolerate the physical abuse I did in my first marriage, no matter what I had to do. I virtually raised my last two children alone. Such experiences caused me to distrust men and relationships to the max. But I never lost my desire to have children who I enjoyed more than any people in my life. They made all the struggle worth it.
This might not seem like a Xmas video, but it is funny and true. Now is the season that so many overeat. Maybe this video will slow the overeating down a little. Ha. I hope so.

In my new tye dye hat making merry and thinking, thinking

Yesterday Doc and I had a lot of laughs making a series of videos based on my last companion, now deceased, visiting me in a dream. Pierre was an alcoholic, too, so Doc says he enjoys hearing about someone in my life worse than he is. Pierre was also practically a chain smoker which resulted in the lung cancer that killed him. Doc does not have that vice that raises havoc in the later years. Pierre was also addicted to prescription drugs due to a lot of pain caused from his bad back. He had no bone density hardly at all.
But this visit from the other world was so strong. He looked good. He had improved himself he said with kind of an afterlife AA which of course Doc scorns. He would rather die than go there as it smacks too much of religion to him. But he's not adverse to having a big discussion about it on camera. So I thought these videos were very productive in getting into the difficult area of addiction.
We have also been having quite a discussion about weight gain and loss on the family site. Three of us sisters are overweight, while my nurse sister Margie has been able to maintain her weight pretty much for years. Because of this she has a tendency to want to lecture us, calling our reasons for not losing weight mere excuses, etc, but I maintain forcing yourself only works for a short time and then your body's defenses against being 'cussed' will overcome any determination to do better. The reasons for weight gain and loss go deeper than that. Oddly I think that my nurse sister not having to contend with molestation and all the horrible problems that entailed was able to avoid a whole let of difficulties I dealt with for years. She has asthma so was confined to the house rather than doing boys work with my dad. Thinking about my dad's problems in the homosexual area made my head ache for years. I could not even tell her my suspcions because she would have told my mother and I did not think it would be wise for us to tell her I thought my dad was being unfaithful to her, how, and who with. Anybody who tells a wife something like that who is already having violent fights with the husband might be some responsible if murder results.
As a result from having been shielded from my experiences, she has a tendency to resist thinking about this family problem with my dad to this day. She will say there is not enough evidence. She used to tell me for years she did not believe I had anything serious wrong with me and just did not want to work! In other words when I insisted I was having a terrible bout of chronic fatigue, she would not be sympathetic because not seeing things from my perspective she could not imagine how my life had so mysteriously disabled me. That was so frustrating! I came home from the mental hospital in terrible shape from what happened in there, but I could not talk much about it, because nobody understood or believed. It was surreal!
She became more or less the breadwinner as a graduate nurse in her marriage to my ex husband's first cousin, while I was too disabled to work for years, so I came in for more abuse from my husband, especially when he did not have a good paying job. He treated his second wife a lot better because she was a go getter who always made a lot of money. Disability will cause some to abuse you, because you are regarded as a liability.
I have been striving for years to make myself useful to my society in other ways. I hate seeing the disabled warehoused with nothing useful to do, but it apparently takes more to help the disabled contribute than it does just to keep them alive. As a society, I do not believe we can afford to keep large numbers of disabled people living comfortably without finding a way for them to be useful. I see disturbing things happen in here every day because this complex houses a lot of younger disabled people now. Mainly substance abuse. People living on the edge all the time beause of spending all their money on alcohol, tobacco, drugs, or food. So the obese get fatter, the alcoholics more alcoholic and so on.
I think we are going to have to delve deeper into this problem in the years to come. I managed to stay off the disabled list who ask for help from welfare and eventually the government until I was in my fifties. By then I had slipped and slid into an incapacity to hold down even a part time job.
Well, what would I have done without the government at the ready with money, housing, and food stamps? I could not adjust to this for a long time, because I wanted my family to deal with my disability since it was caused within the family. My nurse sister I thought could have done a lot more to be supportive and to help me stay a contributing member of society. I do think when the government takes over and absolves family members from all responsibility for the family's disabled, you are going to get warehoused and forgotten. The government cannot do everything! The family disengages. So nobody is helping you to find a way to still be useful and to be recognized as such.
I could write and I wanted my family to help me more with that by reading my work and helping me to make a living that way, disabled or not. I have a hard time getting my nurse sister even to read my blog. She never did take an interest in how I could be more useful to my society. So I resented the fact that I was the oldest and took a lot of responsbility for the younger ones, but when I got down they did not return the favor. Instead they rejected me. The government would take care of all my needs, but the government could not it.
