"Tony" Thought Journal 3.0

I was about 8 years old when I read in the magazine section of the Sunday newspaper, an article on how to make flowers out of tissue paper. I asked my mom if we could try it, she agreed.

The first flower she tried wasn't bad it turned out nice, my first flower wasn't that good. As we continue to make them we both improved and they really were nice. My mom went out and got different color tissue paper, we were now making them in red, yellow, White, and blue.

We lived in an apartment building that had 6 families, the building next door had 5 families, of the 11 families 7 of them were my mom's brothers or sister.

It was around Easter, I asked my mom if I could sell them to our relatives. She said yes, so I sat down and made a pile of flowers.
When I had 2 bags full of flowers I went knocking on doors. I sold out after the first 2 doors I knocked on. I'm not sure if they just thought it was cute, me selling or they really liked the flowers. I made more flowers and continued selling until I finished the 2 buildings. I asked my mom if I could continue selling to the other houses on the street, she said no, selling to relatives was enough.

I think back those flowers were really nice I wish I had the instructions yet to make them with my grandkids.
 
I have been watching shows on TV about the paranormal for as long as I can remember. I enjoy the segments with UFOs, Bigfoot, Mothman, Lock Ness monster, etc. I rarely enjoy the segments about ghosts or spirits, I DVD these shows, so I usually fast forward through these segments.

The ghost/spirit from the shows I have seen seem to reside in homes, pubs, churches, closed hospitals and jails, fighting fields of Gettysburg, and on and on.

This morning, it popped into my head. How come there's never been a spiritual sighting of a caveman or neanderthal. Maybe there has been, but I've never seen it.

Just a thought.
 
Have you seen the old movie, "The Mothman Prophecies", Tony? It's supposed to be based on actual events and stars Richard Gere. The movie and book are based on alleged events in Point Pleasant WV in 1966-67. There were witness accounts of a winged creature with red eyes.
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Tony Page said:
My wife canceled her doctor's appointment for this morning. MSK is about 30-45 minutes away depending on traffic. With a feels like 7 degrees and a car with no heat and a plastic covered window (drafty) it was a good idea. She rescheduled for Jan.
Not sure what to do today, I might go back to sleep, I got up early this morning.
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Goodness Tony, I hope you get that heater fixed soon. Hope the wife is ok too.
 
Beth Gallagher said:
Have you seen the old movie, "The Mothman Prophecies", Tony? It's supposed to be based on actual events and stars Richard Gere. The movie and book are based on real alleged events in Point Pleasant WV in 1966-67. There were genuine witness accounts of a winged creature with red eyes.
😨
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No I didn't see it. If I see it listed I will DVR it. I did see a few different shows about this creature. I put it in the same category as the Jersey Devil. P
 
After Reading the Post in the thread Automotive Mechanical Thread, it brought to mind how many "BOMBS" I've had over the years. We would joke that I belong to the "bomb of the month club" I'm not as good a mechanic as Bobby or Jake, but I tried hard to keep them running. I mean I parked my '59 Chevy close to a dumpster once and they took it away with the garbage.😁

Way back I wrote this poem about one of my cars. (Same '59 Chevy)

"My car maybe falling apart
But it still has plenty of heart
With a seat that does rock
And could knock off your sock
With a door depleted of it's skin
This car can take it on the chin"

I always had good intention to fix up these cars, but never could find the time. No matter what they looked like, or how they ran I was so happy they were my cars, I became attached. All of them eventually had to be junked. I had a Dodge cargo van I paid $300 for it, and she was a ugly mess but it had a large storage capacity which I needed at the time for the flea market. I loved it, it was reliable it always started for about 2 years. One day it failed to start. It turned over but would not start. I tried everything, wife said "it's time to junk it", I agreed. I felt terrible. The day the pickup truck was coming to take her away, I went out and tried to start it one last time. We'll it went off and purred like a kitten. To me it was telling me I'm still good. Wife and I discuss keeping her, but decided against it, too many things wrong with her, plus I had replaced her already.

With my wife driving I always had one reliable car for her.
 
We were invited to my daughters for Christmas dinner and festivities. I was just having one of my off days I didn't feel like going out. I told my wife to go, after some convincing she went with my other daughter that lives with us and her family.

My brother decided to visit and spend Christmas day with me, "to keep me company, we'll watch football."

I haven't spent that much time with my brother in a one-on-one situation forever.

It was great having him there, while we did have the TV on the football games we spent a lot of time reminiscing, especially about living and growing up in Brooklyn. I Found it very interesting how his memory of Brooklyn was very close to mine.

Can you look in someone's eyes and get a feeling of what they're thinking?

