Blooming Idiots Floral Events

05/31/2024

05/31/2024

JL

11/05/2022

687 An Unexpected Day

Yesterday took an unexpected turn of events that was totally unexpected, yet greatly appreciated!

As you may recall from yesterday, I wanted to go to a viewing for a dear friend of mine's mother. I tried like crazy to find a ride, including multiple calls to RTA who unfortunately, just travels within Montgomery County. I also tried Lyft and Uber, but Lyft quoted me $166 ONE way, which meant going there would cost me roughly $200 each way including tip! Needless to say, $400 for a round trip fare was way out of my budget! After calling Project Mobility three times, and Lyft, I was going to try Uber, but couldn't get through. I figured they were pretty much be in neighborhood of what Lyft charges, so I decided it just wasn't worth it. All this was accomplished by 10:00!

I then thought of one other option, I had a low-cost cab service that I used to use all the time pre-second stroke, so I decided to call them, but then realized I couldn't think of their their name, so I thought about it for a while and finally came up with it. But, by the the time I finally remembered their name, it was going on 2:00, plus I didn't know if they had any normal, non-SUV vehicles I could get in, because I have difficulty getting into vans and trucks! The family was already prepared that I wasn't going to be able to get there, so I was covered.

Then this morning is when my story took on new dimension of weirdness. Having missed the viewing, I didn't see any way possible that I was going to make the funeral!

But dear Mindy, the activities director came into my room at 8:15 Tuesday morning and asked me if I wanted to go. I, of course, said yes, but I didn't know how I could. She talked about taking the van which I knew had a step up to get in I knew from previous attempts this was very difficult for me. So Mindy said she would go talk to the therapy to see what they could do. She came back about 10 minutes later and told me that one of the therapists would be down to practice with me, and that we would leave around 10:30 for 11:00 funeral. I told my aide about the funeral, and he said he would be back after a serving breakfast. I felt that would give me a chance to change clothes, since I was in a multicolored stripe top which I know was wildly inappropriate! What I didn't realize until halfway through the service was that I had on one of my headbands! Finally, at 10:15 I realized I had to get going! As much as I hated it, I was forced to go without going to the toilet, changing clothes or anything else I needed or wanted to do!

On my way down to the lobby, I ran into Mindy, who was looking for me so we could get going. After a few practice runs, I was in the van so I could be buckled in. We then began our half hour trip to West Milton. We alternate between being on time, a minute early, or right a minute late. Ultimately, we arrived a minute or two late, because by the time we got me out of the van and into the wheelchair and wheeled me in the funeral home, the service had already started. It was a nice service that lasted a little over half an hour. After that Mindy wheeled me up to where the family was seated so we could pay our response in person. I could tell Keith and his father were shocked to see me, but appreciate the effort we made to get there, as was Daffy, all of whom send seemed generally surprised to see me. But they knew, like Mindy how much it meant to me to be there. I have been part of their family for close to 25 years and felt I knew it to them to be there.

Mindy and Daffy then wheeled me back out to the van and loaded me in. Mindy and I then started our half hour trip back home. Since we're going to missed lunch, so we decided to stop walking stop at a fast food restaurant for lunch. Ultimately, we stopped at Mickey D's, where we both had a McRib sandwich. As normal, it was very good. We then made our way back home, so we could enjoy the afternoon activities.

All in all, it was a lot of fun just being out in the real world and doing what I felt I should be doing!

Thanks to Mindy and Lori in therapy for all their help and dedication to 1making this event a reality for me! I literally couldn't have gotten there without them!

08/15/2022

860 World's Worst Aide

I told the tale of the previous world's worst aide a couple of years ago when the aide and I got into a disagreement in my room one night! That incident pales in comparison to the aidecI encountered last night!

This woman, whose name I forgot to get, never came in to check on me, in fact, about a half hour after I put my light on to go to bed, meanwhile another nurse came in to check on me and she asked if the aide had been in yet. When I told her no, she said, "Don't worry, she'll be right in." Much to my surprise, she was, and then the real fun began! This woman acted like she had never done this job before, as she struggled taking off virtually every piece of clothing I was wearing, especially the ankle brace on my right foot, at one point, she threatened to just leave it, my socks, and my compression support hose (that I wear to reduce swelling). Unfortunately, I'm not much good at helping the aides with the brace, since I have never had to put it on myself, and couldn't begin to if I had to! I mentioned that there were 2 long straps one either side of the brace and I could only see one, so I told her that and she looking for the second strap which she soon found, then she began to play around with the brace again and found the second strap, which she began to loosen. Soon, the brace was loosened enough to slip off, along with all of the other gear I was wearing (yes, there is a lot of it!) I swear, between my right arm, leg, and wheelchair, I wear so much stuff, it isn't funny!

