The End of An Era...Finally

Tonight is the season finale of "ER". This was a show I once loved, I mean it was MUST see TV on Thursday nights. Everyone was swooning over George Clooney; not me. I have always been a huge Noah Wyle fan. Can never get enough of him.
Though the series is ending tonight, the show died for me years ago. I think the last episode I ever watched in it's entirety was the one where Romano was killed by a falling helicopter. After that, it was just too ridiculous. Here are some of my most favorite moments:

* Carole Hathaway leaves Chicago to join Dr. Doug Ross in Seattle (didn't see that one coming at all!)
* Dr. John Carter's first day at County.
* Dr. Mark Green working feverishly to save the life of a pregnant woman, although he fails.
* Dr. Peter Benton flies with Carter to Atlanta to kick his drug habit.
* Dr. Ross saving a small child from a sewer drain.
* Dr. Carter and his intern Lucy Knight are stabbed by a crazed patient (Subsequently, Lucy died and I remember Stephen running around the house screaming, "They killed Lucy!!" "They killed Lucy!!" HE never watched the show after that.)
* Dr. Romano trying feverishly to save Lucy's life.
* Dr. Green's cancer story.

Those are just a few episodes that stick out in my mind. What were yours?

Music

It always amazes me how I can be listening to the radio and the song which best describes my mood/life/feelings comes on at just the right time. For instance:

No, you can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
And if you try sometime you find
You get what you need.
---The Rolling Stones

This is my life right now in a nutshell.

I like almost all types of music. I admit, guiltily, I am a closet disco fan. Rock and Roll follows a very close second. (or as it's now known, "old time rock and roll"). Right behind rock and roll, is reggae. Reggae takes me to places I love to visit. As well, it makes me believe "every little ting gonna be 'arie." I could live without 2 types of music: opera and rap. Both are usually sung in a language I can never understand.

Let the music play!!

And Now I'm Back

Time has served me well. My spirits are a bit better. A very good friend e-mailed this to me today. It made me smile and I wanted to share. It made me think of all of you.

Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got.
Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot.

Wouldn't you like to get away?

Sometimes you want to go

Where everybody knows your name,
and they're always glad you came.
You wanna be where you can see,
our troubles are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows
Your name.

You wanna go where people know,
people are all the same,
You wanna go where everybody knows
your name.

That Time Again

It's time again for me to re-assess life. Things are just not going the way I had planned. I'm very confused and so unsure of myself, which is very unusual. It's kind of scary. So I need to take some time and figure out what I need to do to be happy.
I said back in July, "when one door closes another one opens." The door seems to be shut pretty tight right now and I must find a way to re-open it. I need to find the right tools and abilities to get the door open and find my path.
Going silently into that gentle night...

My Best Friend's Birthday

Today is my best friend's birthday. She is an amazing woman who has inspired me for my entire life. She is smart, funny, bold, intuitive, compassionate, and sometimes, completely crazy. She is part Pisces, part Aries, having been born on the cusp of both. So while she is imaginative and creative, she can be as stubborn as a male ram. Having been married twice, she quickly found that independence was her strong suit. Her perfect day is any day at the beach with good friends, good food, and good drinks. Harry Belafonte and Neil Diamond rock her world. Not suprisingly as she was growing up, Joan Baez, and The Highway Men were everything to her. I'm not sure, but I think it's safe to say she may have been a beatnik. Her several careers have included being an RN and a Medical Transcriptionist (175 words per minute!!) At the ripe old age of 35, she went back to college and received her Bachelor's degree in Gerontology, which led to her last career move, that of a Nursing Home Administrator. Flowing with creativity and new ideas of better ways to take care of the elderly, she attempted to make life better for the aged under her care. But the medical system being what is was, would not allow her to do that. So, bitterly, she retired. Now she spends all of her mornings volunteering at a local elementary school, utilizing her love of life and laughter teaching the youngest of children how to read.
I love that she is my best friend. I can tell her anything and everything, which I usually do. And I know she will tell me exactly how she feels, no holds barred. When I was sick, she was with me everyday in every way...crying, laughing, and encouraging me to hang in there. Were it not for her, I'm not sure I would still be here today.
She is my idol. I love her more than mere words can express. I only hope that one day I can be as good a human being as she is.
Happy Birthday Mom!

