So, we're being pretty quiet and cautious here about what has happened over the past four years and I fear that we have become a bit complacent, always assuming someone else is going to DO SOMETHING.  I have always believed opposing sides are capable of expressing their beliefs WITHOUT anger towards others' opinions.  However these past five years have proven me wrong. There has been NO attempt on the part of our elected officials to bring our country together.  Apparently some Americans are incapable of discussing without d...

KIND GESTURES 5. (creating a way) I wish to tell you, if I may, of my walk beside a waterway. This is my walk by winding stream where I relax and dare to dream.  This walk for me is regular, because it is spectacular&n...

IN MY LATE seventies, I didn’t need to come across this article. As reported in THE WEEK magazine, research regarding the effect of aerobic activity on age-related brain deterioration indicated that after people hit forty years of age, their brains commence to shrink by about five percent every ten years. Even though I was an English major, I can do that math, and it is unnerving. Some scientists set out to study the impact of exercise on the hippocampus, that area of one’s brain where memories are created and stored. What they...

WEDNESDAY MORNING I INTENDED to enter my post at my usual early morning time, only to discover that my computer appeared to have silently died in its sleep during the preceding night. All that came on the screen when I turned it on was a bunch of monochromatic vertical lines. Nothing I could think to do would change that. So I took the damn thing to a local computer repair place. I had to leave it for a day. After I got over the aggravation of the catastrophe, I realized that it was maybe a blessing in disguise. I got a lot of reading done...

hey Bob I see you have a new hat I like it and that looks like a nice coat for keeping warm taking care of the aminals, Best wishes and stay safe

Howdy folks,   Ok, so this virus crap isn't going away anytime soon, so it looks like masks will continue to be required fashion thru the hottest part of summer.  Has anyone found a really good mask?  I don't mean good enough......they're all that.....I mean one that you actually don't mind wearing.  I've tried a number of types and still haven't found any one to standout.  So I'm hoping one of you guys has stumbled onto, or made, something that does the job and isn't a total nuisance to wear.  If you have......

TODAY I LOST A STOMA PLUG. For many years I’ve felt quite smug, to wear a simple stoma plug, and skip the inconvenience  of the stoma-bag experience.  Perhaps, for some, I should explain, that I found bags c...

It has recently come to my attention, on this very website, that some of you – people that I previously assumed were reasonable, serious people – have actually assigned human names to your stomas. Really?? You have named your stoma?? I’ve had this ileostomy since effin 1964, and it has never occurred to me to do such a thing. I must say, with all due respect, that I find this to be perhaps the grossest, most flagrant act of anthropomorphistic nonsense ever. I’m assuming that these are the same ones of you that, upon...

1st April 2021 - BREAKING: From today, Australia will be referred to as ‘Up Top’ instead of ‘Down Under’ due to a switch of the Earth’s north and south poles at the end of the 500-year *Sloof Lirpa cycle. Discovered by Norwegian astrophysicist Sloof Rupert Lirpa in 1850, this happens once every 500 years and causes the poles to switch and puts the southern hemisphere on top. Full story at:  https://weatherzone.app.link/TxueSV tf5eb Satellite image from RAMMB/CIRA *and Sloof Lirpa backwards is?! ...

I offer you this vision since uploading a photo was just too much. I shake my head and wonder what is happening to my southern neighbor in these tough times ... and now this.  Which bothers you more - Colin Kaepernick kneeling at an NFL game or the cop kneeling on George Floyd?  I am lost for words - which may be a good thing. I know one thing for sure; I would be a protester. Just saying ...  Karen  

People often ask “where were you when…?” The “when” is typically a disastrous event. During the early part of my five months in the hospital which terminated with my ileostomy surgery, nurses kept piling into my room, not to attend to my personal strife, but because of something on the TV. I was aware that I was hospitalized, but not alert to much else, so out of it that I had no idea what was going on. It was November 22, 1963. My personal pain and diminished capacity prevented me from realizing that JFK had...

Hi Gang,   With all the discussions COVID is producing...........such as do masks work (current day Europe would indicate they do not)......who came up with 6' as the correct spacing for social distancing.......so 5'11" is unsafe....but 6' is fine???  Have you seen those ridiculous face shields they're selling that are open on all sides???  If you smoke....inhale and put your mask on in front of a mirror.  Then exhale.  If you see any smoke you just proved wearing a mask is pointless.  But that's just one dis...

W. C. FIELDS WAS EXPRESSING an aversion for innocence when he said: “Anyone who hates children and animals can’t be all bad.” Fields unwittingly was touching upon the very reason that I like animals better than people: their inherent innocence. The company of a good dog or cat, in my experience, grows into a bond that is simply absent with most humans. Even watching a movie, one becomes inured to the violence between humans, of which there is often way too much, but don’t let anything happen to the dog!Because I gre...

THE FIRST HOUSE that I ever owned was on a one-block long dead-end street. It was, in fact, the last house on the right. With small children and cats, it was the perfect spot for us. The only traffic on the street was the people who lived there and, being at the very end, we didn’t even get that. I suppose, had we been in a more upscale neighborhood, it would have been called a cul-de-sac. Had it been a less classy neighborhood, perhaps the sign would have said No Exit. Me and the guy across the street eventually suffered contemporan...

KIND GESTURES 7. (keeping going) I’d like now to compile a rhymeto capture this moment in time,when most of us are in lockdownand ‘normal’ things are upside down. I’d like to pay a tribute tothose folks who work to help...

Hello. I'm New to all this. Still working out the forums. I've seen people giving so much advice and I'm reading so many blogs. I have a colostomy bag, permanent new addition to my body. Five weeks and counting. I'm not entirely sure how I'm feeling about it yet cause I'm on my 5th cycle of chemo and my emotions are pretty crappy anyway. ( no pun intended) ... to long a story to share so in short, have bowel cancer, tumour very large, had chemo to shrink tumour before surgery. Surgery success, cancer gone, clean up chemo, 3 cycles left to...

KIND GESTURES 8. (the cleaner) I wish to tell this tale in rhyme,so it may last beyond my time,illuminating a kindnessthat help me out when in a mess. I suffered with incontinence,which meant that personal effluencewas not that easy to control...