Remember the movie "Fried Green Tomatoes"? Kathy Bates played "Evelyn Couch, a middle-aged woman who found her inner strength after meeting Jessica Tandy (Ninny Threadgood).

Well today I know how "Evelyn Couch" felt in one of the scenes of the movie.Ben and I had to go over to Sam's Club to pick up a few things. It was raining. When we got there, we came upon a guy getting into his car to leave and he was in the first spot in the parking lot, right across from the front door of the store. What luck! I sat and waited for him to pull out, when from out of nowhere, here comes some woman who looked to be in her 30's.  She looks over at me, seeing that I'm waiting for this parking space, but does that stop her? NO! Once the guy had cleared the space, she pulled right into it while I was waiting for the guy to get out of my way. BITCH! I say out loud. She knew I was going to park there, but she took the space anyway.I immediately thought of how "Evelyn" had this happen to her when those young girls in the Volkswagon Bug did the samething to her at the grocery store. I remember how she slammed her car into that Volkswagon in revenge.I had to settle for pulling up along side the young woman, honking my horn at her and flipping her the bird. Alas!

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Well my doctor sent me an email about my lipid panel numbers. He didn't seem very "impressed" by the fact that the "bad" stuff was down and my "good" cholesterol was up. He just said "your numbers are still very high". He told me to try slow release niacin, even though in his office I had told him that I had tried that and it caused the muscle pain and fatigue. He even suggested I try Red Yeast Rice KNOWING that I cannot tolerate statins and that Red Yeast Rice has statins in it. He even told me the Red Yeast Rice "might" cause muscle pain. (DUH). Anyway, I wrote him back and told him that I had already tried both of those throughout my 6 years of struggle with my cholesterol numbers and that I will NOT try them again. I told him that I was quite pleased with my numbers going down as much as the did. I told him I will continue to exercise and watch my diet, although I told him I will "indulge" myself now and then. I did mention to him that I started taking the Bayer Heart Health Advantage and the Mega-Red Krill Oil about 3 months ago (right after I first saw him) and that I think they helped to lower the numbers. I guess doctors are never satisfiel. Now I'll just wait and see if he emails back.

You can see my results from by blog here a few days ago.

Kay

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Those of you who read my blog back in October 2009, know I blogged about my high cholesterol. I was diagnosed with it back in March of 2006 and mine is a genetic problem. I cannot take statins because they cause me to have muscle pain and weakness. Several of you asked that I keep you posted on my next bloodwork.

Back in October, I went to a new doctor and he did a complete bloodwork on me. At that time my cholesterol and triglycerides were the highest they've ever been, but I had not really been watching what I ate. Although even when I do watch what I eat, my cholesterol and triglycerides are still high because I inherited this medical problem from my mother. When she was alive her doctor used to tell her that she could eat absolute nothing and still have high cholesterol and triglycerides. That's because our liver produces more cholesterol and triglycerides than our bodies need. She took statins, but I think they were the cause of her death because she died of congestive heart failure and statins can cause heart failure if you do not take COQ10 when taking statins. Doctors do not tell you that.

Anyway, this morning I went back per my doctor and had my lipid panel bloodwork redone. For three months, I've watched a little better what I've been eating, plus I've been taking Bayer Heart Health Advantage, Phillips Colon Health and Mega-Red Krill Oil. My levels are still high, but not as high as they were three months ago.

3 months ago:

Total Cholesterol = 326

Today:

Total Cholesterol = 293 (Down 33 points)

3 months ago:

Total Triglycerides = 326

Today:

Total Triglycerides = 213 (Down 113 points)

3 months ago:

Total HDL (Good) = 47

Today:

Total HDL (Good) = 50 (Up 3 points)

3 months ago:

Total LDL (Bad) = 214

Today:

Total LDL (Bad) = 200 (Down 14 points)

I know my numbers are still high, but I'm pleased that they came down some. I think it may be those three extra supplements I'm taking. Hopefully, my numbers will continue to come down.

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They sure don't make home telephones the way they used too. I remember when I was a kid, we had a big, black, heavy phone that had a dial on its face....no push buttons. It was hard-wired to the wall, not plugged in. The receiver was so heavy, you could use it for a weight. You could have run over that phone with an 18-wheeler and it would not break and it would still be working after the fact.

Today, they make phones out of cheap plastic. If you drop it a foot or two from a table or desk, it shatters in a million pieces and needs to be tossed in the trash.