A Little of This, A Little of That

First, I want my hour back. I understand all too well why the time change was implemented after WWII. To help the farmers and so kids wouldn't have to come home from school in the dark. I get it. But the farmers are going to get up anyway and most kids have a cell phone so they can call their parents if there is any trouble. So please, consider giving me my hour back.
Now, for my friends in the North, you may want to skip this part. Spring has arrived in Florida!! When I wrote my last entry I was sitting in my house with 3 layers of clothes on and the heat running. Today, I am sitting on the back porch with all the windows in the house wide open, wearing a tank top and shorts. I am loving it! Now I know, 3 months from now I will complaining about the unbearable heat and humidity, but today, it is more than beautiful.
I have a job interview in Philadelphia next Tuesday (St. Patrick's Day). It's for a medical software company. It's a one day trip...leave Gainesville at 6:00 a.m and get back to Gainesville at 12:00 a.m. Long day, for sure. But I'm sure it will be worth it. The job would have me traveling a lot but working from home when not traveling. I like the sound of that.
My Gator basketball team is playing in the SEC tournament at the end of the week. Here's hoping for all good things. I'm at least hoping they make it to the dance.
Today is cleaning day in the old homestead, so I'm off to do the mopping.
Have a GREAT day!

A Nice Weekend

Oy, can I tell you what a nice weekend I had? I got to spend time not only with Stephen, Brett, Casey and Gavin, but I had the opportunity to visit with friends as well. But, truth be told, babysitting Gavin was the highlight of the weekend.
Stephen and Casey decided to go on a date. So, I got to feed Gavin dinner, play time, bath time and night-night time.
He's getting so big...crawling all over and he can walk as long as he can hold on to a piece of furniture. And he eats: for dinner that night he had rice cereal mixed with sweet potatoes and bananas for dessert. If you don't get the spoon to his mouth quick enough, he will surely let you know. LOL. And he doesn't like it when you try to wipe the food off his mouth with a spoon. Nope, he's not having any part of that. He drinks his apple juice out of a sippy cup and when he's done with his sip, he will gladly throw the cup on the floor for you. I loved it!
Play time is awesome. He has lots of toys but is partial to 2: the basketball hoop that makes noises when pulled upon and his sesame street table. He pulls himself up on that table, pushes the buttons and Elmo sings, Ernie sings and Big Bird makes noises. He loves it!
But bath time is the ultimate! As soon as you begin to undress him, his little arms start flailing, he kicks his legs up and down and a GIANT smile comes across his face. Once in the bathtub it's all about the rubber ducky. You can throw anything else you want into the tub, but it's all about the duck (sounds like a good friend I know). Splash, splash, duck in mouth, splash, splash. When it's time to get out of the tub, he gets wrapped up in his towel. But you have to keep his right hand OUT of the towel. Why, you may ask? Because once he is dried off, Stephen has taught him to "turn the light out". He turns the light off in the bathroom. I made the mistake of wrapping his right hand in his towel. Yeah, that didn't go over very well. He finally got his right hand free and I said, "Gavin, please turn the light out." and so he did. And then I turned the light on again, and he turned it off again. We did this quite a few times. He gets the largest grin across his lips and his eyes light up when he does this. Getting into pajamas is a bit of a struggle. It seems Gavin is not very fond of getting dressed. He wiggles, squirms, tries to crawl away and even cries a bit, of course without tears. But we got through it.
It was now night-night time. While his bottle was warming up, he and I sang the "3 Bears Song" (a song I learned in Girl Scouts. Yes, I was a girl scout). We went into his room, I sat in the rocking chair and slowly while sucking on his bottle, he fell asleep. Well, not really. Casey has it worked out so that he doesn't depend on finishing his bottle before he goes to sleep. I wish I had been able to do that with my kids. After feeding him a bit of his bottle, I gently put him in his crib, covered him with his blankies, turned on his music box and quietly left the room, but not before turning my head back one last time to stare at my beautiful grandbaby.
It was one of the best Saturday nights I've ever had.