SCARIER THAN GHOSTS

A perfect night for Netflix and a pizza delivery, read the post on Facebook.  --  For me, that would be a movie from Redbox and a frozen pizza. I'm not complaining, I can transform a frozen pizza into an epicurean delicacy! My fridge and pantry are filled with delicious ingredients and I am far more generous with toppings than pizza parlors.

And this is October, Halloween month! Even though I no longer dress up or hand out candy I still celebrate with indoor decorations. Also I put black sheets on my bed and am now using my black china set along with my pumpkin-shaped teapot. Plus I can wear my October shoes, the high-heeled, black lace-up ones with the high purple fins in the back that I purchased from the Pyramid Collection.

Scary movies during Halloween week are the perfect combo! And I have plenty from which to choose! Except I'm never really frightened by them. But I came across one DVD last May which actually did and just from the title alone!

In a Thrift Store I found it, package intact, unopened titled: September's Fury 2004 Hurricane Documentary. That year was one for the history books. Florida was hit by 4 hurricanes!!! Here on the Treasure Coast we were hit by 2: Frances & Jeanne 3 weeks apart to the day.

My friend Margaret who lived in the center of the state was hit by all 4! Unlike here, Margaret's electricity never went out once!

"You missed out," she told me, "because you couldn't watch the storm or the aftermath on TV."

I replied that all I had to do was look out my window or drive around to see the damage left behind!

The memory remains vivid and horrifying to me because I know it could have been far worse, especially with Cat 4 & 5 storms becoming the new normal.

I debated with myself whether or not to purchase that DVD, hurricane season would be starting in just days. I decided to buy it, but vowed not to watch it until December after the end of the season.

October also marks the anniversary of 2 major deaths in my life. My father passed Oct 16, 2001 and my mother Oct. 17, 1987. Both died of colon cancer that spread into the liver. And I've had visits from both afterward along with others. If you're familiar with my blog you know this and also that I had a strained relationship with my parents. Death hasn't changed that.

In all honestly, I haven't seen them, but they let me know they were around. Here is just one example: I was preparing dinner and placed a cookie bar on a plate. I walked away and when I turned, the cookie bar was standing on its end. As I stepped toward it, it dropped back onto the plate.

I told myself, "No, I didn't really see that!" Yet I did! Then I tried to position the cookie bar as I'd seen it, but found that impossible. And I've been physically touched a number of times. I can give you plenty of other examples of strange occurrences as well.  

My friend Margaret once told me that her parents, both university graduates and devout Christians used to entertain guests by placing their fingers on tables and making the tables dance. She said one woman fled in horror accusing them of consorting with spirits.

Over the years, a number spirits (not just my parents) have tried to consort with me. I assure you that I am no more psychic than the average person. However, other average people have confided to me of paranormal experiences after I'd shared mine. Others swore they'd never tell anyone for fear of the reaction. I can well understand that!

Someone told me that single people in particular are targets of ghosts. I replied that people alone are targets period! Plenty of the live ones target us too!  With the latter, you must always keep your guard up. As for ghosts, treat them as you would a bully. Stand your ground and you take away more of their power each time.

Unfortunately with hurricanes your fate is determined by the whim of the wind. You have little control beyond boarding up or fleeing. Hurricanes as with many other forces of nature possess a catastrophic power, one that could take you life or destroy it forever, a distinct possibility and one that's chillingly terrifying!!!

AND THE BEET GOES ON

October 1978 I was riding in the back seat of the car. I was 27 years old and we were passing thru Georgia on our way north to see the leaves change color. Just weeks before I had returned from an amazing 3 week grand tour of Europe and was in high spirits.

In the middle of busy traffic I happened to gaze to my left, beside me was a truck filled with cattle going to market. All were crammed tighter together than a bag of grapes. Many of them were making eye contact with me.

Not long before, I learned of the typical slaughter house practices: a nail gun to the head or the sledge hammer between the eyes. I felt sick. It was that moment I decided I wasn't going to be any part of this. I gave up eating all mammals for good!

Yes, I still eat seafood & chicken because I am not a fish or a fowl! But I am a mammal! And my diet these days is mostly vegetarian.

In some countries, dogs and cats are commonly eaten. I see little if any difference between eating one of those than any other mammal. These are all thinking, feeling creatures with emotions similar to ours.

When veggie burgers came out a few decades back, I was thrilled although I'll admit they needed lots of condiments and doctoring to taste good. Thankfully, nowadays they are much improved!