Anyway, as she was struggling with my foot brace, I reminded her that I was an early morning get up, to which she replied, "I know that." OK, I thought, will see what happens in the morning!

She also didn't know how to work my CPAP machine and had no interest in learning, so I didn't wear it!

The next morning, I expected her to come in around 6:15 to get me up, because I told her I would need some extra time because of all the stuff I needed to put on. Unfortunately, I never saw her. Finally, at 6:35 I put my call light on. Then, at 6:50, ten minutes before her shift ended she finally came in to find out what I needed. I told her I was ready to get up, and she said it would have to be a quick one because it was time for her to go home. I reminded her that I was an early morning get up, to which she replied "No one ever told me that!" To which I replied "You knew about it last night when I told you!"

Sensing that she wasn't one to stay over, I just told her to go and I would have 1st shift get me up. She put up no argument, and turned and walked out. A few minutes later, the nurse came in and told me "You'll have to be patient. No one has shown up yet." Fortunately, an aide showed up a moment later, and my day was back on track!

Hopefully, I will never see that woman again! I already told two different nurses about the incident and will talk to the DON this morning! At worst, I don't want her back in my room, at best, since she was an probably an agency aide, I hope we never let her in the building again! We don't need an employee who lies like she did!

07/26/2022

Happy Birthday, Keith! Hope you have a great day! Your present is on order, but hasn't arrived yet. Hopefully will be here on Thursday!

06/17/2022

811 Game Inventor

Back in my mid-30's I embarked on a project with a good friend from work to create a game we both knew would be a huge success during the upcoming holiday season! I don't recall the name of the game, but it was about work and what it took to be successful. We worked tirelessly on it, working nights to bring our creation to fruition.

We stopped our work on the project when her husband told us "You two must have some serious issues with work! You guys are so negative!" We, of course, didn't know what he was talking about, until we took a second look at our pet project. Then suddenly we saw what he was talking about! Our game board was filled with pessimistic questions that showed us just how antagonistic we were being! We could have changed course and corrected our error in judgment, but we decided it was best to call it a day on this project and cut our losses!

She was a good friend over the years and we worked on several different projects together both at work and independently of it! I would often babysit her dogs, Kelly and Red Dog if she and her husband were going away for the weekend. She also invited me to attend several polo matches over the years, and if you have seen *"Pretty Woman"* you may remember the scene of the patrons cleaning up the field in between the periods of a match, called chukkers? It's all true!

Barky and I undertook several different moneymaking schemes, including a line of pet scarves we called "Arf Scarfs", aimed obviously at dogs, although I know we would have come up with a version for cats, such as "Meow Mufflers", or "Kitty Kerchiefs". Yes, we would have had a year-round business if we tried full of fun fabrics, furs and more! Heck, by now we would have also had a line of jewelry, called something like "Canine Carats", "Puppy Pendants", "Lynx Links", "Jaguar Jewelry ", or "Kitty Karats", for example!

We had the sizes down and we were looking at fabric swatches for design ideas, which we then had a friend mock-up some samples of so we could try them on Barky's dogs. This idea was a surefire moneymaker, if we had just followed through, but of course, we didn't! But we should have!

We had a couple other projects we worked on through the years, but "Arf Scarfs" was always our best idea!

06/03/2022

805 Motivated by Price, Brand, and Rating

I have noticed that I am influenced by several factors when I shop for products. I never realized it until recently how brand conscious I am! Don't get me wrong, I always wanted what I perceived to be the top brands when shopping, but it wasn't until yesterday that I realized that it was that important to me!

First, I search the web for whatever product I was looking for to determine the price range. Then, I would narrow down my choices based on brand and price, doing research to find the best combination, then I would go back and eliminate most of my saved items unless I had a good reason to save it, such as I found a better deal somewhere else, or I liked a particular product better! Sometimes it was nothing than a brand that I trusted, such as Sony, Dyson, or Panasonic. I will admit that Daffy was quick to point out that I always had to go by the Dyson vacuum cleaners when we were out shopping, a habit I was unaware of, but when I thought about it, I knew he was probably right!

