Feel Like Complaining

The beginning of 2016 has not been kind as far as losing entertainers, actors and musicians alike. Some were more notable than others, depending on what we watch or listened to through the years. One man I am totally in love with and thankful he is still with us. It will be a great loss for all (In my opinion), when he eventually passes. He's a legend in his field and a part of Americana. He has rallied for farmers and raised over 50 million through the Farm Aid concerts. Many entertainers have either gotten their start or their music from him. I have never really been a country music fan but Willie Nelson doesn't seem hard-fast in that mold. I don't recall having a lot of music in our house growing up, so I'm not really sure where I acquired my love for him. As I got older and was able to frequent our local bar, it was something we always played on the jukebox. When I was 23 and my Dad died unexpectedly, we all gathered at the bar that night with a few of his best ...

My Mom and I had an interesting week last week. Her upper denture had started cracking over the holidays, due to eating peanuts, so she babied it the best she could. It eventually popped in half and I bought super glue and a denture repair kit. Super Glue didn't last long and since she's so shaky, it wasn't quite even. Then she tried the repair kit and it only held a couple of days due to the build-up of glue . Last Monday she started making a few phone calls and found someone who could repair it (we hoped.) Thinking ahead I brought The Kid's Rav 4 because she can get into it easier. She had to fill out all this paperwork for a dentist she will probably never go back to. But with that done, he started cleaning up the denture for repair. He seemed kind of cranky and gave her a bad time for using Super Glue; as if he's never seen anyone do that before. But he did a beautiful job and she's really happy about how they fit. She will now switch to Cashews. On Fr...

Yesterday I went to see My Lady in her new 'home.' Her daughter had sent me a Christmas card and said that her Mom would like to see me. It felt kind of weird going there and I hoped no one would recognize me as 'The Employee That Couldn't Hack It'. But I'm sure so many people come and go, that I wouldn't even register on anyone's mind. I did recognize several people that are still working there, so good for them. Lunch was just finishing up and I could see her sitting at the first table with her back to the door. She recognized me right away and I pulled up a chair so we could chat. I dug through all of my colored pages and found a pretty one with birds on it. I had it laminated and gave it to her as I'm sure she misses her birdwatching. She looked very nice and had just had her hair done. I stayed for an hour and although she was quite repetitive in her stories, it seemed no different than when she was at home. Her son and DIL has been to s...

Finally, after 2 years I have gotten all of my dental work done. This Tuesday I had my 4th crown installed firmly in my head. Add one root canal too and I call it quits, for now anyway. Down the road I am probably looking at two more crowns on my 'fangs' as my family like to call our hereditary lateral incisors. They are cracked in the back and a filling can't repair them. I was really dreading this last visit. It was cracked the worst but causing me no pain at all. I put it off till the end because other problems/pain kept coming up. I didn't want to mess with anything that didn't hurt after the problems I had with 2 other crowns. I am finally to the point where I am not taking pain meds everyday because of them. But my dentist is pushing for another root canal because I still have hot/cold sensitivity. But the way I look at it is; My Teefers, My Rules. I went at the pace I could afford, pain wise and financially. I got there at 12:20 and didn't get hom...

Last week we watched an Independent Lens episode on PBS. They always have interesting subjects. This one in particular we wanted to see because it took place where my husband partly grew up, in Salinas, California. The show was titled East of Salinas and featured a migrant worker family who was filmed over a course of 3 years. One of the children, named Jose, was the only child born in Mexico so his future is uncertain. He has been in 7 schools in those three years as the family has to move a lot to either find work or escape gang violence. One teacher, a son of a migrant worker himself, sees the potential in Jose who excels in math. He does his homework while the rest of the family watches TV. Even when he moved and went to a different school, his teacher finds him and still tries to encourage him in all aspects. Parents work 12 hours a day in the lettuce fields and they want more for their children. But since Jose is undocumented, if he ever gets deported, he will probably not ...