There have always been a number of things in this world that annoy me, such as people who don’t know how to drive. Taxes and the Internal Revenue Service. Screaming children in public places. Stupid people.

Tonight, I’m going to talk about stupid people. Now, you must understand that there are a few different types of stupid people. The first type is the kind of stupid person who can’t help their affliction….it’s just in their family’s gene pool. This type of person is easier tolerated because they are at least for the most part somewhat nice.

The next type of stupid person is the one who refuses to accept the fact that they are stupid, no matter how many times the proof is presented to them. They go through life saying things like, “if a dog doesn’t die within 48 hours after being hit by a car, then they’ve got a better chance of living…” Yes, I knew someone who actually said that. This type of person will also say something along the lines of, “I don’t believe in the slaughter of innocent animals just so that people can eat things like beef or hamburger, and that’s why I’m a vegetarian.” Never mind the fact that this person was eating a McDonald’s hamburger when she said it. This same person also made the claim that “snails should not be stomped on because that is where we get salt from.” When the facts are presented to this type of stupid person, they will refuse to believe it and spout off even more stupidity. Even so, this person can be tolerated, but only in very small doses.

The 3rd type of stupid person is the kind that will intentionally set out to be vicious towards someone else for no good reason at all. Examples of this type of person are the head cheerleader in high school who will walk up to a fat girl in the hallway and ask her if she knows just how fat she is…or the guy who will cheat on his wife and then come home and accuse her of being the one cheating. These stupid people are completely unworthy of being tolerated to any degree. They are not only stupid, they are just plain mean and should not be allowed to function in society.

Then there’s what I call the “Internet Idiots”. These people surpass all comprehension when it comes to stupid. They will troll around blog sites and leave unwarranted insults towards the blog’s author. They will criticize and ridicule unmercifully because they think that they’re safe from retaliation just because they are sitting at home in front of a computer. They will invade your MySpace page and leave nasty remarks about your pictures. They will whatever they can to stir up trouble in a public forum and cackle at their “accomplishment”. Now, the worst part about this kind of stupid person is that they actually defeat the purpose of attacking people in public forums. Their biggest mistake is that they don’t use a little something called “spellcheck”. It’s a handy little program that makes sure that your words are spelled correctly, and it’s found on most sites that provide a forum in which to make a comment. It’s very easy to use and is almost always free, yet here these people are…posting away and not bothering to check that they have made any sense at all. A good example of this is a comment that I saw just this evening, “That was a bit stipid and boring. Try putting some images or videos on your blog instead. Also, change the background, it make it look like this blog is being run by a old lady!” Yeah, that’s a direct copy & paste from the blog I found it on. Now, this person attempted to be a smart ass, but only succeeded in proving herself to be stupid. And a bitch. Now, it’s bad enough to be a bitch, but when you’re also a stupid bitch…well, it’s just sad. Unfortunately, this was one stupid bitch who got called out…in public even. Everyone who saw the comment went over to this twat’s own blog to see who this vile person was.

Had this person’s comment not been so hateful, anyone who stumbled onto her blog would have probably assumed that she was in the “it’s not their fault” category of stupid people. First, there was her “100 Things”. I couldn’t help but laugh. Here, I’ll post them for you:

1. I got the main part in a musical
2. I once lived in Italy
3. I met Miley Cyrus
4. I once went on TV
5. I have been to Hollywood
6. Got my nickname (Hollywood) because I love to sing
7. I like pizza
8. My favorite icecream is Chocolate Chip Cookie-dough
9. I have a little crush on Cody Linely
10. My favorite place to be is on stage
11. I love my family
12. I love god
13. I have at least 6,000 friends
14. I LOVE chinese food
15. I'm spanish, italian, and american (duh)
16. I was born in California
17. I have dirty blonde hair
18. My eyes are aqua
19. MY favorite color is blue
20. I LOVE peeps
21. I get hyper very easily
22. I'm obsessed with American Idol
23. My best friend is a microphone
24. I love the blog "A Girl Named Roxie"
25. I'm addicted to soda
26. ILOVE peeps!!!!!!!
27. I hate girls who act like plastic barbie dolls such as "Paris Hilton".
28. I am white
29. I love warm places like Jamaica and Florida
30. I like blonde tan beach boys
31. I LOVE BLOGSTREAM!!!
32. I love COOKIE DOUGH!
Pretty comical, huh? Now, to make matters even worse, this stupid bitch did a ‘drop and retreat’ attack on the author of a very popular blog. She posted her ridiculous comment and then went on about her business, when what she SHOULD have done was immediately deleted her account and gone to a different blog host. You see, there are those out there, like ME, that despise unprovoked attacks so much that he will use his own popularity on the blog site to spread the word about stupid bitches such as this.

