Pardon Me, Your Blog is Showing

By Jody Worsham

All rights reserved for a full length

I don’t know how everyone else finds my blog, but to get to it, I Google The Medicare Mom and up pops all the titles that contain the phrase “The Medicare Mom.”  Then I click on the top one, and it takes me to this green page you are reading now.

Yesterday, out of curiosity, I scrolled past the first one and clicked on the second entry.  I was pleased to find that McAfee tests me and finds me to be virus free.  That’s good because yesterday I thought I might have picked up a virus.   It must have been that day old pizza I had for breakfast.

A little further down, I clicked on to The Medicare Mom stats.  There I learned that I was ranked 12,108,885^th.  I was ecstatic until I remembered my brief encounter with statistics in college.  Was that 12,108,885^th out of a number larger than our national debt?  If so, hooray I have a ton of readers!   I have a platform bigger than the 3x4 ft. deck in my backyard.  Or was that 12,108,885^th out of a possible 12,108, 886?  And if so, do those statistics count the number of times daily that I check to see if anybody left a comment? Then, that is not so good.  I am my own top reader.

I kept going.  This was fascinating in a depressing sort of way.  I have more Google entries than I have readers.  One site estimated my worth at $465.91.  That’s more like it.  But where is it?  It’s probably lost in the mail since I can’t find my Pay Pal password.  No, that has to be potential worth or dial-up expenses because I don’t have any advertisers, sponsors, contests, polls, or giveaways.  I just have me.  Another site had my worth at $33,75 but I don’t trust that site.  They obviously don’t use our math system because we have to have four numbers to use a comma or they miss-typed and put a comma where they intended a period.  $33.75?

A site called WOT (web of trust) ranked my overall trustworthiness at 90% giving me three out of four people on the graft.  I only got 89% on vendor reliability but I don’t know how they came up with that number because I don’t have any vendors.  I got 88% on privacy, I guess because I don’t understand links and link backs so I don’t have many.

This last ranking on WOT, I question.  I got three out of five people on the graft and a ranking of 85% on child safety.  Do they not know the government, after extensive investigation, awarded me permanent custody of eight children and two donkeys, a driver’s license, a passport, and a teaching certificate?  I looked back over my blog entries and the only thing I can see that would warrant an 85% child safety ranking would be my entries on cooking.  Maybe I should have posted a warning:  This meal was cooked by a non-professional with absolutely no training in the kitchen.  DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME…and do not attempt to eat unless you were lost on a desert island for six years and have proven you can digest anything…and I mean anything.

 Even if you think no one is reading your blog, someone is or some THING.  Better check for slips.  Your blog is definitely showing.

 

 

Cujo in the Attic

By Jody Worsham

All rights reserved for the Dog Whisperer

Last night was your typical evening at home with the family.   By bedtime, all teeth had been brushed and/or removed for cleaning and baths had been taken.  Then the Tween-ager couldn’t find the dog.  The hunt for the Shih Tzu began.  Finally I yelled in a clam voice “GO TO BED.  The dog is in the house somewhere.  She’s just hiding… (and I don’t blame her).”

Five minutes later both children burst into the bedroom wide-eyed, slamming doors, screaming, and talking at the same time.  “There’s something in the attic.  It’s chasing us up and down the hall.”  Thinking this was just a ploy to avoid bedtime, I went into the hall to herd them toward bed when I heard it.  More screams, slamming doors, and talking at the same time which brought Dr. Hubby to the hallway.

He heard it but rather than scream and slam doors, he merely pulled down the folding staircase in the hall ceiling to investigate.  There was the Shih Tzu.  I was sure she had morphed into Cujo.  It seems someone had left the storage door to the attic in the upstairs playroom open.  While upstairs hiding one of my biscuits under the sofa, the dog had investigated the open door.  When she heard the kids calling her, she followed the sounds through the ceiling…running all over the attic.

Hot and dehydrated, cool water was administered.  The dog was hot and dehydrated, too, so they gave her some cool water as well.  After many assurances that there were no other critters in the attic and Cujo was just a movie, I managed to go to bed.  The kids and the dog had gone to bed an hour earlier.