Looking into his eyes I kind of felt he was worried about me. I thought maybe I should talk to him about my cancer, and concerns. Other than to my wife I rarely talk about it. I told him what the radiation treatment entailed and how there were times I thought I couldn't complete the program. I would get really tired.
I explained how some of the off days I experience now I think are from the side effects of the radiation treatment and the hormone therapy, at least I hope so and that it's not from the return of the cancer. There are times I get up in the morning full of energy, and 2 hours later I will nap.

I wonder myself these days am I in a rut, why do I get so tired and weak, and I don't care about anything going on around me. Is this the best that's it's going to be?

My brother did offer to help me with some things I have to do around the property. He's four and a half years younger than me and not in the greatest physical shape either, so I won't be calling on him for assistance.

All in all it was a great day for me I didn't take a nap, we laughed a lot, and talked about getting together more often.

While we didn't have the big Christmas dinner, I did have enough food and pickings left over from Christmas Eve that we shared an enjoyable meal together.

It was a wonderful day for me, I needed it.
 
A while back my son-in-law designed and installed a pond in my back yard. It was roughly 13x15 ft. It had 2 waterfalls, and a stream. I purchased the heaviest non-toxic liner I could buy. A one ton skid load of slate was used for the perimeter of the pond, under the waterfalls, and the stream. I hand selected rocks for the visible parts of the waterfalls. I remember one of the rocks they called champagne, it was beautiful with pink running through it. I had 2 large lava stones, a red and black, I had to wear gloves to carry them, they were abrasive. There were other rocks with names I can't remember. Back then my back wasn't as problematic. There was a lot of lifting and positioning rocks/stones.

When the pond was complete it had one main large waterfall, and another smaller one that flowed into a 15" stream that curved around from the rear of the main waterfall back into the pond. the hoses ans wires to the water filter and UV light were hidden under the edging on the left side rear.

I filled and let the pond sit for 2 days to let any chlorine in the water disapate, before I started populating it. I added plant life like Water Lilies, Lotus, Egyptian papyrus, floating hydrangea and marigolds. I had a plant called Japanese Blood Grass near the top of the waterfall in the dirt.

It was fun selecting the Koi, Shubunkin and standard Goldfish, Golden Orfe, and Bull Frog tadpoles. Later I Introduced other plants and fish. There was a 10x10 ft. cement slab close to the pond where we sat and enjoyed the sound of the waterfall, ribbit of the frogs, the sight of the Golden Orfe jumping through the waterfall, birds bathing on the rocks of the waterfall, I miss it.

as long as I can remember I always had this urge to introduce Wildlife into my yard this was one example. We enjoyed the pond for a long time until I couldn't care for it then we took it down.

Just found:
Below are photo of Lily, and Lotus that were grown in the pond.

20251229_102905.jpg
 
Hedi Mitchell said:
Our beef steak tomatoes and the Roma tomatoes did extremely well this year
In fact much of what he planted was still way too much so we had to give a lot away
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That's great when we had the larger Garden we used to tell our friends and family go pick what you want there was always so much we could not use it all.

I enjoyed when people went to pick who never gardened before just seeing them fighting to get an eggplant off the plant it was enjoyable.
 
I think I might have mentioned in a prior post that I need to get another car. I am looking for a used one and I have till the end of January to find one, that's when the inspection on my present car runs out, it will not pass the inspection.

I limit my driving to must do trips like doctor/medical appointments, grocery shopping, things of that nature. I use to include garage sales to my list of must do trips, but I rarely go to GS now, I have a fear of falling. I have a rule not to drive at night.

I've been frustrated that I cannot keep up with the reading on SOC.

About 6 months ago the wife and I got new glasses. Both hers and mine were Progressive type and both we're not adjusted properly we couldn't see clearly. We went back for adjustments several times, she eventually got a new pair, frames and all, her old frames they put reading lenses in. She's still not happy. I always had excellent eyesight reading closeup without glasses. Now reading with or without glasses is difficult. My distant seeing varies. Sometimes it's okay other times it's out of focus a little. I don't know if my problem with eye clarity changing is from age, or a result of the radiation treatment. Straining to read is starting to give me headaches. What I do when that happens, I take my glasses off and lay down for awhile, that helps. Sometimes I'll fall asleep.
 
Tony, I don't envy you having to shop for a car. Seems like the pre-owned car market is very overpriced now; you can buy a new car for a couple of thousand more than a 3 year old one with 50,000 miles on the ODO. It's just crazy.

Seems to me that I had a lot of eye problems during cancer treatment; I wish I could go back and read my entire "cancer diary" thread on the old SOC to refresh my memory. I do recall my oncologist telling me to not get new glasses while in treatment because they wouldn't work afterward, so the harsh treatments do mess with vision.

I have some success enlarging my laptop screen so I can read SOC. Sometimes the screen is skewed so that I lose whatever is on the sides of the menus, but I can read the posts a lot easier. My biggest problem is my left eye, so it actually helps to cover it or close it when I'm trying to focus better. "Avast ye land lubbers!!"
 