Now, here’s my take on who this bitch REALLY is. She’s in her mid to late teens and still in high school. Her grades suck because every time she takes a test, her Barbie ink pen runs dry and she can’t find a pencil in her Bratz bookbag. By the time that it occurs to her to ask someone if she can borrow a pen, the test is over and she gets a 0 on it. She’s not too concerned about it though because school doesn’t mean much to her anyway. You see, she’s got a job at Walmart and her assistant manager has told her that she could be head cashier in 5 years if she tries hard enough. Hey, on a head cashier’s salary, she could buy that single wide trailer she’s always wanted and have it paid off in 30 years!! She is the kind of person who will go out with a guy drinking and then accuse him of rape when her parents discover the used condom under her covers the next morning. She adores Brittany Spears and thinks that her idol got a raw deal on her custody case, but she’s like, you know, so HOT for Kevin Federline and all! She’s the girl who will invite her friends from school over for a slumber party on Saturday night and then raid her parent’s liquor cabinet after the parents have gone to bed. The next morning, she’ll blame her BFF for everything just to keep herself out of trouble.

I actually COULD say who this person is here on Blogstream, but that’s not really my style. Doing something like that is comparable to what some sleazy tabloid would do to a HOLLYWOOD star…you know..embarrass them in public. Besides, much like the HOLLYWOOD sign in California, she’ll eventually be noticed, thus saving me the trouble of having to announce who she is on my blog. I tell you…this whole thing with people doing mean shit on the internet just to be mean is like some sort of nonsense like you’d see on a mini series like the one that came out in 1985 called HOLLYWOOD Wives!

So, now that I’ve said my peace, it’s time to head off to bed. I’ve got another long week coming up, so I definitely need my rest! I’ve got to spend a lot of time studying for the test that I have to take for this class I’m in at work….if I don’t study then I’m afraid I’ll look STIPID in front of my colleagues!

G’nite everyone!

Ok, I’m about to BUST to tell my ghost story that I’ve been TRYING to tell for two weeks now! Every time that I try though, Blogstream times me out and I lose the post…it’s almost as though someone…or some-THING doesn’t WANT me to write it! Hmmmm…..

So here’s the story…..
Back in the summer of 1977, my family moved into a small house that sat on top of a hill…it was a very cute little house with a picture window and a very nice (and large) yard. My parents had wanted to move into the country, and this house was about as far into the country as you could get! At the time, the house had been there for about 25 years or so and had gone through many different owners over the years. Almost immediately after we moved in, my mom started to figure out WHY it’d gone through so many different owners!

My mother was always somewhat ‘sensitive’….she fully believed in things that couldn’t be explained away. I guess that’s why she was the first one of us to notice that things weren’t exactly right about this house we’d just moved into. One night well after she’d put us kids to bed, she was in the living room watching tv when she saw a reflection out of the corner of her eye in the picture window that took up almost ½ of the living room wall. She thought that one of us kids had gotten out of bed and looked into the hallway…but there was no one there. This actually happened quite a few times before she finally got the wits scared out of her one night. She’d put us all to bed and was sitting on the couch this time (which faced directly towards the picture window)…she was watching tv, but also keeping an eye on the window…determined to “catch” whomever it was that was getting out of bed and creeping into the hallway. We kids had been in bed for about an hour when she saw the reflection clearly in the window of someone standing in the hallway. This time though, instead of just seeing it out of the corner of her eye, she could see it fully…and it wasn’t one of us kids! It was a man!! She screamed bloody murder and that of course woke all of us up…I remember going into the living room and seeing her standing in the middle of the room looking very scared, which of course scared the hell out of ME! She didn’t tell us what had happened, but ended up having a “camp out” in the living room that night…she set up a makeshift “tent” out of blankets and we all slept there the rest of the night.

