Friday, September 30, 2005
Want to see our puppy??
Money can buy you a fine dog, but only love can make him wag his tail. Kinky Friedman
Thought that since I have written about poor Cami and her bad knees it would be nice to put up a picture of her.
(Thanks to SEB for helping out with this accomplishment!!!)
Now isn’t that just the cutest face you ever saw?????
Thanks to our college girl for the picture!!
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
So, you want to talk like a Long Islander………..
Quote for the day: The language you about to hear ............. is disturbing. Dave Chappelle
For those of you who know the most about me, you know I am not from NY or to be exact Long Island.
I grew up in the Great Lakes region aka Michigan and have only lived on Long Island for a little over 5 years. Before I moved here I had to suffer through various comments from individuals that I met here who commented on my ‘accent’ (do NOT get me started on that topic) and how I pronounced words. It only got worse after I moved here and met more people; especially the truly annoying ones who would crow, “Oh, you aren’t from around here. I can tell by your accent.”
Well boys and girls let me tell you - at least I know how to speak properly and use correct grammar when speaking; unlike most of the people that I have met here who really need to go back to speech class - preferably in a different state.
Most people that I have met here have the very annoying habit of putting an ‘er’ sound the end of a word that should be ended with an ‘ah’ sound or totally leaving the ‘H’ pronunciation off of the front of a word.
Examples: Pizza Columbia Soda Huge
Pronounced: Pizzah Columbiah Sodah Huge
LI pronunciation: Pee-zer Columbe-er So-der You-ge
Even watching the TV news tonight I was catching grammatical errors and hubby was saying “I know, I know. They don’t know how to talk” Really you can’t use a verb meant for singular usage in place of one meant for plural usage. i.e. Don’t use was when you should use were.
Now these errors are not only made by people who have a H.S. education or less, they are routinely made by people who have a minimum of a four year degree and by people whose job it is to be a public speaker or worse yet to teach others. So, color me astounded but I find this constant abuse of language very irritating; especially when made by people who go out of their way to correct how I pronounce things. (Aside to all of them - I routinely consult no less than 3 dictionaries on how things are pronounced)
So, if you want to sound like you come from Long Island just follow the examples above and you will be on your way.
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Our Poor Puppy
Today I have to write about one of our pups - Cami. Another day I will give you all the background on how we got our ‘rescued’ pup - we actually felt like we rescued her from the ‘rescue’ lady.............
Over the summer we noticed from time to time that Cami would be favoring her one back leg and running on three; or running and then hopping when her one back leg would touch the ground. When we were in Michigan we took her to a vet there because she was limping so badly we thought that perhaps she had injured herself jumping out of our big van.
The vet took x-rays and gave us some pills for her and said that it looked like it could be sprained as nothing seemed to be out of place. The limping has continued on and off and lately it has started to be more of a day to day happening so we knew that something was still wrong with her. Another trip to the vet yesterday and some more testing and now we know what is wrong with her leg.
Cami has a heriditary condition in both knees in her hind legs that if left untreated will cause her to have problems with her hips and cripple her for the rest of her life. She is much to young to have this type of problem, from our point of view, as she is barely a year old. This has made all of us upset and especially hubby as he is out on disability and right now we can’t afford the cost of the surgery - a whopping $2000 est. per leg. The vet has said the longer that this goes the harder it will be for her and the more damage to her hips.
I was going to post her picture so that you could see her sweet face but for some reason have been unable to upload the picture - rats!! She is such a sweetie that we want to share her sweet face with everyone. (When I am able to upload the picture you will see our cute puppy)
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Sunshine on the water looks so lovely…………….
Hey Folks!!
Had a great day today - sat in a park by the Great South Bay; which is between Long Island and Fire Island. The weather was beautiful, warm, breezy and full of sun. My friend suggested that we do a picnic lunch today (rare treat) and showed me how to get to this little park a few miles from our houses. It was just beautiful with the trees offering shade while we ate our lunch and after, a bench in the sun where we could sit and watch the waves and the ferries that go over to Fire Island.
There was just enough of a breeze to turn the waves into small white caps that rolled up to the shore.
The sea gulls were out in full force, screaming and wheeling up in the sky. Real little kids were running along the water’s edge and laughing as the foam would hit their toes. There were several people in bathing suits lying on towels or on beach chairs catching the last rays of the summer’s sun. And then there was us sitting on our bench chatting away, feeling the breeze on our faces and the warmth of the sun on our arms.
All too soon it was time to head toward home and leave the last day of summer behind.
Monday, September 19, 2005
To face or not to face??