After narrowing my list down, I would waver back and forth on it, ordering it as soon as I had the money.

As soon as I had the money, I would make one final review and place the order. Most of the time, the products would arrive in a day or two. Most of the time, I was pleased with the purchase, although I will admit to making a few mistakes over the years. Without a doubt, my biggest boo boo was an Epson printer I purchased a year or so ago. This was one product I didn't do the proper investigation of. I thought I did, but I was more concerned about finding the best price rather than the best product. I failed to see that the product was used or that it had a limited warranty, both nono's in my book. I fought with the seller for weeks/months and got all the experts I could find here involved but no one could get the darn thing to work! Since the stupid printer was already out of warranty and would have cost too much to repair, I opted to throw it away, rather than invest more money into it. Hopefully, I will find a good deal on a new one at the end of this year. It would be a big help to have copies of the stories I have written, rather than searching for them in Facebook! It can be done, but it takes a lot of time!

05/27/2022

Euphemisms for Death

(Sorry for being so wordy today. Needless to say, I have difficulty editing out details!)

I have been working on writing this story ever since my father passed away in 1980. Hopefully, it will go better this time! I have been revising this gradually every year when it comes up in my Facebook feed, and here is this year's attempt!

The beginning paragraphs are new, as are the ones at the end. The middle is has been edited, but is pretty much the same.

I remember going to my father’s nursing home that morning and hearing everyone talking about a variety of things, at no point did anyone mention death. As we left, my brother, sister, and I talked, still no mention of death. When my brother left, I asked my sister, and she said someone called her last night and told her dad’s death was imminent. I asked her why no one told me, but she didn’t know.

At last, we parted ways and I got on with my day. Typically, on a weekend day, I would go to work all day. I tried to, but after about 4 hours, I had it, and I left. Next, I went to Meijer’s, just to look around. While I was standing in the sporting goods department, I had a strange feeling come over me. I knew immediately what the feeling was, and I knew I had to get home.

When I got to my apartment, I noticed I had a message. As I expected, it was from the nursing home, telling me that my father had expired. I thought that was a strange choice of words, although I knew what they meant. Expired what? Had the expiration date on his butter passed? Had his library card, or worse his fishing license expired? After I received the message, I tried to call my brother, who I knew was at work. Then, I called my sister, who hadn't yet heard the news. We decided to meet at the nursing home, why we didn't know, we just felt we had to.

When we got there, a nurse asked us if we wanted to go into the room. Neither of us really did, but we knew we had to. We walked to the door and stood in the doorway. We stayed there approximately 10 seconds, staring at the dead body, before turning and leaving. We never discussed the topic again.

That got me thinking about other things people say to convey death without ever saying the word. For instance, when we say “kick the bucket” we immediately know someone died, not literally kicked a bucket or “bite the bullet", “pass away”, “pushing up daisies”, “sleeping with the fishes”, “six feet under“, “croak”, “joined the church triumphant” just to name a few alternatives available. I have to admit I’m not familiar with all of these, but I understand them. This list leaves out such classic as “they bought the farm”, and “trip the light fantastic”, among others.

There are several reasons why we use euphemisms when referring to death, including:

# # For protection # #

- to protect the person speaking or hearing them

# # To Avoid Being Rude # #

- to decrease the hurt and pain of someone hearing them

# # To Avoid Grief # #

- for many, death and dying bring out feelings of grief and loss

# # Our Own Grief Protection # #

- In order to use direct words about death, the speaker has to deal with his or her own feelings of grief and loss

# # Out of Partial Denial # # -
Similarly, using the word "dead" makes it difficult to deny the reality. And, psychologically, while denial clearly needs to turn to acceptance, a little bit of denial is not all bad as a short-term coping mechanism

# # To Offer Spiritual Comfort # #

For those of certain faiths, the emphasis in death is the afterlife

In doing research, I read a several more euphemisms I had never heard before, such as:

17. Pining for the fjords

Monty Python’s classic “Dead Parrot sketch” is packed with euphemisms for death. This one was coined specifically for the scene.

18. Immortality-challenged

“He said that he would live forever. But it ultimately turned out he was "immortality-challenged.”