Not too long after that incident, my sister started talking about this nightmare that she was having every night where she’d wake up and feel someone standing over her bed. She was too afraid to move, so she’d just lay there until she was able to go back to sleep. One night though, she said that she’d woken up in the middle of the night and felt there was someone standing there, but this time she felt as though this ‘person’ was holding a gun! This time, she started to turn over to see once and for all who this was, but when she tried to turn over, she couldn’t. It was almost like someone was holding her down. Of course, when she was talking about all of this, my mother would turn white as a sheet and then tell my sister that she was just having bad dreams and not to eat so close to going to bed anymore.

The summer of 1978, after we’d been in the house for a year, my Aunt Sandy moved in with us. She’d decided that she didn’t want to live in Wisconsin anymore and figured North Carolina would be a good place to get a fresh start. My mother was only too happy to let her stay with us because she had always been close to Aunt Sandy even though there was a 12 year age difference. When she moved in, Angie (my sister) found herself sharing her bedroom with Aunt Sandy. It wasn’t too terrible because Aunt Sandy was only 18 at the time and Angie was 10…they had their fights, but for the most part it worked out well. Not long after she moved in, Aunt Sandy started telling my mom that either Kenny (my brother) or I was getting out of bed during the middle of the night and sneaking into Angie’s bedroom. She said that she could hear someone in the room and she’d wake up to see a figure in the room with them. Naturally, Kenny and I both denied it, but Aunt Sandy swore that it was one of us boys..who else could it be?? One night, Aunt Sandy decided that she was going to “catch” me or my brother when we “snuck” into the room during the night. She laid there awake but nothing happened, so she finally went to sleep. Late in the evening, she heard something and woke up to see a shadow standing in the doorway that led into the hall. She reached down beside her bed and got one of her shoes and threw it as hard as she could at the door…she was pissed AND scared because she still thought that Kenny or I was playing a trick on her. Well, she got even MORE scared when the shoe went flying straight into the hallway and slammed against my mom’s bedroom door! (The hallway was in the middle of the house and was sort of an octagon shape that connected the bedrooms, living room, and bathroom.) I remember that night very clearly because it woke my mom up and she ended up coming into my bedroom and waking both Kenny and I up because Aunt Sandy SWORE that one of us was standing in the doorway!

It’s here that I should explain that all of these things happened mostly on weekends, and always on nights that my father wasn’t at home. At this time, he was part owner of a bar in town and would often work from early evening until dawn. Of course some of the times he was out with his girlfriend at the disco in Greensboro, but that’s a story for another time! Anyway, when my dad would hear about these things, he’d just chalk it up to my mom and Aunt Sandy both being somewhat ‘kooky’. Of course when any of us kids told him about this stuff, he’d get pissed at mom and Aunt Sandy for telling us kids “ghost stories” to scare us!

The 1978-79 school year, I was in 3rd grade and the teacher’s assistant for my class had a group of us kids drawing pictures of the house we lived in. I drew a picture of my house, which of course showed the big picture window in the front…when the teacher’s assistant saw my picture she asked me about the big window. So I told her that I lived in a house with a big window in the front of it…no big deal to me. Ms. Paschal (the TA’s name) started asking me a bunch of questions about the house and then finally asked me where I lived. I remember that when I told her where it was she got a strange look on her face and told me, “your house has always scared the dickens out of me!” I remember being a little surprised by that, and told her that my mom thought that the place was haunted. I don’t remember her reaction, but I do remember that she told me that she’d grown up in a house that was just a few miles from where I lived….her house was on a hill (as mine was) and she said in the early morning that there would be this bright reflection coming into her living room from off in the distance…and it would make the strangest shadows on her living room wall. She said that later on she learned that the reflection was coming from a little house that sat on a hill…my house. Long story short, her uncle ended up owning the house at one point and she’d spent the night there when she was a teenager. She said that as the sun was setting that afternoon, she saw a bright light shining into the window of her uncle’s (my) house….it was coming from HER house! (Which also had a picture window in front) She said it was so strange because it was almost as though the houses were ‘signaling’ each other or something! What was really cool (or odd) was that I had noticed the same thing when the sun was setting…there was this bright reflection from off in the distance that went right into our living room!