My son Raymond has slowly become some disabled with his bad hip, which helped cause him to be unable to keep on with a demanding job teaching school. He is in Los Angeles now seeking outlets for the plays he has written. That is exactly why I went to Los Angeles years ago, because I knew I was partially disabled and needed to try to make money with my writing. I also went there to help my youngest sister who had had a nervous breakdown which might partially disable her in the years to come. She was writing, too, and she has desperately tried to sell her work to help supplement her income. She is on social security now which is not enough to pay her mortgage, but she is having a hard time finding work and being able to do what jobs she can find. She is 68, so she managed to stay off the disability at a younger age. My other sister Ann had to retire from teaching on disability in her fifties due to losing her pancreas and the ensuing problems with that. She has made herself very useful to her family ever since by baby sitting. She also took charge of my mother in her aging years, setting her up to live in her town. Despite being disabled, she is a very valuable contributer to the family's welfare and always has been.
I think it takes a lot of support from family, generally, to make money writing. Those who do make money that way usually have family connections who are in the business, and who help them to get established in the difficult competitive world of writing. I have been trying to show my family for years how they could help the would be writers in the family to make money. Show interest. Read their stuff Encourage. I dont even know if my nurse sister is reading my son Raymond's blog let alone mine. But she is not commenting. And we tend to bicker on the family site. Why in the world do we still have to bicker at our age, but I think it is because my nurse sister is not involved enough. She keeps wanting to get away from family problems. There are people who are always wishing they had a different family, different friends.
I felt I sacrificed my health to try to bring out the shadow man problem in a public way, the problem of there being homosexuality which if not accepted goes underground. The men may marry as I think my dad and grandfather did, and women are encouraged not to see what is going on. I tried to surface my thoughts about this problem because I ran into it at the U. I thought the head of my department was a shadow man, as well as my favorite teacher in the English department. These men were crippled by the secret lives they were leading. Why? To earn a living. To have good jobs. Society would not allow them to do this and come out gay.
I thought my aunt in high school, my father's sister, likely had the problem which she was forced to hide so completely that it sent her a little mad. I sympathized with my dad for having a problem with his homosexuality that was far worse than mine. It sent him a little crazy, too, because of how he felt he had to lie, deny, and hide.
I have never not wanted my dad to be my dad because I feel he needed my help with a bad problem. These people still need help with being accepted in society as good standing members despite being predominately homosexual in their feelings. We are seeing how upset a lot of gays are for being denied gay marriage. Well, I don't think we should be denying them anything unless we are prepared to go deeper into the problem and see it from their point of view. My dad and granddad so desperately wanted to be accepted in society that they both married late. As though they could not bear to be lonely bachelors a moment longer. So I think gay marriage is being sought by gays who have come out as what they feel they should have if they are going to go through all the trauma of being honest. It is very hard to be that honest.
I have spent hours and hours for years and years analyzing all the problems connected to my family and my past. So I feel other members of the family should be willing to do more work on the problems, too, without complaint. Should be willing to read the analysis that has come out of this work. I do not want a lot of money. I only want enough to feel like the government has not had to take care of me indefinitely, that I gave something back. To date, analysis like mine is not valued enough by my society, let alone my family, to pay a penny for it. My plays are not valued.
My son is in Los Angeles with two plays that deal with his mother and father and family dynamics. The second play, Blue Baby, deals with child molestation and homosexual rape in a city jail setting. He was not rewarded in Phoenix for the strength it took to write these plays. Maybe he will find a more appreciative audience in Los Angeles. It is certainly worth taking the chance.
His Blackout Blues he is trying to sell now is about a single mother who brings home a violent drifter she met in a bar and puts her her son, a pre teen, at risk. He is suicidal and eventually shoots himself in the leg, but it is feared for a while he might kill them all. We see stories like this in the headlines every day, but why does the theater reject such subject matter? Too few plays and movies that are that realistic are made. Too few risks are taken to bring new writers into the fold. Both Raymond and I are tapped out in Phoenix. We know opportunity to do our plays is not going to come here.
Hence he is in Los Angeles where I moved 5 times, seeking an outlet for mine. He is carrying on the work, the trying to make the important vital connections that will keep him a contributing member of society instead of a disabled one warehoused like I am and not expected to contribute anything. I say if you save me, then also give me something to do that is useful!

