Gaegrand

I gave George a rock tumbler for Christmas and Adam a new set of lenses for his telescope. I gave Emma a future shopping spree.

On Wednesday I went to Nashville and on Thursday, Emma and I, just Emma and I, went shopping at Target.

She talked, talked, talked the whole time in a stream of consciousness mode.

Buckled in the back on the way over, she considered the sunset. "That's pretty where the sun is setting. It looks like you could walk to it. Do you know that if you kept on walking you would just walk around the world because the world is round. It is like a ball. And you would not fall off because of gravity. God fixed it that way. If you went to the moon though, you could not breath because there is no air there. You would have to have a space suit. But it is cold there, so you would have to have long sleeves on underneath the space suit."

"We're in a war now. It's because we are free. We can do whatever we want here. They don 't like that so we are in a war over there against the bad people. They don't want us to be free. They want to come here and rule over us. They can't do that now."

"Daddy wants a big screen TV. Mommy says it is too expensive. She won"t let Daddy get a big screen TV. I don't want a big screen TV. I don't know why Daddy wants one, but he does."

We had a great time. She bought stuffed animals and some clothes, including a pair of dress gloves. She bought the boys toys, too. In the end, she had $2 left so I suggested maybe she would like to buy candy. She said "Candy costs 50 cents each so I can buy four for the $2. I will get two for me and one for George and one for Adam."

Others:

George showed me his money. "I have the the most money of anyone in this family. Actually, I have more money than Adam or Emma but I don't have more money than Mommy or Daddy. I don't even have a credit card."

Adam made a deal with George that he later regretted. He went around the house lamenting "What have I done! What have I done!"

I haven't posted anything lately because not much is happening.

I am lying low since my cataract surgery. Four times a day I have to put three different kinds of eyedrops in my eye, each five minutes apart.

I can see so much better. I am glad I went ahead and had it done. I can now see reasonable well without my glasses. I don't use my glasses when I watch TV.

It hasn't done anything for my close up vision.

I think I melded Henry II and Lady McBeth in my last post, but you get the picture.

I was reading an article this week about long time internet users, yea, even internet pioneers, who were getting off the internet entirely, sick of the spyware, spam, and generally annoyed at the unwanted advertisements on their screens.

I have now found the most annoying thing of all things internet-ly.

I use TVGuide.com a lot since I moved back to Henderson and no longer receive the Jackson Sun. I use it to find interesting programs. Sometimes they are on the Hallmark Network, but at the moment I am so mad at them, I will boycott them.

On the side of the TV grid on TVGuide.com is a black advertisement for a Hallmark program. That's fine. I read it and moved on.

But then the advertisement enlarged, the blackness creeping over, covering part of the grid. I went up the the x in the corner to close the thing, but the x went away and the advertisement contracted. I did not have time to click on the x.

So I go back to reading, but the blob again partly covered the screen, and again I was not quick enough to close it.

Aha, it is a contest, so I wait with my cursor hovering just outside of the upper right hand corner of the accursed thing. Nothing happens. I wait and wait.

So thinking it just does it a couple of times and will now leave me in peace, I go back to reading. Darkness comes again, and again I am too slow.

This goes on and on. I think maybe if I don't cross the blackness when I put the cursor in position, I can catch the x. No, that doesn't work either. It seems to know where the cursor is, and when it has time to lurch with impunity.

No, surely that is paranoia. But I can never outsmart the creeping, annoying, and bedeviling Hallmark black blob.

Like Lady McBeth, I cry out: Who will rid me of this d--- spot!

Emma is selling Girl Scout cookies. I bought 6 boxes, 4 for me and 2 "for the war." The latter two will be sent to soldiers in Iraq.

Mother was in the hospital this week from sunday till Thursday with a urinary tract infection.

Mother and her family have adjusted to these frequent hospitalizations. We are no longer all showing up when she has to go to the emergency room. Deciding that three children are enough, the other two children are notified but don't go to the hospital to sit around in the waiting room of the emergency department. Sunday John and I did not go and next time Janice and James will not go. This will work out very well I think.

We no longer have to have someone at the hospital with Mother at all times. She is more comfortable there, although I wonder if she has ever by herself pushed the button for the nurse to come. Usually Julia goes in the morning, I go in the afternoon, and others go at night. Julia and I take her back to the nursing home.