In late Spring of 1980, my mom and dad told us kids that we were moving away. Another long story short, my dad had been in a car accident a couple of weeks before and for some reason was afraid that the other person involved was going to sue him, so his solution was to move out of town. Go figure. Anyway, I was pretty upset about this development because even though the place spooked me sometimes, I still loved where we lived. The yard was the best…I loved going outside and playing in the yard and even venturing into the woods that surrounded the place…there was one area in particular just inside the woods that had a little stream I liked going to. Anyway, one of the last times I played in that yard, I remember walking up the hill towards the house and I was just sort of walking along looking down at my feet. I remember sensing that someone was walking towards me, so I looked up and what I saw still sends chills up and down my body when I think about it. There was an older man, probably in his 60s or so, wearing a black suit & tie walking down the hill towards me! I saw him as clearly as I can see this monitor I’m looking at as I type this!! He looked straight at me and sort of smiled and then tipped his hat at me. THAT >>REALLY<< scared me…I guess it was because not only had I seen HIM, but HE’D seen ME!!! So I took off running like the Road Runner with a stick of dynamite up his ass and went flying into the house….I ran (literally!) into my mother and told her what happened. She asked me if the “man” had tried to hurt me or anything and I said no. So she tells me not to worry, it’s just the ghost!

The blow-by-blow experiences that my mother had at this house weren’t related to me by her until a number of years after we’d moved away, so some of the stuff that happened didn’t make sense at the time, but did after I found out what had happened. (Such as waking us up in the night, and the camping out thing).

Now…there are a couple of things that still disturb me to this day. You all may think ol’ BryM is a bit flaky after I say this, but here goes. First of all, the incident where I ‘saw’ the ‘man’ in the yard? Over the years, I’d managed to convince myself that it was my very overactive imagination that day…until a couple of years ago when my cousin Chris and I were talking and he asked me if I remembered the man who tipped his hat to US that day in my yard!! I asked him how he knew about that…as it turns out, he was there with me when it happened!!! I had NOT remembered that!! He even told me about me running so fast that I almost tore the screen door off its hinges when I got to the back porch AND that I ran straight into my mother! Of course he knew this because apparently he was hot on my heels the whole time!! Talk about CHILLS!!!

Another thing that’s really eerie about that place. Of all the places that my family lived while I was growing up, and there were a LOT!…this little house on the hill has always fascinated me. I’ve always felt drawn to that house…I have literally had dreams about the place. One that sticks out in my head was several years back, I dreamed that I went back there and was quite upset because someone had moved in and remodeled the place…and that same person had sold part of the property around the house, allowing another house to be built very close to it. I had a gnawing feeling in my gut for a few days after that…you know how a dream will just stick with you?? Well, I decided one day to get it out of my system, and I drove to Siler City where the house is located. It’s a good hour’s drive from where I live now, but I just HAD to go. I hadn’t been anywhere near the house since about 1985 when I’d moved back for a year (in a different house)….I remember being a bit sad that the area around the place had changed a lot…what had once been acres of woods was now filled with houses. The closer I got to my old house though, the faster my heart started beating. I finally came to where it was and pulled off the side of the road. I could have had a stroke when I saw that there was indeed a new house almost directly BEHIND my old house!! In fact, the new house shared the driveway to my old house… a fact that STILL bothers me! I just sat there and looked at the house for several minutes remembering how much I had loved that place. Just as I decided I’d better get going, I looked over and realized that I’d left my digital camera in my car…something I RARELY do. So I snapped a picture of the place and told myself that I’d probably never go back there again. I never did find out if someone had remodeled the house…I guess I was too afraid to find out! So the picture I’ve added to this post is that house…the picture was taken in 1999…other than the house behind it, the place itself hadn’t changed all that much…the trees to the right line the driveway…they were just little saplings when I lived there. The huge pine tree in the front yard that my sister fell out of is gone..which is probably why the OTHER one got so big! I’ve not been back to that house since the day I took this picture…and not sure if I ever will go back. Unless of course, the following turns out to be true….read on:

When I was a teenager, my mother worked with a lady named Pj. Pj was an odd woman to say the least…she claimed to be Wiccan, which in itself sort of unnerved me. Anyway, one day she asked me if I wanted my palm read. Of course, being the kook that I am, I said yes. Pj then proceeded to read my palm and here’s what she told me: I would be married twice in my life. My first marriage would end when she was killed in some sort of accident. My second wife would be the one who was my true “soul mate”. I would have 5 children, 3 of which would be illegitimate, and the other 2 from my second wife. Now, I should note that NONE of that has come true…especially the children part. I’ve never been all that anxious to have kids, so I knew even back then it was a longshot that I’d have ONE, much less FIVE!

