My Mother's surgery...

Photos taken just before surgery...
Mom in the surgery prep area with a great attitude!
L-R: William, Mom, me, Trish, Joe

Mom made it through a rather complicated surgery on Monday. After the surgery, they told us that they wanted to send her home the next day with the catheter! WHAT?! That kind of surgery used to keep people in the hospital for weeks! It's all about the $MONEY$ now, it seems. Even the hospitals are run by huge, evil, greedy corporations...Universities, too (something I learned about when my daughter entered college four years ago).

Anyway, she IS still in the hospital, still unable to stand without becoming VERY sick to her stomach, and still in a great deal of pain and still with a catheter. So, they will keep her until at least Thursday afternoon, maybe even Friday. I will go and stay with her to take care of her for a while. My sister, Theresa is coming from Ireland on Sunday to help for a couple of weeks, and my baby sister, Trish, of course is ALWAYS there helping. My brother, Joe, too. I'm sure that she WILL rest much better in her own bed and that will probably help her to heal faster. Having her home sooner wouldn't be as much of an issue to us, I think, if she hadn't already been rushed to the hospital with a minor heart attack a few weeks ago. All just another part of life that we all must deal with at some point. We (the four of us siblings and our children) have told Mom that her house will be a "party house" while she is recuperating. Her face lit up with a big smile because she knows that that means she will have all of her children and most of her grandchildren around her, hanging out and visiting with her, doting on her, cooking together, watching movies with her, etc. We will of course be very, very quiet much of the time so she can rest and sleep. :-)

Trish in the family waiting area working on the arrangements for her TRIPLETS high school graduation party. (yes, I said triplets! Jessica, Jack and Elizabeth, 17 1/2 years old now, great kids, and very cool people, and I love them very, very much!)

Photos taken just outside of the family waiting area
(early morning)...














"Butthead"...see the face?

A blog everyone should check out: click link below...

"If these "pro troops" groups really wanted to help wounded warriors, they would come see them, ask what they need, and provide it. Instead, all they do is hold up signs outside Walter Reed on Friday nights. Silly. And a waste of time and effort."

Check out this blog and you'll know why I'm suggesting it to you:
http://www.CirclingTheMoon.blogspot.com

Garden fairies? ;-)

Spring really HAS sprung, hasn't it!? A nice surprise...crocuses in the back yard (they were NOT there last year, or ever for that matter)....the garden fairies must have missed us while we were gone, heh? :-)

Friday travels - Mac laptop?, Verizon, Flying J Truck Stop, 1100 miles in two days...

Had my Verizon internet "tethering" hooked up again yesterday (Thurs)...until we get back home in Michigan, but, tonight is the first chance I've had to use it. Since my computer crashed in December...it HAS to be plugged into an electrical outlet in order to do anything at all. This battery was purchased around September 2009 ($174.00! HAS to be a DELL) because the other one wouldn't hold a charge any more and it HAS to have a battery in it in order to work at all (even if plugged in....stupid, heh?). This battery is supposed to last for at least 6 hours (yeah, right!) but, it NEVER, not even brand new, lasted for more than 1 hour and fifteen minutes, tops! I will NEVER buy anything from DELL, ever again! AND their "service" SUCKS!

A few friends have been strongly suggesting that I consider a Mac laptop next time around. A few days ago I had the chance to briefly use a friend's Mac (thank you Johnny Nicholas! ...GOOGLE the Hill Top Cafe in Texas)...and another friend, JD in Arizona has been telling me about Macs for over a year....well, I do believe that that's very likely what I will do sometime soon. This Dell laptop (XPS M1710) is definitely on it's last legs (again). I'm really hoping that it lasts at least long enough for me to download all my photos onto back-up cd's when I get home, before it konks out for good. (fingers crossed!) What do YOU all think? Advice and suggestions are welcome at this point in time.

Anyway, here I sit at a table in a Flying J Truck Stop not too far from Nashville, plugged into the outlet right at my table. It's late and I'm tired. William and I had a late dinner here (same table) and he went back to the trailer to sleep. We have put 1100 miles behind us in two days...I know, that's pushing it, but well...we just plain felt like it...and we're anxious to get back home. Don't know if I'll have the opportunity to get online again before we get home, so Happy Easter to everyone (no matter what denomination you are or aren't)!

