I had a great birthday

The guys at work got me a cake, lunch a card and a gift certificate for the movies.


John took me to Buca's for dinner and then he bought me an iPod. Got a pair of antique spurs in the mail from Monica. My boys called me and no one wanted to borrow money.

Went to knit night and then had dinner with Sandy and Terry at Mimi's and we had an Angelyne sighting. She parked her her pink Corvette in the handicap parking. That's just bad manners.

Then today Terry, Sandy and I went to knit a Palermo's where I had two coffee's with extra shots of espresso (can you tell?) and I received more presents. Sandy got me the book Runelore, Tarot Cards with the Runes on them and a really cool rock with quartz in it and I got to spend the day with my knitster sisters. Sandy also gave me this beautiful bottle from Art Illusion Gallery here in Camarillo





















Forty-seven isn't so bad after all.

Joseph

Here's a picture of my hell-raising-middle-child Joseph. You can tell he's the middle child as he is covered in scars. He's giving me the thumbs up on a scarf I made him for Christmas.

Joseph was here last week visiting from Texas.

See Roni, I told you they love anything their mama makes.

My Cabled Sweater

Okay, so here I am three weeks of knitting and I'm just now getting to the point were I decrease for the arm holes. Will it fit me by the time I'm finished, I wonder.

Oh, but I do love the color and the texture of the cables.

And if all else fails Hank the Wonder dog would love a new cape.

Conversations with Mother

This morning Mother discussed with me (over the phone) free floating fetal cells that flow within the mother’s blood stream and how a women can have a simple blood test to determine the sex of your child since within the fetal cells is the fetuses DNA. Is this new? I asked. Well they known this for years, mother scolded, and reminded me of Rh Factors, and blood test before marriage and I forgot what else because I think I was petting the cat. Jeez, it wasn’t even noon yet.

Her point is, is that women don’t need to have these expensive tests that are painful, invasive and can cause damage to an unborn child. But the majority of doctors are men. Need I say more? Boy, she went on a rant for a good ten minutes.

She also informed me that in rare cases the have found fetal cells in the skin lesions of women who suffer from something called scleroderma, which I have never heard of either. So, I had to Google it thanks to mother. Sounds like something my kids would do, though.

Fetal cells have their advantages, too. The fetal cells store in the mother’s spleen and serve as a reserve of stem cells that can rush in and repair a mother’s organs, when need be.

So the bond between mother and child is even greater than I had ever imagined. And I owe it all to mother.

I just hope my cells kick in when she needs them.

For my boss who hates political bloggers

Like many Arabs, Muhammad believed in al-Lah, which meant “the God” and this diety was identical to the God worshipped by the Jews and the Christians. The Arabs were often taunted by Jews and Christians for being barbarians as the Arabs had never had a revelation from God. (See Jews and Christians CAN agree on some things).

The Palestinian Christians practiced what they believed was the religion of Abraham before he went into the tent and became a Jew. Now this religion would technically be older than Judaism and Christianity, but we have no record that Abraham had a religious belief system before Judaism. If you want to be like Abraham, I say practice Judaism. If you want to be like Christ, practice Judaism. but I digress.

The Arabs had numerous pagan gods that they worshipped, but unike other cultures they hadn't worked out the details such as the relevance of these god. They didn't believe in an afterlife, but believed in Fate. To ensure the survival of the tribe, they would share the wealth equally. If a member of your tribe was killed there was no duty to kill the killer, just kill any memeber of the killers tribe as, again, all were equal. Not exactly an eye-for-an-eye, more like a Mob hit.

Around the year 610, an Arabic man named Zayd prayed,"O god, if I knew how you wish to be worshipped I would worship you: but I do not know.” His prayers were answered when Muhammad (a merchant from Venice, just kidding that was Shakespeare, he was acutally a merchant from Mecca) claimed that he was awakened one night by an angel who commended him to “recite” Mohammad refused several times until Muhammad found the following words flowing from his lips”


Recite in the name of thy Sustainer, who has created - created man out of a germ cell Recite…..

The Arabs had finally had a revelation from God and the rest is history.

So, I say, Islam is the new kid on the block of the big three. I win!! You have to buy me sushi.

Conversations with Mother

Mother has me on a mission. I am to find out if a last name would (statistically) last longer if children were given their mothers' last name instead of their fathers'. She has four daughters and one son. Her father had daughters, etc. How I am to accomplish this I have no idea. But it makes no sense to her why we get our fathers name when we ony know for sure who are mother is.

She reminded me today (again) that I am to take her to the eye doctor ON APRIL 13TH. She has also requested a copy of Roosevelt’s “Day of Infamy” speech. She thinks George has lifted something from the Roosevelt speech. Who sits and thinks up this shit? My mother, that’s who. And religion needs to be abolished, she has informed me, if we are ever to have peace in this world. It used to be, “We won’t have peace until the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.” Now she’s changed her mind. Just like cremation! First, she wanted a casket and a traditional plot. Then she wanted to be cremated and encapsulated like Carl Sagan. And now she’s pondering cremation and then being scattered at sea. And she’s afraid of water, but she read somewhere about a scientist and genomics on the Sargasso Sea.

Okay, I found the article, but I still have no idea what it means or why it has her all cranked up. Oh, and speaking of crank, don't get her going on the neighbors who are apparently "tweeking" again and moving furniture at all hours of the night. They're not doing so hot , but thankfully she is still evolving.

I use to get annoyed when she would ask me to do these things for her. It was like homework, but now I see she is still teaching me. At 78 she still wants to know stuff just for the sake of knowing. And she has such discipline. She won't eat breakfast until she does the Times crossword puzzle. Have you seen that thing on a Friday? Her only fears are midgets and antiques.

I want to be just like her when I grow up.

For Jessica

Here is what Christina was talking about A thanksgiving Story as told by William Shatner.

Enjoy or be appalled, it's all a matter of perspection

My Boss is in the News

This is very exciting my boss was interviewed and you can read it here.

He's the third one down titled "Starving the Disease". I'm so excited for him.

Nothing New to Report

I went to post as it's been so long since I last had anything to report and I had to take a tour on the new blogger system. Nothing stays the same which annoys me sometimes.

Have had a good weekend so far. Went to see an Art Exhibit in Ventura. The Red Brick Gallery which features David Rivas a co-worker of mine. Vicky is in town from Texas and I was struck with the conundrum "what do you do with an out-of-town visitor who lived here for 20 years?" So, we had dinner at Landmark 78, walked over to Main Street and looked at art. Then had coffee at Palermo's and I had to keep dragging John out of the street as he couldn't get over the Full Moon which is the Lenten moon this month and is considered the last full moon of winter. So, hurray for that. We window shopped and showed her the Erle Stanley Gardner Building which was the birthplace of Perry Mason. She had never seen any of these places so it was very cool to be tour guides.

I just finished reading "Lover of Unreason" a fascinating story and have just started "American Shaolin" I'll keep you posted on that one.

My back pain is starting up again so I'm taking a different route this time. I've ordered herbs and vitamins to try and help with the inflammation as the epidurals are not helping and only mask the pain which has the potential for me to further harm myself. I am also going to look into alternatives such as chiroporactors, accupuncture, reiki , etc.

Tomorrow I am going to attempt to teach my stepson's roommate how to knit and then clean up the yarn room in preparation for Heathers' yarn swap next weekend.

The weekend is not even over yet and I'm already planning for the next one.