So, to continue…Pj then tells me that I’m a “very old soul”…meaning that I’ve actually lived “several lives” before and that I’m also very intuitive and wise beyond my years. Back then I just sort of laughed that off, but it would turn out that wouldn’t be the last time that I was told about being an “old soul”…..anyway….I may have laughed off the ‘old soul’ stuff, but Pj got my attention when she told me that when I was younger I had actually had an encounter with MYSELF after my ‘final’ life had ended! I am sure that I looked like one of those cartoon characters whose hair stands straight on end with their eyes bugging out of their head when she said that! So I told her about seeing the ‘man’ in my yard that day….here’s her theory on that: very possibly in one of my ‘former incarnations’ I had some connection to that house..possibly the original owner who had built the place…and that in ‘this life’ my soul was still connected to that house. As a result, after ‘this life’ ends, I have the ability to go back to this house…during any time that I desire….meaning that the “ghost” of this place is actually ME!! Sort of a ‘reward’ for my ‘old soul’ having accomplished doing good during all those ‘lives’.

Now…the skeptical side of me thinks something like THAT is just too preposterous. I’ve heard a LOT of theories about paranormal stuff in my life, but NOTHING like that before. However, one just never knows for sure about the way that things really work. Whatever the case though…I think anyone would be hard pressed to have a ghost story that they find THEMSELVES as being the ghost!!!



Here's the house:

Last night was an adventure in dining here in my little hometown of Fuquay-Varina. We have gotten a new steak house named “Ribeyes”. It’s supposed to be a pretty good place to eat, so Chris and I (along with a couple of other friends) decided to try it out.

We got to the restaurant at about 6:30, and checked in with the ‘hostess’…a sickly thin looking girl with black stringy hair and hip hugger bellbottom slacks. I decided to name her Morticia. I have a bad habit of doing that to people I don’t know, based on their first impression. For example, all snotty rich girls from Cary, NC are named Kirsten. Their mothers are all named Barb, and their fathers are named Jim. If I decide they have brothers, then the brothers are named Chip or Neil. Hey, it’s something to do and it’s very entertaining at parties.

Anyway, Morticia took our friend Stan’s last name and gave him one of those round thingies that lights up and vibrates when your table is ready. We went to the waiting area, where we proceeded to, well, wait. And wait. And wait. And wait. Finally, at about 7:15, I approached Morticia and asked her how much longer it would be. She told me, “10 minutes at the most.” Naturally, I wasn’t pleased, but I decided that I’d not make a scene right at that time. Morticia had no idea how lucky she was that I spared her. I’m quite good at expressing my dislike for being kept waiting at a restaurant..or any other public place.

Unfortunately, Morticia took for granted that I had been so patient with her because at 7:30 I approached her again to inquire about when we would be seated. She then had the nerve to tell me that it would be “20 minutes at most.” Poor Morticia. So young. So thin. So stupid. I took a step closer and lifted the sheet on her clipboard and found where my friend Stan’s last name had been crossed out. I asked her how she’d planned to seat us when she’d crossed out the name on her list. She then started to explain that when she’d called out his last name that some other folks had come up….apparently they had the same last name.