Some people have bats in the belfry; we have Shih Tzu’s in the attic.  More fodder for the blogger!

T’is the Season to be Jolly…Again!!

By Jody Worsham

All rights reserved for the Happy Dance!

I passed through the school supply aisles at Wal-Mart this morning.  The scent of glue sticks, crayons, and pink rubber erasers filled the air creating a sense of euphoria and hope in this full time Medicare Mom.

Bins were brimming with yellow #2 pencils, brightly colored pencil sharpeners, and scissors of all kinds:  blunt, pointy, lefties, righties, plastic and metal.  Bottles of Elmer’s Glue in all sizes were stacked to the very edge of the shelves.  I was becoming light headed and giddy.

Ring binders were lined up and standing like sentinels awaiting assignments.  The end caps were being stacked head high with notebook paper:  wide rule, college rule, no rule.  Eight colors of folders with or without pockets, with or without brads, plastic or paper glistened like a long awaited rainbow offering hope after 40 days and 40 nights of no school.

I rounded the corner and actually swooned at the sight of cartons of kleenex tissue, paper towels, zip lock plastic bags, and bottles of hand sanitizers filling the aisles as they awaited their turn to be placed on the school supply shelves.

I bought two boxes of crayons and two pencil boxes; then plastic pocket folders in every color, scissors, notebook paper, glue sticks and bottles, a ruler just in case, and four spiral note books.  I got two lunch kits, two thermos bottles and 150 plastic sandwich bags. It was glorious!

As I rounded the corner heading for the check-out line, I burst into song “It’s the most wonderful time of the year.  Car pools are forming and backpacks are brimming and parents are of good cheeeer!  It’s the most wonderful time of the year.”

 I couldn’t help myself.  I was a racehorse with the finish line in sight, a marathon runner seeing the last mile marker, the exit ramp on the freeway with no cars in sight. I was about to be home free.   School starts in 16 days, 6 hours, 28 minutes, 12 seconds…11 seconds…10…

It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

Table Talk

by Jody Worsham
All righs reserved for Plumbers Helper

Dr. Hubby plays poker with the "boys" once a week and I go out to eat with the "girls" once a month. For me, it is an opportuniy to engage in live conersation with humans as opposed to conversing with a seven-year-old and a tweenager; well, it is if you don't count my daily exchanges with Wal-Mart cashiers.  He comes home with all kinds of stories and jokes which I don't get.  I began to wonder if my group's table talk was the norm.  

I know from what I've read and e-mail exchanges, that ladies between 50 and 92 seem to be gear their conversations toward grandchildren, gardening,  menopause, who died, and aches  and pains, heavy on the aches and pains the closer you get to 92. My group may be a little different.

We are an ecclectic group of educated women mostly over the age of 50, some empty nesters, some retired or want to be, some divorcees, some widows, some with grandchildren, and one with young children still at home (me).  This is the group that I went on a mission trip with and taught them how to play the slot machines at a nearby casino.  They taught me about "knocked up roses".

Last night at dinner,  the first topic of conversation was a review of all the newest restaurants in town and which had the best specials and when. This was music to my ears because it did not involve cooking. I took notes.  The reviews were mostly good, so no home burned meals for my family for the next several days.

The next topic revolved around repairing a leaky faucet.  My friend with the leaky faucet was adamant about NOT hiring a plumber.  She had managed to get the faucet turner-on-and-off removed and the little gold circle thing but she wasn't sure if the white plastic thingy popped off or not.  Ms Fix-It said she had only removed faucets from the bottom.  Ms Innovative said to take a picture of  all the "innerds" and take it to a local plumbing shop.  That's what she had done when she needed the number of something on the bottom side of her kitchen sink.  "$1.36 for the part, not $36 for a new faucet which was what the big box store had wanted me to buy. "

With that global crisis settled, we moved on to the weather; we heard thunder.  Four of the women whipped out their i-phones, Androids, Razors and gave the rest of us the weather report.  One noted that it was 76 degrees outside, a drop of  16 degrees since we came in.  Another reported heavy clouds moving in. One pulled out her Farmer'sAlmanac and said it  would likly be raining tomorrow. I stuck my hand out the windw and said it was raining now. The next hour was devoted to discussing the i-phone versus the Jitterbug as opposed to a pocket calendar and the need for Boomer  Technology classes.