Beth Gallagher said:
Tony, I don't envy you having to shop for a car. Seems like the pre-owned car market is very overpriced now; you can buy a new car for a couple of thousand more than a 3 year old one with 50,000 miles on the ODO. It's just crazy.

Seems to me that I had a lot of eye problems during cancer treatment; I wish I could go back and read my entire "cancer diary" thread on the old SOC to refresh my memory. I do recall my oncologist telling me to not get new glasses while in treatment because they wouldn't work afterward, so the harsh treatments do mess with vision.

I have some success enlarging my laptop screen so I can read SOC. Sometimes the screen is skewed so that I lose whatever is on the sides of the menus, but I can read the posts a lot easier. My biggest problem is my left eye, so it actually helps to cover it or close it when I'm trying to focus better. "Avast ye land lubbers!!"
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How is the recovery from eye surgery going?

Yes I agree with the eye issue I definitely felt all along that the radiation affected my vision. Some days it's better than others. I have an appointment with my oncologist for the hormone therapy on Monday I will ask her about it. I have been very disappointed with how they handled my last day of treatment all the promises about joining me and celebrating we're not kept, however they did accept the goodies I brought in pretty quickly. I have to justify it by saying to myself it must have been very busy that day. I never got to ring the bell.

I never got an explanation as to whether I'm cured or on my way to being cured. From what I'm gathering in February when they run some blood tests if it comes up normal they consider me cured. I honestly felt they would do a pet scan to visually verify the cancer is gone.

In truth it probably doesn't matter because every day I wake up and I'm breathing I say a little prayer and give thanks for another day.
 
I'm sorry you didn't get the little "celebration" at the end of treatment. I was offered the bell ringing ceremony but I declined. I have this thing about tempting fate, plus I hate having attention drawn to myself. They gave me a small brass hand bell in a box with a note on it about ringing it when I got home, which I appreciated but tossed into a drawer.

As for "cured," that is a word seldom used for cancer since there technically is no cure. The best we can hope for is remission or the newer term "NED." (No Evidence of Disease) I was proclaimed NED after my surgery found no active cancer cells in the tissue they removed, but they really have no way to know whether there are microscopic cancer cells that 'escaped' into the bloodstream or lymph system. Many breast cancer survivors are NED after treatment but end up with a recurrence, usually in a different organ. So all we can do is hope for the best and try to put it out of our minds.

It takes several months to recover from chemo and radiation, and some side effects are permanent. I believe our age also determines how well we bounce back from it. I am grateful to still be here, but I am not and never will be "back to normal."
 
I understand there is no guarantee so you can't use the word cured. They could have at least explained all that to me to let me know what the actual status is.

My disappointment for not ringing the bell was more that I had written a short poem for them.

"Thanks to msk
I'm on my way
To enjoy another day
MSK'S Angel's they do their things
I ring this bell in the hope that they all get their wings"

I got to like a lot a few of the techs and nurses it was a very interesting experience.
 
@Tony Page they probably won't give you much info for a while yet, as most blood testing is unreliable for some time after treatments are over. Usually there is follow-up testing for several years to follow. When I retired, NIH was working on a "recurrence/metastasis test". It would be a single blood test that would detect any recurrence or metastasis of the current malignancy. I don't know if that work is still ongoing, has failed, or is still in the process of certification. It would make life much easier for cancer "survivors" should that come to fruition.
 
The other night, when my wife was having BP issues, I called my daughter she lives with her family on the second floor. She didn’t even let my wife finish a sentence. She was on the phone calling 911. My wife looked that bad

This recent visit to the ER for my wife, my thoughts, was running downhill like a snowball in a mountain of snow rolling downhill and getting bigger and bigger until it's ready to burst. While sitting there watching her, I realized she's a lot more fragile than she seems. She's appears to be a strong lady.

I mean, she's a recent cancer patient in remission. A year before the cancer appeared, she had intestinal problems with 2 major surgeries within 3 months and wound up in the hospital for 10 days with each surgery, of which 3 of the days each time she was in ICU. She was septic and had peritonitis. I almost lost her twice. She has a colostomy now because of her intestinal problem. Adding to her a list of health issues is heart trouble.

I was thinking if I lost her, what would I do? She is my anchor, the main beam holding me up. I suppose I could survive, but one of the reasons for my survival would be gone. I fear the loneliness would be unbearable. I feel selfish like the "poor me syndrome." Worry about myself when my wife could be dying. All this depresses me. My worries, taking some of my sleep away, makes me tired.

It's been a couple of days since her hospital visit. Today, she is back to normal. I'm starting to be thinking better and clearer. My worries are getting lighter. It's going to be a good day.
 
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