Poor Morticia. She had no idea who she was dealing with. Clearly, she’d thought she was dealing with an idiot. I asked her, “if you give out the disks with the lights on it to signify to a customer that their table is ready, why did you call out the last name and not just activate the disk?” Before she could answer, I said, “since you decided to give our table away and keep us waiting for an hour, I’d suggest that you get your anorexic ass into gear and get us a table within the next 30 seconds, or I will find your manager and get HIM to do it for you.” She decided to press her luck and give me this look of “EXCUSE ME?!” Apparently, that look bodes well for her when she’s making a bitch of herself in senior English class at school, but I’m not Mr. Smith, the teacher who’s trying to avoid a lawsuit or get into her pants, so I told her, “I didn’t mean stand there and look at me like I’ve got a booger in my nose, I meant for you to get your ass in gear and find a table for us or I’ll let everyone in this restaurant know that there’s a huge rat sitting under the salad bar….now MOVE!” It’s here that I should explain that I’m not normally such a bastard. However, I’m not the sort of person who appreciates being lied to. If a mistake was made, then it should be admitted to. I would have been pissed, but I wouldn’t have destroyed the little twit like I did.

Once we’re FINALLY seated, our waiter Raul came over and introduced himself. He was all of 8 years old and had sideburns. This was apparently his first job outside the country club and he was quite impressed with himself. He handed out the menus and explained to us how lucky we were to be dining in Fuquay-Varina’s finest new restaurant. The first thing he did was pronounce “Fuquay” wrong. It’s pronounced FEW-kway….the surest sign to spot a transplant is when I hear it pronounced FOO-kway….which is what Raul was doing. Poor Stan. Poor Rich. Poor Chris. They looked at each other as they heard the click of my shotgun as I locked and loaded..ready for my assault. Poor Raul. He never saw it coming.

“First of all, after having waited for an hour to get a table, please do not tell me how lucky we are for eating here. Secondly, this place used to be the Golden Corral and I’m just hoping that the green blob that used to be in the kitchen back then has since been killed. Third, if you are going to work in a public job in this town, for GOD’S SAKE, learn how to pronounce the name of the place! It’s FEW-kway!!”

Raul must be Morticia’s boyfriend. Or brother. They were very similar. He stood with a blank look on his face for a minute. Chris finally broke the silence and said that he’d like to have tea to drink. Raul very nervously took the rest of our drink orders and then came back in a couple of minutes to get our food order. Raul unwittingly opened himself up for another attack when I told him I’d like steak fries with my steak. After all, this IS a steak house, right?

“Oh sir, we don’t serve fries with our steaks. We have baked potatoes or sweet potatoes only. They are very delicious…they’re GRILLED.” Question one: how in the HELL do you GRILL a baked potato? Question two: if I wanted a BAKED POTATO, why would I have asked for FRIES? It was then that I realized that our little steak house was actually trying to set themselves apart from the other restaurants in the area….in other words, they were looking to be the new ‘snotty’ place in town. I knew then what I had to do.

I went into my finest Thurston Howell voice and informed Raul that I would have the baked po-TA-to with sour cream and just a pinch of chives. On the side, please. Poor Raul looked puzzled….then I ordered my steak. I asked him to please be sure to tell the chef that I liked my steak to be medium well, but with the slightest hint of pink in the middle. Preferably the shade of pink that Marilyn Monroe wore in the 1957 production of “How to Marry a Millionaire”. Chris, Stan, and Rich were trying their best not to laugh. They just HATE when I get like that.

So as we’re waiting for the food, Stan informed me that someone would most likely shit on my steak because I was being such a dick. Of course, having worked in the kitchen of a restaurant in the past, I know what signs to look for that my food has been “tampered with”, so I assured him that it would be a grave mistake for anyone to do such a thing.

When the food finally arrived, I do have to admit that it wasn’t half bad. Yes, I made sure that mine hadn’t been booby trapped with a bomb or any other sort of foreign objects before I started eating. I was a bit disappointed with the po-TA-to though. It was under cooked. No matter…I hate baked potatoes anyway.

When we were done eating, Raul came over and asked how we wanted the checks to be done. Stan was treating Rich (since it was Rich’s birthday) and Chris and I were paying separately. Not hard to understand. Unless of course you are only 8 years old with sideburns and impressed by the lack of French fries. So he brings out the checks. Stanley and Rich on one…and Chris and I on the other.

No, he didn’t get a tip.
Yes, that was my first…and LAST trip to this place.