We have cell phones, but we still have not been able to make ourselves give up our home phone like many of our friends have done. We actually have four phones in the house. They all have a base that is plugged into the wall. Two of them are "cordless" and two of them are "corded". We always like to have at least one "corded" phone because in power outages, the "cordless" phones stop working. One of the "corded" phones is on our fax machine, the other is just a phone.

We had a "cordless" phone in the kitchen that had an answering machine on it. It worked great for about 10 years and then the digital voice on the answering machine started to get "garbly" to where you could not understand the messages that people left, so we decided to get a new phone.

Have you gone shopping for phones lately? It's very difficult to find a phone that has only one receiver (or handset as they now call them) these days. Most of them have at least two and some have up to six and you can just keep adding as many as you want or need.

Anyway, we bought a V-Tech brand wireless phone with two "handsets" and it had a base with an answering machine in it.

I had a hell of a time trying to figure out how to set-up the answering machine, but I finally did. Everything worked fine for about 27 or 28 days and then the answering machine just stopped working. When people left messages, the messages were not there. My brother would call and say, "How come you didn't call me back? I left you a message two hours ago." But the phone showed no messages.

I tried and tried to get the answering machine work by calling my home phone with my cell phone, but to no avail.

We saw that we could return the phone to Best Buy before 30 days and since it had only been 27 or 28 days, we packed everything back into the box, which is a struggle in itself, and returned the phone to the store. We told them we wanted to upgrade to another phone because we figured since this one only cost $45 that maybe one that cost $69 would be better.

We left the store with a Uniden "cordless" with two "handsets".

This phone set looked and worked pretty much the same as the V-Tech brand, but the phone that we had used for 10 years in the kitchen had been a Uniden, so we assumed that this was the best one to go with.

After about a month and a half, we started noticing a "hum" on the handsets of the Uniden phone. We thought it was our wiring, but noticed that the "corded" phones did not have the hum. But by now, we were past the 30 days for the return/refund of the phone to Best Buy.

We decided to head over to Office Max and buy just a plain, ordinary "corded" telephone with an answering machine inside of it. We found an AT&T phone for $29. Inexpensive and simple. This one actually ended up being more complicated. I don't know how many times I read through the manual to try to figure out how to set-up the answering machine with my "outgoing message" and "contact numbers".

The phone was working great, taking messages and no hum. After 34 days, the phone started making a beeping sound. On the "screen" it kept saying there was a message, even though I could not find one anywhere and when I would unplug the phone, the screen kept saying "line in use" which I thought strange since it was not connected to the phone line. The beeping would go on for about five minutes and then stop, then start up again maybe 20 or 30 minutes later. We tried everything to get it to stop beeping, but nothing worked. We unplugged it from the power cord, moved it to other rooms in the house, but it kept beeping.

I checked my receipt from Office Max, but of course, we had it 34 days and they only take returns up to 30 days after the purchase.

So now we are back using the Uniden with the "hum" on the line. Wish I could find a phone like we had when I was a kid.

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Tomorrow (Jan. 17) I turn 60.

What does this mean?

It’s “just a number”, right?

But when I was 18, it would have meant that I’m OLD!

Now, it doesn’t really seem all that “old” except when I think that “if I’m lucky”, I only have about 25 to 30 more years of life. Maybe 40 years IF I’m “really” lucky. Hell, I worked at Lockheed almost THAT long. Over half my life ”wasted“ working at Lockheed. Oh well, it did give us the means to have a comfortable life, so I guess I don’t regret that. AND I met a lot of nice people who are still very good friends of mine, so I guess those years were not really wasted. Where did all those years go?

My hair is totally gray. I always had dark brown hair when I was young and I always wanted to know what it would be like to have a lighter color of hair. Well, now I know. It gets me discounts at fast food places, the zoo, and several other events. So I actually like it!

My mind still thinks “young”, but my body won’t let me do what I tell it to anymore. What’s with that?

I’ve seen a lot of history in my almost 60 years.

A president assassinated. Man walking on the moon. Television going from “black and white” to “color”. A war that America could not win (and maybe a second one). A president resign from office. Medical miracles like organ transplants and even artificial organs. The invention of the home computer. Being able to communicate with people all around the world in seconds instead of hours or days. Telephones that fit in your pocket and no longer have to be connected by a cord to the wall. Our homeland attacked. A woman running for president. And a black man actually becoming president! Now that’s something that NEVER would have happened in the 1950’s. But hopefully today, a person’s color doesn’t “offend” people like it did back then.

My grandmother (my mom’s mom) never even got to see 60. She died at age 57. I never got to meet her. She died exactly one month before I was born. She’s been gone for 60 years now.