My last dog used to go crazy whenever I ate a Boca Burger. To shut her up, I always ended up nuking one for her, too. Ditto for veggie frankfurters! She would have never believed that she wasn't eating meat!

A previous dog we'd raised from a puppy loved a product made of soy that looked like chunks of red meat. This was his favorite food! Dad used to laugh that he'd cut a piece of steak or a pork chop for him and the dog would stand there and sniff it for 10 minutes as if he was trying to poison him. And then do a dance of joy when I brought out the bag of soy cuts. He'd quickly gobble those down.

In my family, dogs & cats were never denied anything from our table. I've known people who do and it's cruel! Animals enjoy variety just as we do.

I was eager to try Burger King's Impossible Burger. It tasted just OK to me. I'd order it again if I happened to be at a Burger King, but I wouldn't drive out of my way for one, again.

Recently, I purchased Maika Beet Burgers. Now I hate beets, but we taste with our eyes and I loved the burgundy color. Besides, I thought it would contain other ingredients to mask that awful beet taste. I was wrong! However I hate to waste food so I just add lots of condiments & cheese to make it palatable.

A friend raved about Beyond Burgers! But they're a little too much like the real thing for my taste. For one thing, they're greasy! And another, one burger is 250 calories with 160 from fat! Eeeewww! I felt as if I was eating glorified junk food.

My favorite is Field Roast Burgers! They are delicious and made from barley, carrots, & celery. They're moist and tasty without being greasy. Also you get 4 rather than 2, plus they don't come packaged in that space-hogging, planet-killing plastic container that Beyond Burgers do.

I would still buy the Beyond Burger if I happened to come upon a great coupon. However I'd be sure to eat a healthy salad with it! And that unnecessary and needlessly wide plastic container will go straight into my recycling bin!

ANOTHER BRIDGE IS GOING UP

My third, to be exact! The good news is that I don't need a dental implant, but I still require a tooth extraction and bone graft.

The specialist gave me a different diagnosis than the dental clinic. In fact, it was one that gave me chills! He said that due to trauma in that area, my mouth no longer recognized the tooth as part of my body and was eating it!

HORRORS!!! That sounds like a cheesy science fiction movie, something with a stupid title such as The Face From Outer Space That Feeds On Flesh & Bone.

I recall my shock a few years back when I overheard a hygienist telling the dentist that I had a "Torn Eye" in my mouth! -- That's a slang term for an abnormality of the inner lower gum line.

As to any severe trauma in that area, the only one I recall is an injury I experienced as a 3 year old. As a result, my bite doesn't line up properly. This has been the cause of many problems with my teeth. More than one dentist has asked who punched me in the mouth as a child. Actually, what happened was that I fell off a rocking chair!

Of course I was standing backwards on the armrests rocking wildly; yahoooo!  Rid'em cowboy! And the chair tumbled backwards and I landed on my chin unconscious. My parents rushed me to the doctor! Stitches were taken and I still have the scar under my chin to this day.

However the D.M.D. said the trauma had to be more recent. The only recent one was to my foot and I didn't land on my face when I fell. Also my jaw was hurting before that!

Perhaps I was teleported aboard a UFO for one of those notorious medical exams and an alien punched me in the jaw to stop me from screaming! Afterward, my memory was erased. Those space aliens can do that, you know!

Or I could have fallen into a portal to another dimension and had to fight off a scaly, horned beast! The experience was probably so traumatic that my mind blocked it! Gadzooks! Anything is possible!

Hmmn, I do recall something that happened late last spring. I was eating mushrooms I'd sautéed in garlic butter over veggie pasta when suddenly it felt as if I'd bitten into a stone. My entire lower right jaw began to ache! However I had washed and scrubbed those mushrooms with my bare hands and not one felt petrified. Also the pasta was soft! I doubt this was the cause of the problem, just the effect.

Well I am certainly no stranger to dental surgery. I've had work done galore, far more than bridges! Whenever anyone complements my smile, I always say it should be nothing less than gorgeous for what I paid!

I recovered well from the majority of previous work with little distress. The most excruciating pain that I've ever experienced was in 1979 when my wisdom teeth were removed. I was in dire agony for a month afterward. I'm allergic to codeine (learned that the hard way) and aspirin didn't do a damn thing! One tooth was impacted (never broken the surface) and the roots of another were wrapped around my jaw bone.