>>>>In other news:

Kevin is doing ok at the Hospice Center. The decision was made to bring in Christmas decorations because his one wish was to make it to Christmas time. So he now believes that it’s late December, in hopes that he’ll be able to let go. He did manage to have several minutes of ‘lucid’ time yesterday and was a little confused about how he’d managed to sleep for two months and wake up alive! Cindy said that he actually chuckled about it! The important thing though is that he thinks that it’s Christmas…his favorite holiday.

Physically, he’s still steadily going downhill. He’s now jaundiced, which is an indication that the liver has either shut down or is in the process of doing so. He’s also not having any more of the ‘daily bodily functions of eliminating waste’ going on, if you know what I mean. Also a sign that it’s getting close to his time to go. Chris and I don’t know if we’ll go and visit him up there…frankly, I’m having a hard enough time dealing with this without seeing him in even worse shape than he was before. Remember, I’ve been through this before with my mother and grandmother. I’m just not convinced I’ve got it in me to face the situation again.

So that’s all for now.

My heart sank down to the bottom of my feet when I pulled into my subdivision after work this afternoon. I saw a bunch of cars lined along the street in front of Cindy & Kevin’s house. You can well imagine what my first thought was, so I called Cindy from my cell phone and told her, “Please tell me you’re having a party…..” She was very upset and could barely talk, so I parked my truck and went running over. There were a bunch of people I’d never met sitting on her porch, but I just went breezing past them and into the house. I saw Kevin in his bed (it’s in the living room) and at first it looked like he was dead. Then I saw him breathing and I felt better..but not for long.

Cindy gave me the news that the guys from the Hospice Center in Raleigh were on their way down to take Kevin away. I knew it was happening this week, but the news still hit me like a ton of bricks. That wasn’t made any easier when Cindy told me that Kevin won’t be coming home. She’d finally had to accept the fact that she could no longer care for Kevin by herself…that in itself was an extremely difficult thing to do. More difficult though was when Kevin woke up this afternoon and Cindy had to tell him about what was going on. She made the decision to tell him that he was only going for a few tests and would be home tomorrow. He was in a coherent state at the time and seemed to be ok with that, but I think he also knew in the back of his mind that he wasn’t coming home.

I was actually quite proud of myself. Before the ambulance arrived, I was solid as a rock, even when everyone else was breaking down. I’m normally like that in times like these though…I may be falling apart inside, but on the outside I keep a stiff upper lip. It’s kind of a bad thing at times though because people will gravitate towards me for strength…strength I often just don’t have.

When the ambulance finally pulled up and the guys got out and introduced themselves to Cindy, the reality of the situation started to creep up on me. It wasn’t until they put him onto the stretcher that I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around only to have reality bitch slap me. All of a sudden it occurred to me that this would probably be the last time that I was going to see Kevin alive. Yes, it was very tough and I didn’t handle it well as they started to take Kevin out of the house. I will give kudos to the three men who picked him up though…they were extremely nice and respectful to everyone, including Kevin. They treated him with the dignity that he deserves. They were very careful not to hurt him when they put him on the stretcher, and they made sure that he was covered up with a sheet AND blanket before going outside…it’s been very rainy and chilly here today. I watched until they were almost out the door and then I had to turn around. I just couldn’t watch these guys take Kevin out the door…even if I know it’s the best thing for him.

The silence in that house is deafening now. Chris and I stayed and ate dinner with Cindy, and thankfully a friend of hers from work is going to spend the night there. She’ll be going to the Hospice Center in the morning to see Kevin. She would have gone this evening, but felt it would be best to let them get him settled in first. I’m glad…she needs to try and get some rest. She’s going to need it.

So…now we’re all really in the ‘brace yourselves’ mode around the cul-de-sac. It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets any better unfortunately.

For those of you out there who have been following all of my posts about Kevin, I thought it might be nice to put a face with the name. I found this picture on my computer...it's from Christmas 2005. Kevin is the tall guy sitting in the wooden chair. It's not a great picture of him, but unfortunately it's the only one I've got on the computer.





That's it for tonight. I hope everyone has a good Friday tomorrow. Thank you all for your kind words and prayers...it has meant a lot to me!

Well, today was another interesting one. Maybe “interesting” isn’t the right word. Actually, these days, it’s hard to find a good word to describe this chaos that has become my life. I guess I shouldn’t bitch too much though…it could always be MUCH worse I suppose!

