Where To, Bud?

I've never really had one and this was a doozie, folks. Right down to the rapid breathing, rapid heart beat which I could feel as a flutter, and sweating. It happened while I was fixing my daily meds for the next week. Some of them sound alike to me and some are almost the same shape and color. For example, "Metaprolol" and "Meloxicam", "Lamatrogine" "Losartan" and "Lovastatin". I had several partial bottles of the above meds, and wanted to combine them and then it happened. I put the Losartan into the partiall full Lovastatin bottle. Luckily just to make sure everything was cool, I checked all the bottles I had combined with the description of each pill, and couldn't find the Losartan. That's my blood pressure pill and I never miss a day. And there I went. Checked, double checked, triple checked. Nothing. I'll spare you the swearing, but believe me, it was there, as was the throwing of the empty bottles against ...

After World War II in 1959, the Russians built a wall separating East from West Berlin. Both my grandparents were born and lived in an East German town called Zeitz and they had 11 children, only 2 still alive, my uncles Bernd and Jürgen (pronounced "Yer-gen"). My grandfather fought for the German army - the "Wehrmacht"*. He wasn't a Nazi, just a common soldier who never took the Hitler oath of loyalty - and when the war was over he was on the west side, and she on the Communist-occupied eastern side. He decided that being a normal German living in a democracy was better than being a Communist and got ready to have her and the kids brought over. But fate intervened. First of all, she and the kids were now under the rule of the Russian Communists and travel anywhere to the west became pretty much impossible unless one tunneled under the wall, but my grandfather kept trying to get special permission for his family to join him. It was never given. Did ...

The weather here in Georgia has been unseasonably warm, so, because there's really no way to ride a bicycle here in Carrollton without risking one's life, I've taken to the track to start my running program (and lose about 25 pounds of "holiday weight"!). D doesn't trust me on the roads or sidewalks, so it's either the track or a treadmill, and since I don't have one of those, it's left-turn, left-turn, left-turn, which is okay with me for right now. If I run the marathon later in the year, however, I'll have to get some hill training somewhere . As far as the cycling, don't know. Maybe mount my bike on a trainer and cycle stationarily. I'm doing this as a kind of experiment on myself. I've been very sedentary of late, which really has added to my depression, so I want to find out if the release of endorphins and the exercise will help not only that , but also the dementia. I've read up on this, and exercise is definitely ...

I hadn't realized what a recluse I'd become until D and I took our son and his wife out to dinner Sunday afternoon. Other than meeting an old classmate of mine a couple of weeks ago for lunch, it was the first time I've gone anywhere of any substance in 8 months or longer. O'Charley's has a weird way of wrapping their silverware - they don't just roll it in a napkin - they lock it in some way, and as I ripped it open those utensils flew off the table, and we had to ask for new ones. I guess they've made them childproof or something. Anyway, I don't have a lot of luck in restaurants and Dondra had to hold me to keep me from bolting out of the booth. I remember once I couldn't figure out which goes on the lap; the silverware or the napkin and I kept doing back and forth "trials" until it finally "kicked in" and we all had a big laugh over it. That's the visual/physical stuff. Also still having trouble with the written/spo...

Time. Man!!! Where does it go ??? Seems like only yesterday I was playing my drums, shaking my long hair and having a great time playing in rock band after rock band. Now, here I sit ("broken-hearted. Paid a dime and only farted," - an old pay-toilet joke.) 62 years old, feeling it in my bones and my brain, but not yet in my body (except for having to wear the incontinence "Speedos" of course!). I ask myself sometimes, "What are you still doing here, dumb ass? She doesn't look a day over 50, and you're just taking up space! Get the hell off the planet !" But then she does or says some little thing that makes me remember why I fell in love with her in the first place, and I gain strength from that to make it through one more day. "Madondra". (She hates when I call her that, but I do it because I like the way her eyes narrow and blaze as I say it, heh-heh!) Dondra: A woman for the ages. A woman for all seasons. And a friend to ...