When I grew up, moms didn’t work. They stayed home and took care of the kids and the house. THAT was their job. I don’t think I knew one kid back then whose parents were divorced.

Children respected and obeyed their parents, their teachers, the police and any other adult. I miss that.

I’m not really afraid of dying. I’m afraid of having cancer, or a heart attack, or a stroke, or Alzheimer’s. I’m afraid that it might hurt before I die, but I’m not afraid to die.

What I’m really afraid of is being alone. Ben and I never had children. That was our choice. I’m selfish in hoping that I die first so I won’t lose Ben and be alone. But, neither of us knows who will die first. That’s not up to us.

I try to be with my brothers as much as possible because none of us ever knows how long we’ll be here. Ron is 67 now and Keith is 54. My dad died at age 67. He was still very young when he died.

So what is 60?

60 is 10 more than 50.

60 is the natural number following 59 and preceding 61.

60 means that 60% of my life has passed, assuming I live to be 100.

Hell, I’ve survived this long and I’m still going strong (well sort of :D). I may as well broadcast it to the world.

I’M 60!

So here’s to ME and to however many more years God has for me on this earth.

Now my main question is….

How can I be turning sixty tomorrow when it seems like I was just 18 yesterday? Go figure.

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Today we went over to the Kaiser Medical Center over in Panorama City, CA.

We got there early because we were not really sure where we were going, but it turned out there wasn't much traffic and we found the place with no problem.

Anyway, they took some photos of the back of his eye with some kind of camera that can see through your eyelid. Strange.

It only took about 2 or 3 minutes to take the photos. We sat in the waiting room longer than that.

When we got back home, the doctor's office called and said that the doctor had looked at the photos and wants Ben to come back on Friday to have veggie oil injected into his veins and that they are going to take more photos of the inside of his eye.

I had this procedure done about 5 or 6 years ago when I had a vein break in the back of my eye. This is how they can tell if the vein is still leaking blood or if it has started to heal. It doesn't hurt, but it is annoying because of the bright light they shine in you eye.

They say that some people throw up from the veggie oil, but it didn't bother me when I had it done.

Kay

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...and it continues tomorrow.

Kay

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Went for an early morning walk in the cold weather this morning. It was 35 degrees when I stepped outside the door. I decided to walk around inside our gated community to see what kind of Christmas decorations people had put up. Here in SoCal, people love to decorate the outsides of their homes and they love to put decorations in their front yards. Usually, the weekend after Thanksgiving, just about everyone is outside putting up their decorations, and most years, just about every house here (400 strong) has some kind of yard decorations or lights on their homes.

Well, I guess this year the economy has hit everyone. I saw only about 50 homes or so that had any kind of decorations and a lot of them just had a wreath on their front door.

I'll admit that there are a lot of empty homes in our community now due to the fact that people could not keep up with their mortgages and had to walk away from their homes.

It's just plain sad.

It was pretty cold out there as I was walking. When I was on one of the "upper" streets, I looked down toward the riverbed and noticed that all of the houses had ice on their roofs.

When I finally got back to my street and started walking up the hill towards my house, I noticed that there was a huge bird in the neighbor's birdbath. About 4-doors down from us, they have a nice bird area in their front yard....a birdbath, several bird feeders, including hummer feeders, and a lot of plants that attract the birds. I noticed this huge bird just sitting in the middle of the birdbath. As I got closer, I realized it was a red-tailed hawk. I tried to get a picture of it, but it flew off before I could get close enough.

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I accomplished everything I had planned to do today except for one thing.

I cleaned the house this morning, then went over to WalMart. They sure have a lot of Christmas decorations over there and they were putting more stuff out on the shelves while I was there.

Came home and had my lunch and watched my soap (Young & Restless). After lunch, I put some Christmas lights up on the outside of the house. This year, I only put them around our front door. Last year I had them around the front door, all across the porch, across the front of the house and the front of the garage. It's just too much for my anymore to climb up and down the ladder to hang so many lights, so I decided to "downsize" this year. I did put a small fiberoptic tree on the front porch too.

I'll put up the tree and decorate the inside of the house next Monday.

The one thing I didn't get done was stuffing my Christmas cards and letters into envelopes, getting them addressed and ready to mail. I make my own cards and I buy "greeting card envelopes" over at OfficeMax. Well, I thought I had more envelopes, but found out I only had about 5 of them left from last year, so I have to go buy some before I can get the cards and letters ready to go.

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