1- Deceased BF Pierre pays me a call sober

It has seemed necessary to make a new series of videos to show off my new Xmas tye dye hat, and to talk about a visit from my last companion, Pierre, in a dream, looking bright eyed and completely sober. He says he has been going to an afterlife AA. He thought I needed cheering up because I have embarked on another long mission to 'help' still another suicidal alcoholic like him (Doc).

I am going to get a little Christmassy here

I enjoyed so much writing an entry about my daughter Ronda's graduation, that I hate to move on. But here I am in my most Christmassy blouse with a very lit up Westward Ho just like it was decorated for Xmas. This is a photo taken years ago, but isn't it beautiful? I think it was still the hotel at that time I have tons to do before Christmas day, as I am inviting my immediate family to a Christmas Eve supper. We will exchange our gifts then, and then all meet out to my nephew Tano's who is Linda's oldest son at 1pm the Christmas day. He and his wife Debbie and his sister Carissa are doing the Italian dinner. We have so much fun out there. Debbie and Tano are wonderful hosts. Debbie has been ailing from two operations this year but I am glad she feels well enough to tackle a family get together. She didn't last year.
I just talked to my son Raymond in L.A. who says he will try to make it, and I got a hold of my son Gary a little while ago who said he was to the company Christmas party. He talked like he would attend both family events. His two daughters, Kelly and Laura, live in Flagstaff so if he goes there it will be later in the weekend. His adopted daughter Laura lives here. She is the daughter of my xDIL's twin sister who was killed in a gun incident to a party when her kids were 5 and 3. Later on when Gary was ready, Candy went and got them where they were living with a cousin and she and Gary adopted them. They were grateful because this had turned into a bad situation for them. Cindy, their mother, was a pretty fun loving girl. Think how hard it would be to be separated that soon from two small children due to a guy mishandling his Saturday night special at a party that went off and hit her in the aorta, killing her within minutes. People who were close to her did not get over this tragedy for years. Her little son Bobby never did who took his own life when he was barely 30 after his real father had taken his. But Laura is a strong girl and got through all this.
I just went to Connie's blog, Windswept Whispers, where she has posted some beautiful new holiday snags. She is just getting started with graphics comparatively speaking but says few are visiting her graphic blog, so she doesn't know if she should continue. I have taken to Connie because of her sense of humor. It speaks to me.
I am just horrified with what our most popular graphic artist and blogger, Donna, is going through (Hockey Mom) with her health. Sometimes you just have to cut back on what you are doing to attend to health needs. Jeannette who was our Lady of the Blogs on AOL with her Jeannette's Jottings has been given a warning by her doctor that she must cut back her time on the computer to rest and get her exercise, lose weight, etc. He was quite stern with her. The doctors don't seem to get stern with any of us in the states anymore. Maybe they have just given up. They don't turn a hair at any addiction. But I wonder if getting stern is really the answer, although it is good to warn people of what they are faced with if they don't try to change their life style. I have not had a doctor get stern with me in years. My nurse sister does at times, but that has never worked for me from her, as I feel that weight issues are very complex and need a lot of analyses to figure out each individual person's possible causes for their inability to lose. Look at Oprah. She is apologizing and 'embarrassed' for expanding back up to 200 lbs. That is as fat as I am because my bones are bigger, at 216 or thereabouts. I gained from 210, but I have long since quit beating up on myself. I think Oprah just goes to show you that throwing money at the problem sometimes does not solve it. I think there are other things missing in Oprah's life that keep her struggling with weight even if she is a billionaire.
I feel bad for Jeannette. She looks so festive in her pink blouse when I just visited, almost like a lovely ornament herself, but she has had breast cancer, so she worries!
Doc and I made a series of videos this morning about an hour long dealing with our addictions this morning. I discussed my double chins that appear at this weight. But Doc does not berate me, he just analyzes and makes jokes that cause me to laugh, so I like this 'Doc'. He does more for me than anybody with his approach. He is willing to analyze the causes for hours, on camera yet. He is very patient. As he drinks away and I eat away. He says he has still not got to the point he can deny himself anything. What a hedonist he is! I close with another Xmas card to you from him and me, thanks to Connie.