When I returned home, Dr. Hubby said "Well, what was the big topic of conversation this time?"   "Oh, just the usual table talk. By the way, I found a new place to eat tomorrow.  There's a special on Thursdays."

From Here to Eternity...or the Beach (whichever comes first)

by Jody Worsham
All rights reserved for plane tickets

A family vacation is supposed to bring a family closer together and it does; especially  if there are two grown-ups, two children at the warring age, and a shih zu that lives up to her name packed into a car with enough electronics to launch a sattelite.  Still, the children wanted to go to the beach so that's where we headed.

The original plan was to leave on a Sunday and I had been packing the RV accordingly.  On Saturday afternoon Dr. Hubby decided it would be nice to break up the long drive by leaving on Saturday
in an hour.-   I went into overdrive and started throwing the rest of the last minute items into the trailer...leaving the hot dogs still frozen in the refrigerator freezer.  One mile down the road we had to stop to see if my hormones had been packed.  Finding that they had been, it was safe to continue our journey.

Nine miles down the road I had finally untangled all the earphones, assigned chargers to the various i-pods and i-pads, and negotiated a peace treaty for the next ten miles, when I saw pieces of rubber flying through the air in the side mirror.  A blow-out!  Dr. Hubby managed to steer us into an RV park with a semi-level surface to change the tire.  A contruction worker took pity on an old man, a fat wife, two kids, and a dog and changed the tire for us.

With no spare tire, I confiscated the i-pad, dialed up On Star and began a search for a set of four tires or at least a spare.  It was 5 o'clock on a Saturday evening.  Who was going to be open?  No one.
We made it another 120 miles and stopped at an RV camp.


The next morning our ever faithful Wal-Mart had 4 tires.  We drove there and an hour later we had four new tires.  The plan was to keep the  other 3 tires as a back-up.  Where we were going to put them hadn't been decided.  The point was moot since the other three tires were all cracked as well.
We headed out for the remaining five hours of the trip.

We gave the tween-ager the TomTom (gps) .  "What's a POI?" "Point of Interest."  For the next five hours she discovered more apps on the TomTom than we ever imagined.   We heard "Four hours and fifty-two minutes to destination.  Traveling at 61 mph, legal speed 70, crossing an intersection just...about...now.  Four hours and fifty minutes to destination.  Traveling at 66 mph, legal speed 70, and we are making a slight curve to the left,  right about....now.  Four hours and 48 minutes to destination.  Traveling at 82 mph, legal speed 70 and there is a lake immediately to your right."
If this weren't enough, Dr. Hubby was discovering all the buttons on the car.  His favorite was the miles per gallon feature.  "We are averaging 6 miles per gallon.  That's awful.  No wait, that's 99 miles per gallon."  "That's because we are going downhill, Honey."  Actually, we were getting more like $50 per hour.  Every hour we stopped to fill up with gas and to check the tires.

A normal seven hour drive to the beach took us two days, four tires, three game chargers, an on going conversation with On Star, a constant miles per gallon up date, and a cartographic description of the route by the Tween-ager.

In self-defense, I lapsed into a coma at 8 miles per gallon, four hours and 32 minutes to destination with a slight bend in the road right about....now.

Digging Down...and Up...and Over!

By Jody Worsham

All rights reserved for a MAC

Thousands of years from now, or maybe in a couple of months, archeologists will discover the remains of a seemingly civilized world.  It will be known as the PlasticMesoDigital Age.  Mounds, known as PC Graveyards, will be uncovered revealing thousands of tiny squares with raised metal dots and shallow lines, plastic squares with letters, and broken metal books leaving archeologists to theorize about the society and what caused its demise.