Lots of photos coming, soon as I can get to editing and posting.

P.S.- Has anyone tried the new Cricket mobile phone/internet service? If so, what do you think of it? I heard that you get much more for much less. Is that true and how good is the coverage?

On our way back home tomorrow (just a quick note)...

The last part of our time in Port Aransas was mostly spent enjoying the MUCH better weather, the beach... and riding the motorcycle and saying "see ya later" to our friends. We packed up and left Port Aransas Thursday, March 25th and went to a motorcycle rally in Bandera, Texas (Thunder in the Hills)...had a good time, then Sunday morning, the 28th, on to Fredericksburg, Texas. This hill country is breath-takingly GORGEOUS!!! WOW!!!

Meanwhile, mostly no internet connection. :-(
I've taken a "kazillion" photos and will get busy sorting and editing them after we get home. I know...SO much updating to do!!! (I'm looking forward to it).

Hey, Al and Rick...now I know what you mean about getting that "itch" to return home...we have it. Lot's of things to take care of...then summer fun in Michigan...then winter in Texas again.

Will catch up with y'all soon folks, thanks for your patience...and a big friendly hello and thank you to our new "readers". :-)

New Leather :-)

Even though, to many people, it appears that William is a big, tough, not someone to mess with, bad-ass biker (he is),...he is also a big, kind-hearted teddy-bear. He surprised me Friday (3-12-2010) while we were out just cruising around. We were browsing in an Army/Navy Surplus store in Aransas Pass and he bought this new jacket for me (with a full zip-out lining including full sleeves). I love it! (and I love the smell of good leather!) Turns out, the guy who runs the place is also a biker and has a lot of jackets, vests, chaps and boots in stock...even name-brand Harley-Davidson stuff and RedWing boots and shoes. It's a cool store full of all sorts of things, including Tony Lama boots and cowboy hats, belts, women's and children's cowboy boots and clothes, lots of camping gear, all sorts and sizes of foam padding for whatever, knives, jewelry, the list goes on and on...some good prices and some way overpriced, but the jacket was a very good deal. We like to do things for each other "just whenever" and "just because". We both hate the commercialism of Christmas and all the other holidays. Getting together with family and/or friends once in a while on a special occasion over a good meal, sharing conversation and laughter, is what we both prefer. We quit all that present-giving nonsense a long time ago (because marketing/advertising companies tell you, you are "obligated to give because it's a holiday" and society in general has let itself be pressured by the guilt-feelings if you don't). Phooey!

Thank you, Jack Kerouac.

Simply, thank you, Jack Kerouc.
- Mary Ann









Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac
Jack Kerouac was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1922, the youngest of three children in a French-Canadian family. He attended local Catholic schools and won a football scholarship to Columbia University in New York City, where he met Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsburg, and William S. Burroughs. He quit school in his sophmore year and joined the Merchant Marine, beginning the restless wanderings that were to continue for the greater part of his life. His first novel The Town and the City, appeared in 1950, but it was On the Road, first published in 1957 and memorializing his adventures with Neal Cassidy, that epitomized to the world what became known as "the Beat generation" and made Kerouac one of the most controversial and best-known writers of his time. Publication of his many other books followed, among them The Dharma Bums, The Subterraneans, and Big Sur. Kerouac considered them all to be part of "one enormous comedy," which he called The Duluoz Legend. "In my old age," he wrote, "I intend to collect all my work and reinsert my pantheon of uniform names, leave the long shelf full of books there, and die happy." He died in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1969, at the age of forty-seven.

Town and the City, the (1950)
On the Road (1957)
Dharma Bums, the (1958)
Subterraneans, the (1958)
Maggie Cassidy: A Love Story (1959)
Doctor Sax (1959)
Tristessa (1960)
Lonesome Traveler (1960)
Big Sur (1962)
Visions of Gerard (1963)
Desolation Angels (1965)
Satori in Paris (1967)
Vanity of Duluoz (1968)
Pic (1971)
Visions of Cody (1972)
Orpheus Emerged (2000)
Mexico City Blues (1959)
Scripture of the Golden Eternity, the (1960)
Scattered Poems (1971)
Old Angel Midnight (1973)
Heaven & Other Poems (1977)
Book of Dreams - Definitive, Unabridged Edition, the (2001)

"you pay through the nose for short-lived shows. . . ."
- Jack Kerouac