Daughter Ronda graduates as a nurse from ASU today

We had a wonderful time after the graduating ceremony was over at the civic center in downtown Phoenix. Afterwards we took photos and went back to the Arizona center for dinner. (I said it was a very long ceremony. I think 200 doctors, masters and bachelors got a hug, too, and we were told what job they were going to get. ) Ronda was pleased because I had run into a fabulous sale at the New York Company right there in the Arizona center and we went back and exchanged the blouse for a smaller size. We took maroon silk instead of bronze because they hardly had any left. We were lucky. Chad gave her a watch and a picture frame for her second graduation diploma from ASU. (She went back) Her brother Dan was there to help her sons Jamal and Ethan, Chad and me celebrate with her. It was just the most pleasant family dinner imaginable. A great day. (Thank you, Connie, for the beautiful Xmas frame.)

4- Avoid psychiatrists who might declare you insane!

This is the last in this series on long pants and my reasons for being unpopular my whole life.

"My cup runneth over" Rick (Doc)

The one with the cup is a homeless guy hiding out in his clothes, probably too shaky to keep from spilling his drink so it 'runneth over'. I am sad to think there are going to be more of those on the streets in the months to come.
There is another one sleeping peacefully in a culvert, while Doc surely must have been close by in the bushes in his homeless days. And last of all there is one in all his glory who is irrepressible wherever he is. He doesn't care. He is still god.

Christmas shopping is coming right along!