One such theory, supported by many prominent men in this field, is known as the Universal Hacks on Old Humans.  The Uh Oh believe that periodically during the course of four years, either before or after the election of a totally incompetent president, random viruses from cyberspace, created by underage bored genius type children,  would descend on unsuspecting villagers and wreak havoc on their computers.  The most susceptible seemed to be the elderly, known as Boomers.

Generally, these were the ones who had had the same e-mail address for years.  Over time they tended to have the computer remember their passwords but had forgotten the answers to any security questions such as “Where were you when Disney Land opened?”  An attack would send the Boomers to seek children, bribing them with unlimited candy leading thus to sacrificing the healthiest of teeth if they would just open their locked e-mail.  Others would travel hundreds of miles to the nearest Temple of Apple to take a bite of the knowledge of good and evil.  Others would seek the Geeks.

Some believe the Boomers, unable to resolve their computer problems but addicted to their electronic connection to the world, simply bought another metal book, resulting in an economic decline in money available for food, shelter, and clothing for them but an incline in the financial status of computer CEOs.  The smarter Boomers seemed to have invested in metal books with some kind of fruit on the front.  There were fewer of these found in the PC Graveyards leading to the popular believe “An Apple a Decade, Keeps the Virus Away.”

Another heavily supported belief is the Boo-hoo Yahoo Theory.  Evidence has surfaced to support an all-out attack made on Yahoo for taking over Associated Content forcing thousands of writer-wanna-bees off the net and others to switch to G-mail.

Both theories support the belief that the village people, seeking to appease the Hackers, sought a sacrificial virgin to offer up in exchange for ridding their computers of the virus.  Of course this was 2012 and virgins were hard to come by.  Uh Oh!

P.S. My new e-mail is JodyWorsham@gmail.com Draw your own conclusions.

A Chicken Ranch, not THE Chicken Ranch

By Jody Worsham

All rights reserved for therapy

My ten teen is now a tween-ager.  She turned 11.  According to her, “Babies have teeny birthday candles on their cakes.  I want something more grown up.”  So we had sparkler candles on her cake.  I’m just glad there was a fire extinguisher at the ready, a precaution taken after the number of candles required on adult birthday cakes in this house sets off the overhead sprinklers.

 She asked for a special birthday treat, that we all go out to eat.  This is not an unusual request given my inability to cook.  Every special occasion is followed by a request to eat out:  Arbor Day, the Equinox, first day of Spring, summer, fall, winter, Secretary’s Day, National Hot Dog Day, Bring Your Pet to Work Day, National Pickle Day, first day of the month, last day of the month, Pay day, Anniversary of Wal-Mart, Free Willie Day, as well as the regular normal everyday holidays.

She has definitely crossed over into the Tween-ager years of her life as evidenced by her birthday loot:  8 bottles of fingernail polish, 1 bottle of zebra striped nail overlays, nail file, lip gloss, packets of mud facials, skin exfoliate cream, facial moisturizer, skin peeling masks, cell phone (not the flip, track or Wal-Mart kind), subscription to “17 magazine”, and an iPod 2.   Gone are the Barbie Doll days, I guess.

However, the present she was most excited about was becoming the proprietor of her own business.  Dr. Hubby constructed the Donald Trump Condo for Chickens, complete with semi-covered courtyard, modern laying/nesting cubbies, fans, security lights, guarded entrance, and eco-friendly indoor/outdoor space.  He purchased 12 chickens, feed, and a ledger for her to record her expenses and income for IRS purposes.  She will even have her own bank account.

She was even more excited when she learned she would soon be getting 12 eggs a day.  Unfortunately her favorite little chicken, the one she called Sweet Heart, has turned out to be Sweet Boy, the rooster.  Loss of one egg per day.

Today the newest member of the free enterprise system sat all afternoon watching her business, listing potential customers, and figuring ways to cut costs and increase profits.

At this point I am in a quandary.  What do I tell people when they asked “What was your tween-ager’s favorite birthday gift?”  What do I say?  She now runs the Chicken Ranch?”

P. S. If you aren’t from around La Grange, Texas or you missed the Dolly Parton and Burt Reynolds movie, you won’t understand my concern.