Stroke

Caroline Richmond is 13 and she had a stroke - a stroke for christ's sake and she is currently on life support. Leukemia is the underlying cause of this stroke.

Caroline's parents are not on the dole. The are hard working self employed people that cannot afford health insurance.

So now what do they do? They have a bake sale, what else.

Why in this country does anyone have to hold a bake sale to pay for medical treatment for their child?

50 million people in America do not have health insurance. 700,000 families declare bankruptcy due to their healthcare costs.

Yes, people in America! Why?

Why doesn't every American citizen have healthcare? Why don't people that have insurance want people that don't have insurance not to be able to get insurance?

I guess I just don't understand politics. I guess I just don't get why we as a country would rather force people into bankruptcy, punish them for getting sick, punish people because their child get sicks, punish them because they can't afford insurance.

So not only might these people lose their homes, their jobs, their businesses but many of them will also lose their children.

Will never get it.

Asian Erdem

I will admit that Diane Kruger looks lovely in this dress. But I must say that yesterday in Sacramento I saw an elderly Asian lady in one very similar. The Asian ladies was black with a red lace overlay and she was pushing a shopping cart, but other than that the similarities were staggering.

Strong when many had forgotten

James Moreland was a Green Beret who went to Vietnam and had been missing for 43 years, nearly twice as long as he was alive. Forty-three years of his family not knowing what happened to him. Fearing the worst. Fearing he would never come home. Fearing, just fearing.

Well about a year ago some of their fears were put to rest, James was coming home. Home to people that still missed him, to people that were no longer alive, to people that were not born when he left and to one complete stranger who had worn his name on her arm for just about 39 years.

In a time when people treated troops coming home from Vietnam with protests and spit one young girl put a bracelet with a strangers name on it on her wrist. When a country turned their backs on these vets a young woman wore a bracelet with a strangers name on it on her wrist. When most of us had forgotten that there were still men missing in southeast Asia a woman wore a bracelet with a strangers name on it on her wrist.

She is Kathy Strong and she never let go of James Moreland. She never forgot his name. She may not have known anything about him. At some point it would have been so easy for her to just take that bracelet off, but she didn't.

She wore it every day. She wore it to work. She wore it on vacation. She wore it to family functions. She wore it when she cried. She wore it when she laughed. She wore it. She wore it. She wore it.

Until finally on May 14, 2011 she was able to take it off and place it on the empty sleeve of James' uniform and have it buried with his remains in a small family cemetery next to his mom and dad in his home state of Alabama.

James had finally come home. Home to those he had left behind. Home to those he had never met. Home to that one stranger that would never meet him, that would only know him thru family photos and stories from those that knew him as a kid, a young man that went to war.

Kathy Strong made sure that James Moreland was not forgotten. Most of us can only hope to be remembered by those that love us for that long, let alone someone that never met us.

Thank you Kathy Strong.

Drunk on the wheel

Pat Sajak did the Wheel of Fortune drunk. Big deal. I think a bigger story would be if he was never drunk doing that show.

There was a time when I worked for a law firm (which shall remain unnamed) and there was a Chili's in the next building where myself and some of my co-workers (who shall also remain unnamed, but you know who you are) would go for lunch. I use the term lunch loosely, because we would actually go for margarita's and chips. We would have a couple or three of whatever the flavor of the month was.

Then there was Harrington's - a real bar - sure they served food there, but in reality people went there to drink and we did. We went there for lunch. We went there after work. And once I went there about 9:30 in the morning - yes, I just said that. A friend was leaving and I suggested going over for a cocktail, cause what are they going to do fire you? I had really planned on having only one quick one. No really only one lemon drop. Well that turned into - oh maybe five? Maybe eight? Who really knows, not me that is for sure.

So I sent a message to my boss that I was sick and had gone home (luckily, he knew where I went and what I was doing and was ok with it this once). Unfortunately, my second shift guy did not come in and I had to go back in at about five and yes, I was still drunk. Not a good thing.

This is one reason I stopped going to Harrington's. The other was when the bartender (Johnny) would greet me with - Hey Margaret, got your stool right here...

These reasons along with a few others is why I had my last cocktail at about 1:45 in the afternoon on July 3rd, 1996. Not that I am counting or anything. And it was a glass of Merlot.

Words with Friends

So, I am playing the game that got Alec Baldwin kicked off a plane and showed he might just be an asshole.

Words with Friends. I am enjoying it, kind of. I have a feeling that my friend (the door dyke) is going to kick my ass.

I think the Words with Friends people sensor the words you can play. I will admit that I tried to play a weird obscure word - it would have given me a lot of points. It had a q in it for Pete's sake.

The word is quim : The noun quim was a Victorian-era word that was used specifically to refer to the fluids produced by the vagina, specifically during orgasm.

I was not allowed to play it, it told me it was not a word or misspelled.

It made me wonder what other words they don't let you use.

I found this facebook page about words not allowed, there are only two entries so maybe there is not some conspiracy.

But if you play WWF try some words and let me know.

I will be real curious to see if semen is allowed cause if it is I think that is just plain out discrimination, once more against us women.

Stick shit

Someone at work told me this story.

A friends daughter was driving home the other night and was stopped at a light.

Three guys run up to her car, one had a gun.

They yell - "get out of the car. Leave your phone and wallet"

So she did the smart thing and got out of the car.

She stood there and heard the car start and the radio go on and then she heard:

"Shit - this is a stick, I can't drive a stick!"

Three guys get out of the car and run away.

The girl drives home.

I think that if you are going to be a car jacker you really should know how to drive a stick.

Just saying.

So long, for now

I visited my friend Linda last night, it turned out to be the last time I would see her on this plane. Linda lost her struggle with Lung cancer this afternoon.

I tend to think that as you get older and you lose more people in your life, that it gets easier.

Well, it does not.

While I accept the fact that we all will die and I don't think that is a bad thing I just don't like losing people I care for.

I told Chief Matron Mare-Son not to cry, Linda was and is loved and she had a life.

I picked this picture because it reminds me of her story of travelling to Tibet. I imagine her as a gypsy wondering the world, little bells on her ankles and wrists and braided into her hair.

This is the picture I will carry with me until we meet again.

Feeling the presence of time

My friend Linda was diagnosed in August with stage 4 lung cancer and is "feeling the presence of time".

This makes me think of all those Dali paintings with the melted clocks. It was his way of showing that we have no control over time. Sometimes it goes so fast and sometimes so slow, yet in reality it is the same number of seconds every day.

We all think we are aware of time. The weekend passed far to quickly. The days drag at work and you wish it was quitting time. Some holiday is here before you are prepared.

I think Ms. Linda has once more said something profound - we all need to feel the presence of time, every day because if we don't it all slips by and sooner than we ever anticipated we are out of it.

Suspect slips out from under

Sooooo

The San Francisco police chase a suspect to Telegraph Hill where the suspect goes over the edge into a cliff area that has a lot of brush and trees.

Soooo

They decide they will not force him out. They are going to be kind, they will wait him out. They get a big light and shine it on the hillside to keep track of the suspect.

Soooo

After 30 hours, who knows how much money, said suspect is gone. He seems to have slipped out somehow. Where did he go?

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