Here I am in my new black beret from the thrift store. It is very warm and sure felt good today when I was out shopping in the rain. Below is a card I received of my oldest granddaughter Laura Lynne, her husband TJ, and my great grandson Wyatt. She is Gary, my oldest son's daughter.
I just got back from Borders Bookstore a little while ago which is a trek I make every year looking for bargains. My trip was very satisfying as I got 4 books, 1 for each of my kids for quite a good bargain. The other books I will give are second hand. I received a book today in the mail from my sister Ann and one from my neice Cheryl that I will have to review I am sure. It is one by Barbara Kingsolver who lived in Arizona a long time and who wrote one of my favorite novels, "The Poisonwood Bible." The other one is about redemption after abuse. I just started reading it. I think I have about gotten all my books sent out.
I am going to give my usual Christmas Eve supper, and just learned today Linda's daughter Carissa is coming from San Francisco and she and Debbie, her borther's wife, are doing Italian for a feast for Christmas day. What a wonderful idea I think. Every Italian dinner they have served has been divine. One year they roasted peppers the Italian way. One year Linda made a sausage and broccoli pie that is unbelievably good. She learned to make it from her Italian MIL. Sam, her ex, lives out in Mesa now. Tano and Debbie persuaded him to sell his house in Florida and move to Arizona which he was willing to do after a hurricane or two. Linda met him in Los Angeles where he worked for many years as supervisor for a big landscaping company.
My son Gary is just finishing up a job in downtown Phoenix for his construction company. You can visit Raymond's blog http://cowboysandbohemians.blogspot.com in which he is logging his experience in Los Angeles of staging two of his plays there. He is also writing his memoirs into the mix. Quite hair raising stuff for a mother to read at times. I am glad that he has calmed down in his fifties. He did put some of that gray into my hair, and you will find out why if you read.
And the big day will finally arrive tomorrow when my daugher Ronda is graduating as a nurse at ASU downtown. I am taking my camera to the ceremony and hope to get a photo of her. She said ASU did not warn them to apply early for jobs, as hospitals only take so many new nurses as they have to hire another professinal to teach them the stuff they could not learn in college. She worked very hard to graduate close to the top of her class and now she is bummed because she is finding it hard to find that first job.
My son Dan, a very big movie buff, and I went to see "Australia" on Sunday. I wanted to see the horses and cows and the Australian landscape but we both agreed that at times the story was silly. Hugh Jackman rode very well and Nicole Kidman I think always tries to make her characters more real than some actresses do. The little boy who played the part aborigine was so appealing as was his grandfather, a full blood, and his mother, too. But there are so many ways for a movie nearly 3 hours to go wrong or not right. I have given up on cattle drives in movies. They are downright funny, a bunch of cattle milling around and in this one an unbelievable sequence where the little boy stops a huge herd of cattle from plunging off a cliff. I hope I haven't spoiled it for you. Well, millions got spent making this movie, and it is flawed, but it had some good stuff in it, so I was not sorry I went, just kind of disappointed that it was not as great as a better writer might have made it.
My sister Linda has a strange ailment that is really troubling her. It is kind of a mystery thing, and I will give you another report once she goes to another doctor who will give her still another going over. She doesn't feel well, and I examined her fingers yesterday and when she hamgs them down they go a dark flushed red from about the top down past the first joint. She says the tips feel like the skin might tear if she does any work with them. And she also does not feel well. She was not her usual perky self yesterday. She is thinking now she might be getting poisoned by a gas leak under her house, so she is trying to research those symptoms. She is also feeling some nuombness in her hands. She fell hard about a month and a half ago and hit her head on the sidewalk, so we all thought that might have caused a pinched nerve problem, but now she is not sure that is it. My last companion's hand started going numb on one side and was traveling up his arm, and he had to have a 4 vertebrate fusion on his upper back. So did Victor, a guy who lives here, who also started to lose feeling in his hands, and it traveled up his arm to the point he was afraid of going paralyzed, so went to emergency and they operated on him in two days and did a 4 vertebrate fusion on him. He has been in a wheel chair for years, so he could have twisted his neck and back many ways. He has not been out of the month's rehab he had to do, too, very long. He was companion to Ellen who died last July after a year of struggle following her stomach reduction surgery.
Oh, and I was so happy to see my old neighbor Sarah who just came home from spending three weeks in the hospital where they fought the MRRSA infection in her leg which they were all afraid was going to kill her. Her leg was going black. I am so happy to report that she looked much better and she said her leg is a lot better. Another strange thing, she cleaned out the wound without using a glove and she had a broken fingernail. MRRSA infected the end of her finger and they had to cut it off to the first joint. I could not believe it. That MRRSA is a monster infection.
Oh, what do you think about this Medoff and his giant ponzi scheme in his investment company. Even Steven Spielberg's charity foundation lost millions in his company People invested lost like billions. They say it might be the biggest criminal fraud case ever, and up until a week ago Medoff was thought to be a big success. In this financial meltdown some of the rich are getting wiped out. That is something. I do hope the nation is still standing when this is all over with. I don't think the billionaires and millionaires who got this news about Medoff are going to have a very happy Xmas. A poor guy with millions a week ago said he got wiped out.
I don't know if I feel better now that Oprah has gone back up to 200 pounds. They were posting this news in big letters on the Walter Cronkite building across the street. There are times when I am glad I am not famous. I guess losing weight is a struggle for the rich as well as the poor. Well, think of all the delicious food they could buy!
I hope you are all shopping happily as we just as well enjoy what we do buy to the utmost. There will be plenty of time to get upset I am sure before all this is over with, and things get better.