The maxillofacial surgeon actually told me that my mouth had given him nightmares. Knowing what I do now, I'd say he had good reason. Since his fingers weren't part of my body he's darn lucky my mouth didn't start eating them!

GOOD BYE SUMMER 2019, YOU SUCKED

Soon it will be over and can't happen fast enough; this was one of the worst! Usually summer zooms by, but this miserable one just seemed to drag on and on.

UGH!!! I will always remember it as one of INJURY (foot) PHYSICAL PAIN, (foot & tooth) STRESS (major hurricane threat) ENORMOUS OUT-OF-THE-BLUE EXPENSES (dental work, hurricane boarding, & 2 plumbing emergencies), and a bad haircut to boot!  Also included was much frustration and angst in trying to publish a book I ghostwrote after an unfortunate 2 year delay, along with numerous other things that I never blogged about. Be grateful I spared you!

However you may not always be so fortunate, this is my place to vent, so if this annoys you, stop reading right now and go away!

My idea of a wonderful summer is a quiet, serene, uneventful one without people noise or drama. I've already experienced enough of the latter for 10 life times! I prefer being alone cocooning in the air conditioning. When the weather cools, if ever (this is Florida & there's global warming) I'll feel like going out again. But even then, I can only stand people in small doses.

I love summer nights at home enjoying engrossing and sometimes just gross movies, occasionally with popcorn or ice-cream. But now, I remember why I stopped recording stuff on network TV after I got the Starz/Showtime package. I had it for a decade and lost it last spring when it became too expensive. After all the commercials are zapped, a two & a half hour movie often becomes 90 minutes! I'm constantly reaching for the remote. And worse, I hate staring at an advertisement during an entire film! It's distracting and irritating.

Thanks to a generous friend, I now have a DVD player and rent movies from Redbox. I'm glad it's an option.

Every morning, it seems I wake at 4:00 AM and am unable to get back to sleep. Then at 5:30 AM I get up and nap throughout the day.

I should be grateful at least the hurricane swerved east and missed. But it's still peak season and early.

However I am proud of myself for losing my Hurricane Dorian weight. It came off fast, too! I was expecting the power to go out, so I ate as much as possible from my fridge & garage freezer. Otherwise it would all end up on the curb. Huge breakfasts and enormous dinners were the norm for a week. Afterward, clothes weren't fitting.

But now they do. I'm back to a size 8 my fighting weight! Yay!!!

I miss my days of exotic foreign travel, it's always fun visiting other countries in distant far away continents, but the way things are going, any future ones will be under the Medical Tourism category.

I'm constantly cutting back, while the price of everything keeps going up! I may come to regret not expatriating. However it's not off the table! But if it comes to that, it will be tantamount to a shotgun marriage. After my exploratory trips, I learned that the Third World isn't the paradise for retirees on a fixed income those international living publications make it out to be.

Fall will be full of expensive dental appointments including a tooth extraction and implant. And I'm living in a dark boarded-up house until November.

Despite everything, I'm mostly happy. I must keep reminding myself of the way things used to be, all those many years when I wasn't.

MAYOR, YOU DON'T SPEAK FOR ME

My oh my, our current mayor has gone national by publicly attacking San Francisco on its stance against the National Rifle Association. According to our delusional mayor the NRA is "an extraordinary defender of America's constitutional civil rights" his words. Never mind it has repeatedly proven to be a domestic terrorist organization that must be ended.

Needless to say, our mayor is a member of the NRA!

Now I am not against anyone owning guns. One in the house for protection is a good idea. I'm not even against hunting rifles although I abhor the practice. However no one needs a military assault type weapon unless they are up to no good! And the idea of arming teachers is one of the stupidest ideas I've ever heard! I picture more innocent people being killed in the crossfire.

Our mayor used official city letter head in his criticism, as if all of Vero Beach is behind him! A San Francisco Examiner columnist cleverly upbraided our mayor and rightly so. However due to the letter head he also had some not-so-nice things to say about Vero Beach, my hometown of the last 20 years.

Ok, I'll admit Vero Beach is a Trump turd stronghold! Many people here think Trump walks on water when he's actually more like a fat chunk of excrement floating in a sewer!

I know there are many others in Vero Beach who feel as I do! I've marched in protests with them against Trump's policies. We received numerous honks of support as well as the one finger salute.

Our mayor is also an ophthalmologist, in fact, the same one who performed cataract surgery in both of my eyes.