I apologize for not writing for a few days, but I allowed life to just simply get in the way.
Today’s quote “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” has a whole lot to do with what is going on in the world and our own lives.
When you have family members that are distant and are that way because of things that happened in the past then you can’t move past that until it is faced. Once it is faced than it can be changed - or it can be left the way it is.
The same can be said of what transpired in New Orleans before and after Katrina hit. The government - and that includes all of them from the local ones on up to the federal government must face what has happened and then work on a plan to make sure that, the type of behavior/lack of response and use of martial force must never, ever happen again on American soil. (I still can’t believe that they were raising guns at civilians.)
It has been a waste of time and energy for all the finger pointing that has been going on. Thank God that at least President Bush at last had the common decency to apologize to these people and take responsiblity for what happened and by laying out a plan (of sorts) to get New Orleans up and running. By facing up to the problem he is now able to move forward to make changes.
It is my suggestion, dear reader, that whatever you are facing or trying not to (yes, we all do that) take the time to face it. Face it, change it and get on with the rest of your life.
Friday, September 16, 2005
Remove U.N. from the U.S.
First, a note about today’s quote - many of you may have received the quote in an email attributing it to Robin Williams; sorry, no. According to http://www.snopes.com Robin Williams did not say that - go there and type Robin Williams in the search bar and read the full explanation.
Imagine my surprise this morning while sitting in a waiting room watching TV while the truck was being fixed and hearing on the news that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez stated that since the U.S. did not respect the world body (the U.N.) that the U.N. should be headquatered in another country that has more regard for the organization.
After I was done being surprised I said, “Yeah. Move it to another country!!” People in the waiting room of course thought that I was nuts. But think about it realistically; people from other countries who come to work in the U.N. have ‘diplomatic immunity’ which means basically that they can come here commit crimes and then leave the country because they have that ‘special’ privilege. How many other countries are going to put with that?
Now how many spies and other criminals come here to supposedly work for the U.N. that get to travel about our country unchecked (diplomatic status)?? How many other countries would let that happen?
Of the 191 member States of the U.N. the U.S. leads the top ten in it’s capacity to pay money toward operating costs, etc associated with the U.N. We pay 22% of the budget there (based on data from 2002 - all I could find on the internet).
So hey, we can stay a part of the U.N. - just move it to another country. Why should we have it here choking up our land and adding to our pollution with all the cars of all the diplomats?? I think that we should move it to Venezuela since they want it moved; let them deal with all the diplomats.
Sunday, September 11, 2005
We will never forget!!
By the time you read this it will be Sept. 12th - sorry, I was too busy remembering the heroes who died on Sept. 11, 2001 to actually sit here and type till the day was past.
Living out on Long Island, I am less than 60 miles from NYC and ‘Ground Zero’ and I can remember every detail about that day. I can remember the first radio broadcasts about the first plane hitting the Trade Center (we were in the doc’s waiting room) and watching emergency vehicles race down the L.I.E. (Long Island Expressway) towards the city as we made our way towards home.
Driving into our driveway my thoughts were about my neighbor who works in the city, not far from the Trade Center, and wondering if he was ok. (He was fine actually and had to walk out of the city with his brother - who only the day before had been repairing elevators in WTC 1). It was then that I asked hubby if we should go to the schools to get the kids; we decided against that thinking that the schools would try to keep the day ‘normal’ for the kids and then send them home. (Their day was far from ‘normal’ as all classroom TVs were tuned to the horror in the city and they watched as certain classmates were called from class by relatives since mom and/or dad worked in the towers or were firemen or other rescue personnel.)
Yes, we lost many innocent people that day in a horror that those of us, who weren’t there first hand, could only try to feel by watching the images on TV. All day long we watched the TV and thought back to the day less than 3 weeks before when we rode the subway under the Trade Center and hubby asking our guests (my niece & her friend) if they wanted to go up to the observation deck before heading out to the Statue of Liberty. “No”, we all chorused, “we’ll do that the next trip.” ; not knowing that we would never get the chance again.
Later on when the lists of the known dead and missing began to be published in the paper hubby would scan the names, as he knew people who worked in one tower or the other. He did find out about one of his friends that perished that day; the husband of his former boss, one who he proudly called friend. We went to the memorial service for Ronald Hoerner; it was very, very moving and sad.
Now it has been four years and people here haven’t forgotten nor will many of us forget. We won’t forget where we were that day, what we were doing when it happened nor will we ever forget the people we lost that day or the brave ones that helped to save so many while endangering or even ending their own lives. They give true meaning to the word Hero!