3- Disability is the kiss of death to popularity

Our society is hooked on phsyical perfection, even if it has to be artificially constructed, even though more people are becoming disabled every day!

2- When his 160 I.Q. towers over my 130 I.Q.

Check out our discussion of our I.Q.s, and I don't know who comes off the best.

I love this card! Thanks, Connie!

This card is a Connie's Creation. She ferreted out my great love of horses, and has noticed I have done my best to make a cowboy out of Doc. Connie, if you will send me your address I will send you the Christmas gift I promised Doc's fans, a cowboy country album with him singing country-western and me doing my best even if it is the worst singing you have ever heard. Nelishia has requested that he sing David Allen Coe's sad country song about trying to get some gal just to remember his name, not knowing that is one of Doc's favorites to perform. He and I went a spate doing nothing but singing country western songs. We did it for hours. He announced that he was going to teach me to sing no matter how long it took. He finally let me off the hook, mercifully, realizing that some people just don't have the gift. That was before we got the camera. All we had was our recorder but we recorded lots of cassettes.
Today we made a series all about encouraging other couples to make videos of themselves. It is a wonderful way to meet people as a couple. I hope you will all get a camera cheap for Xmas and start making videos of whoever you are living with and sending them around to all of us, Youtube, and all your family and friends, especially if they don't live close. I think this is so much fun, and it has been Doc's most effective tool in getting me to see my faults. Of course I could always see his but was not convinced I had any. Then he sneaked the camera in position and turned it on a few times when I was on a rant, and lo, he had the proof. He admits that he artfully questioned me so I would hang myself with my own unpleasant words. I have got better (I think) as I don't want to look that bad ever again. He has made a believer out of me that a smile is good and a laugh is even better. A joke is more effective than a criticism that draws blood.
I love photos but I love videos even more. Lisa who does Please Don't Take Life for Granted has got everyone beat when it comes to videos. She has been taking them for years, and I think hers of her little 3 year old grandson Kayden drumming are some of the most precious. The new grandson is mighty handsome, too! I love another Lisa's photos and videos of the animals on her Bison Farm. Slideshows are my next favorite, and Kelli gets my first prize this month fo her Thanksgiving dinner for the soldiers slideshow and her quilt slideshow. I hope that she is all fired up for a Xmas slideshow, in case she does not get a video camera.
I love Donna's photos and videos (Hockey Mom) and have been checking out Guido's who has transferred his collection to Youtube. He takes the absolute prize for number of photos taken. Slideshows, etc. I have his link in my favorites. I have also listened to his audios as I like voices, too. Mary Jo of The Edge of Dementia has a video camera and digital one, too that she sometimes puts to good use, and she posts a lot of historical videos. Oh and Nelishia just put on a wonderful one of her little granddaughter Katie demonstrating her reading powess. I would love to see a video of her and Dirk, too, and of them singing. Bea and Jeanne make videos. Pam has photographed and videoed. Ann of Beauty in Art posts notable videos she finds on her blog. I am just crazy about all these forms of communication that just flesh out people and make them more real. So here is to a real good video year. Oh, and graphics are good, too, Connie, Donna, Missie, and all you devoted graphic artists. Oh, and I also must award a medal to Helen (Madcobug) who struggled up with bad back and outdoors to photograph the moon, a real good one, too. Well, all you great photographers deserve kudos for bringing more joy into our lives.
Oh yes, I am sorry but my sidebar fell down to the bottom, too. I think it is because my videos are perpetually too wide. So I guess I will have to leave them there, since I want to post the videos as big as they will go. Surprise! When I saved this entry, my sidebar jumped back to the top again, so it has got to be the wideness of the videos. So look for that sidebar to get dropsy now and then. Christmas is coming! I can feel Christmas in my bones.