Because I am alone, I needed their shuttle to pick me up and drive me home after the surgeries. During my second trip the driver praised Trump all the way to the Eye Institute. I told him that for the sake of our country, I hoped someone would shoot Trump! Which I'm sure didn't endear me to him. Fortunately, coming home I was assigned a different driver.  Politics were never discussed.

Our mayor called the San Francisco Examiner columnist's response "elitist". I could say the same about him! I found this ophthalmologist more than a bit arrogant. For my next eye exam, I will be taking my business elsewhere!

A CLOSE BRUSH WITH A MONSTER

A monster out to destroy me, others, and everything we own. Like nearly every other denizen of the Treasure Coast I was in a constant state of panic mingled with exhaustion. For what seemed like a week every meteorologist showed a Cat 5 Hurricane Dorian coming ashore over Vero Beach on their chart!

Out of habit I began stocking my storm pantry back in June, little was left to buy. Also around that time I purchased the Bell & Howell Light Bar to add to my hurricane lamp collection which is good to have anyway. Even under perfect conditions, I've never lived in a place that experiences as many power outages as Vero Beach!

Always, it's a problem finding someone to board me up. However this time a neighborhood Realtor emailed the name of a man willing to do it. But yikes, the cost was $600.! -- I paid $40 back in 2004!!! Unfortunately I had no choice. Now I plan to stay boarded until November! It's only the start of peak hurricane season and I can't afford to keep repeating this!

The expense could not have happened at a worse time! Just the week before, I learned I need a dental implant among other work and I'm going to be out $1000's. I waited months for an appointment at the sliding scale clinic; I desperately need that 15 per cent discount. Unfortunately the clinic doesn't do implants. UGH!!!

But that had to wait until after the hurricane.

I moved everything of value downstairs and packed several suitcases in the event my house became unlivable. It's devastating to think of everything I've accumulated over the years being destroyed. I own few things of monetary value. However each of my possessions has a memory attached making every one a treasure.

Dorian a slow moving storm, was now forecast to hit us on Wednesday. Hopefully, it would strike during daytime. I would be able to see well enough to do damage control. Also I could sleep in my own bed the night before rather than the floor of my downstairs bathroom which is my safe room.

Marie, my snowbird friend in Connecticut said she'd call every day until the power went out along with my landline. She was true to her word! And my friend Rose said she'd drive over to check on me after the storm passed. Both are wonderful friends!

Sunday night I watched a movie titled Between Heaven and Earth, a true story about a Vietnamese woman. As a child, her village was burned to the ground. During her teens she was raped, beaten, tortured with electricity, also staked to a pole near an ant hill, her legs coated with honey, and for added measure a snake was dropped down her blouse! And there's more that I won't go into. Watching this, made me feel like a wimp for freaking out over a hurricane!

Then I remembered the photos of Mexico Beach from last year's one. It looked like a bomb blast!!! My fears were valid!!! And Dorian was now doing likewise to the Bahamas.

Almost everyone living in Florida has been to the Bahamas at least once. The man who boarded my house said he had been there 50 times or more. The thought of the destruction, death, and shattered lives there is wrenching.

Cat 5 and 4 hurricanes used to be a rarity. Sadly, with global warming (which fools deny) they are becoming common. It's anyone's guess exactly where a hurricane will come ashore.

An arrogant, argumentative man on Facebook (whom I've since unfriended) claimed that no hurricane dared to hit since he moved here and no one should worry. Then came Irma in 2017 projected to hit us as a Cat 5 or 4. This guy ran like a scared rabbit to the center of the state! The hurricane shifted farther west at the last moment striking his hotel, another example of a man's big mouth  biting him in the butt!

As fate would have it, all of us here on the Treasure Coast were fortunate again this time. Dorian just skirted us. Not once did I lose power which was a miracle in itself.  Air-conditioning in a boarded up house is a blessing.

Thursday the hurricane had passed, mail & newspaper delivery resumed. I stepped onto my driveway to sweep debris. The heat & humidity were so heavy it felt as if someone had dropped a blanket over me. But my home remained intact, that was most important.

However, next time the result could be quite different. All you can do is prepare for the worst as best you can.

OH NOOOOO!!!

According to every chart I've seen Hurricane Dorian is projected to hit Vero Beach directly as a Cat 4 on Labor Day!!!

I must drop everything & prepare!!!