19. Kicked the oxygen habit

While you should let go of your bad habits, you don’t want to jettison the ones that keep you alive.

22. Carked it

This Australian idiom is possibly derived from shortening the word “carcass.”

23. Bit the dust

This euphemism isn’t just about death. It can refer to any kind of loss or failure.

24. Riding on a sin wagon

“Just like the Dixie Chicks, I aspire to arrive to my afterlife riding on a sin wagon.

All told, I found over 300 euphemisms for death, many of which we use frequently.

Can you think of any others?

Originally Delivered 5/25/2019 with several rewrites since

05/26/2022

801 Nursing Home
Week

This past week was National Nursing Home Week, a week
a week designated to recognize the contributions of our team of highly skilled professionals. Actually, it seemed like more of a celebration of our nursing staff, rather than a week celebrated our entire staff.

This celebration was spearheaded by our activities department, a dedicated group of people who do their best to keep the residents occupied and happy.

This team is led by Mindy, a highly trained professional who gained her experience at her previous jobs and in caring for individual patients in their homes. She is sort of a fashion plate for many of our residents, who wish she would shop for their clothes too! For help with designing and executiong these events, she has a well oiled team of assistants!

Starting with Amy, her second9 in command, who has over 5 years experience as an activities assistant. She seems to enjoy her job and she loves the residents and they love her too! She also has an adoring family, including 2 sons, one of whom also works in our buildin and a husband called "Fat Boy", a grandson, and a chihuahua named Snickers!

Daffy is our newest member of the activities department, having just completed his first 90 days of employment. Now we have to come up with a really good reason to get him fired! He is our official "Weekend Warrior", he works primarily on weekends to allow Mindy and Amy some much needed time off. So far, the residents seem to love him and vice versa.

For the first day of Nursing Home Week, we watched the movie "Dog", starring Channing Tatum and a destructive, yet lovable Belgiant Malinois named Lulu. It was a very good movie about their travels to attend the funeral of Lulu's former handler, and relocation to a new home, which fortunately doesn't work out and they are permanently reunited. We also had snacks and drinks during the movie, which everyone seemed to enjoy!

Next up was Tie Die Tuesday as we had some of the gang outside to make tie dye bags or socks. Although people were free to make their own designs, everyone let Amy and Daffy do the work for them! Which was probably a good thing because imagine what the concrete in courtyard would have looked like if the residents had gotten hold of the die and spilled it in the courtyard? It would have been a psychedelic nightmare!The food, soft pretzels and beer cheese was great, with many people having second or third helpings!

Wednesday was actually supposed to be an indoor event though the band performing had played here before the Covid-19 pandemic, so the big birthday bash was held in the dining room as planned. It was still a success, as most of the residents would rather stay inside. They have forgotten the joy and beauty of being outdoors in nature, or they never learned to enjoy it when they were younge!

Thursday was also scheduled to be an outdoor activity day, but the Carnival they planned on having outside was moved inside, again because of the heat! This day's activities turned out to be more of a snack chat, as food and beverages are always the real motivator with many in this crowd!

For the end of the week, ended on a high note. We had an all day BINGO bash, featuring every type of bingo they could think of: Princess Grace and I were the only ones who showed up for the morning sessions, and only a few regulars showed up for the afternoon sessions. Fortunately, it was the regulars who showed up, and we all had a good time!

Oh, and I forgot in the middle of all this, Mindy took off Thursday afternoon to go to the Bahamas a enjoy a long weekend with her family, as her brother and his fiance tied the knot! She reported that she had a great time with them and swimming with the dolphins (better than sleeping with the fishes!) Glad to hear it, but we were more excited to have her back!

05/05/2022

Thought I sent this out earlier, but now I can't find it!

Happy Cinco de Mayo! Try not to drink too much!

Or as they say in Mexico and Puerto Rico (for my good friend who is from Puerto Rico):

Feliz Cinco de Mayo! No bebas demasiado!

05/05/2022

Happy Cinco de Mayo! Try to not drink too much!

Or in Spanish, or Puerto Rican:
Feliz Cinco de Mayo! ¡Intenta no beber demasiado!

08/29/2021

Personalized cardinal ornament. Names can be changed 🎁 See more: https://famvibe.com/7guvn

07/13/2021

06/27/2021

Media

04/24/2021

04/16/2021

Are You A Geezer? 😂🤣

04/15/2021