1- His long pants and my unpopularity in high school

Doc's hats inspire Connie!

Doc and I have been making another video on his long pants and my unpopularity. You only get to see about a tenth of our videos, as we enjoy making a series every few days. I have to put the rehabilitation of Doc above your capacity for seeing him in videos. He doesn't care if anyone looks. He just needs to make funny videos just like he needs to breathe. I accept the fact that it might take a lot of videos to turn his life around, but I know laughter is the key, enjoyment, acting, and reaching an audience at last even it is only two or three.
If you blog there is always a chance of two or three more reading it than just your family. I am trying to get my three other sisters to blog because that would mean three more readers and commenters in exchange for me reading and commenting on their blogs. They are going to need somebody!
My son Raymond used to be a faithful reader of my blog, (still is, he says) but now he is blogging, I am repaying the favor by being his most faithful reader and commenter. Just as I used to sit on the front row of every play production he ever did. People wanted to pay me to come to their plays because I was such a good laugher. You could not miss me, and my laugh made them feel good, like their plays were really funny. A comic writer needs laughers in his life desperately.
Raymond told me yesterday when he called that his two plays are going to run together, each two performances a week for 4 weeks. So if I can get to Los Angeles I can see both of them! That is exciting. Now I have to save for the trip. I hope my son Dan will be able to take me at least one way. I don't want him to lose his job, so I might even come back on the bus if necessary. Jobs are too hard to come by now days. I have seen Blue Baby twice but I want to see the Los Angeles production, too. I think running them both at the same time is an inspired idea. He has invited everyone to come to Los Angeles. Raymond knows he has to go out and beat the bushes for audience members once he gets a play up.
I know that all the AOL journalists are reading as many blogs as they can possibly handle. Some with a hundred or so on their list have even fallen behind. I came lately to the journaling world, so I don't expect miracles. Plus some have stopped journaling and some are in such poor health they can't even write a blog, except with practically their last breath. I am not going to expect those guys to read my blog.
Some I have found don't have broadband that enables them to watch videos as easily as I do. Dial-up just does not do it. So they are excused from reading my blog unless I just write, as my blog has become a good part videos thanks to the rehab I run. However Doc is my constant companion (when I can stand him) so I have to put a top priority on what works for him. I also don't like to send out alerts except when I get really excited about something we have done or somebody else in the family is doing like Raymond. So people don't know whether I will send an alert or just skip it. Anyway, you can see more of my thoughts on this subject, as well as Doc's cutting responses on the new video I will soon be able to embed here. It is uploading now.