The phone rang at 6:30 this morning. It was Cindy calling to ask me if I could come over and help her get Kevin back into his bed. She’s had a hospital bed set up in the living room for the last couple of weeks. Anyway, Kevin had somehow managed to get out of bed, walk a few steps, and then come crashing down to the floor. Naturally, I threw on some clothes and went right over. I got there and walked into the living room…it wasn’t a pretty sight. Kevin was laying in a heap on the floor with just a pillow and a blanket…which I thought was a little bit odd. So anyway, Cindy and I start what turned into a major ordeal of trying to get Kevin back into his bed. Lifting him is already hard enough due to the fact that he’s 6’5” tall and still weighing about 175lbs (all of which at this point is dead weight), but the difficulty is compounded by the fact that you can’t grab him around the waist or stomach because that is where a lot of swelling is going on due to the cancer, AND you can’t grab him around the chest area and lift because of the broken collarbone he’s got!! The first ten minutes was Cindy and I trying our best to lift him by the arms without hurting him…we were successful in not hurting him, but we weren’t very lucky in getting him INTO the bed at first.

THANKFULLY, the “real” Kevin came back just long enough to be able to get up on his knees and get all but his legs onto the bed. It’s just so bizarre when that happens. One second, he’s this completely incoherent mass of muscle and bone who can barely speak and then the next he’s our Kevin again…unfortunately not for very long though. Anyway, once he got all but his legs onto the bed, we were able to get him the rest of the way on there. Of course, once we got him completely on the bed, “Kevin” was gone again. It may sound strange when I say things like ‘the real Kevin’, but really..it’s like dealing with two very different people. Strangely enough though, I’m glad that the man I once knew isn’t ‘around’ for all of this stuff going on. I know that when he’s locked away deep inside his mind somewhere that he’s not suffering and he’s still got his dignity.

Once we got Kevin back into bed, I asked Cindy how he’d managed to grab a pillow and blanket after he’d fallen, and then she said something that made me want to read her the riot act….she told me that he’d actually fallen at around 4:30 this morning and that she had gotten up and put the pillow and blanket down there with him. She said that there was no way she was going to call me or Chris for help at that time of the morning and she’d decided to just keep an eye on our house and call when she saw lights come on!! I didn’t read her the riot act, but I very firmly told her that when I say that she can call me ANYTIME that she needs help that I mean ANYTIME, whether it’s 4 in the afternoon or 4 in the morning! I told her, “it’s not like I have to travel a great distance to come over…my house is only a few hundred feet from yours!” I know she was just trying to be considerate, and she did make sure that Kevin was ok even though he was on the floor…but that’s beside the point. As good as Kevin and Cindy have been to Chris and me over the years, it’s my RESPONSIBILITY to be available any time of day or night that I’m needed!

Ok…on to other things:

>>>Work is proving to be an adventure these days as well. First, there’s the training class that I’m in that is teaching me how to do the job I’ve already been doing for the last month and a half. It’s not bad, and I actually HAVE learned a couple of things that I didn’t already know, but it’s SO boring! Then there’s the deal about my “back up” who has been doing anything BUT backing me up! The good thing about that is that I’m not going to be held responsible for my work not being done during my 3 weeks of class!

“Crazy Man” is also still lurking in the shadows. I did find out today that it’s not just me who finds him not only very annoying, but very creepy. The girls in the class were all going to have lunch together and invited me and another guy to come along. However, they did make a point of NOT inviting Crazy Man….which of course really made him mad, especially when he found out that me and the other guy were invited! So what does Crazy man do? He shows up at the restaurant where the girls are having lunch! I’m figuring he was thinking that they’d see him and invite him to join them….but that didn’t happen. In fact, they completely ignored him. Too funny. Normally, I’d feel a twinge of sympathy for that happening to someone…but not this knucklehead. He brings it on himself.

>>>I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this or not, but I did something recently that is COMPLETELY out of character for me: I bought a Christmas present BEFORE the month of December arrived!! That has NEVER happened before!! The lucky recipient? My sister Angie..I bought her a very pretty Christmas watch. I’m wondering if I should give it to her early though…if I wait until Christmas then she’ll only get to wear it a short time before the holiday is over.

Well, that’s going to wrap it up for now.