3- A superiority complex cripples the intelligent drunk

Here Doc and I are back to discussing how he refuses to take his drinking problem seriously. I am saying in this video how my father would always deny that he had a drinking problem and would abuse us for saying he did. His superiority complex kept him from admitting he had any serious faults. He was arrogant. He acted like if you had money you did not have to concede any flaws. His lack of humility made it impossible to have a civilized discussion with him. Our discussions would always turn into big fights, which we would sometimes engage in out of desperation or self defense as his superiority complex made him very bossy and controlling. He knew best. The last communication I had with him before he was found dead was a great big sneer. Sneer at the way I was living my life, my poor choices in men, etc. etc.
But my father had quit drinking for the most part, although he was in serious trouble with the law at the time of his death for a drunk driving charge. He had crossed the yellow line to pass a car and hit a car headon coming toward him he apparently was so drunk he did not see. In the presence of the cops, he tried to open another beer twice! They were waiting for the ambulance, the tow truck, etc. One of the passengers in the other car got his leg broken. Otherwise the 4 people involved in the wreck, including my dad, seemed to be 'okay,' although I believe that the terrible blow he suffered from the steering wheel nearly impaling his chest affected his heart, causing his death 9 months later. Both cars were totalled. He was driving a practically new Cadillac de Seville (hard top convertible)a beautiful car he had paid cash for.
Doc has still not got humble enough to shut his drinking down! Sober up. He has never sobered up in the 3 years I have known him. I have never had the chance to connect to a guy before as intelligent as well as talented as he is. I don't think there is anything he could not have succeeded doing if he had set his mind to it. He showed talent as a musician and artist in his younger years as well as sales. His acting abilities made him a super salesman, so he got so he would work only when he had to, basically because he hated sales. But he was never encouraged to go into the arts which is probably what is at the seat of his drinking problem. He 'wasted' many years doing something he hated doing. He loves the arts, but as far as I can see the german lutheran community he grew up in was very controlling. It is as though they were pulling his strings all his early years and he is still drinking to 'show them' he cannot be bossed. What a destructive way to rebell.
I keep trying to get through to Doc through all the stubbornness he has developed about throwing his life away if he chooses to do so. Making something of himself was actualliy what he was taught to do, only there were only a few acceptable ways to do that. For a phenomennally gifted man this was almost a death sentence, but I got the same kind of pressure from my dad to abandon any foolish notions about making a living as a writer, playwright, etc, and had to fight him constantly over my bad choices and impractical ideas. A lot about ranching bored him to death, but he could drink, which he would not have been able to do and succeed had he pursued the profession of law in college which is what he set out to do. He was going to have to be too disciplined even to get through the course. Ranching was about the only work he could still do whilst seriously trying to drink himself to death. At forty he was almost finished, and then he rallied enough to quit drinking for the most part.
I don't know if Doc will ever rally at 71 to quit drinking. But he is slowly departing this life through his alcoholism. I am still exploring his capacities to think and communicate despite his drinking, but it is a difficult frustrating task at times. I suppose one of these days it will be either good-bye Doc or good-bye Gerry. We can't keep on like this too many more years. We are an addicted nation.

2- The mental illness of the rich

Here I am dressed in kittens as I promised and Doc in his yellow flowers on black and silly hat. I tried to this hat away from him even though I bought it, but now he likes to make statements in it. I hope you enjoy.

Doc and I are enjoying making videos, laughing it up, and getting ready for Xmas

We made a series of 8 yesterday on the superiority complexes of the rich, even slightly rich, according to my experience (Doc has the disease even though he is now poor, it is hard to get rid of it) I was dressed in kittens and Doc was dressed in yellow flowers on black with a goofy hat that somehow matches. The first one is uploading now. I don't know as I will put all 8 on Youtube but enough for you to get the idea. It continues on where the video about the capitalists looting the democracy to get rich left off.
I don't know if you are keeping up with my son Raymond's blog but he has actually found a theater space down in L.A. and is now interviewing directors for his second play, "Blue Baby." I called my son Dan to see if he wanted to plan a quick trip to L.A. to see the first one "Bohemian Cowboy." I have found that I am incapable of planning a trip alone over there. My grandson Dante has stayed over there many times with an aunt, so he will undouabtedly go with us, too, to see his Uncle Raymond perform and get excited about acting. http://cowboysandbohemians.blogspot.com. See theater history in the making. There is nothing more exciting than going to a new play. If you are reading, Pam, I may get to L.A. after all, with my son Dan. And we can meet there if possible!

I-When capitalists loot the democracy, recession results

This is the first of my series on the bad economy. I have been attempting to come up with some dialogue people might want to watch, find thought provoking, or is that too much to expect of myself? But I can't ignore the financial meltdown in our world any longer without writing about it.

VI- Parents fail to respond appropriately to a pedofile hanging out with their teens--shot fired!