Embarrassing way to start out the week. One of those situations that screams disorganised woman, get with it!!!! We lost the Quick Reference Card which gives me the proceedure to do a "Touch Tone Capture" for a customers credit card payment. Get the feeling we don't get too many of them? It was on the wall until it was removed and I found a safe place to put it. It's not where I put it. Had to call the bank to find out that I needed to call someplace else. Do I know what I'm doing or what? Poor customer service representative is geared towards modern technology and can't figure out what I'm talking about. "You mean you DON'T have a terminal?

Unfortunately...No. Customers don't pay at the office, they pay at the truck. Can't use a terminal in the truck. We could if we used NEXTEL/Sprint cellular phones. Problem is they don't always work where Hubby is working, which is why we use the "antique" Touch Tone Capture System. Without my Quick Reference Card, I can't punch in the days Credit card receipts. Scratch that, I mean the months only credit card payment, from the customer that Hubby did on Saturday. So...a phone call to a young lady who sounds half my age, and is more adept at the technology of the situation than I am, and I have the information I need to complete the transaction. Plus, she will be sending me a NEW Quick Reference Card. The information from this card will be copied in umpteen million different places so should I again lose the safe place I put it in, I will be able to complete transactions regardless.

I have a black hole in my house somewhere. It sucks all kinds of things into a parallel universe or something. I have a place for everything and everything is in it's place. Sounds like a plan except I keep losing the place. I think Hubby does it. I had the card in my desk drawer, I'm posolutely absitive that I put it there. Then Hubby decided to clean out my drawer. He couldn't find something that he wanted. Which wasn't in the drawer to start out with. It was in the filing cabinet where it belongs. His stuff is important, my stuff is junk. So, when he cleans my stuff out he throws it in the woodstove. He burned a paycheck of mine that way one time. I hadn't gotten to the bank with it and it was in my desk drawer, with the rest of my "junk". Must be junk....HE says it is.

Well now, he's complaining that he can't get paid on the job he did on Saturday because I lost the information I needed to complete the transaction. I should say WAS complaining. Youngest son entered into the conversation this morning by telling dear old Dad that HE was the one that took it down from the wall it hung on for 3 years. Since HE decided he needed that particular spot for a bulletin board that no one uses. They hung it together and Youngest SAW me put it in MY drawer. And just who cleaned out MY drawer? Enough said.

At just about the time I had decided that I didn't have much to post about, Hubby informed me I could talk about him. This has opened up a treasure trove of stories that I can share in my posts. Some funny, some not so funny, but all are worth telling believe me. One of the reasons I married him was because of his sense of humor. It's most likely is a product of his upbringing. He was born and raised on a farm, and his life experience is completely different from mine. I was raised in a small city. He's one of 5 children with whom he was raised. I'm the oldest of 9 on my Dad's side, but was my Mom's only child and I was raised by her. Even our upbringing is widely different. I was raised with an emphasis on education, he has an education of an entirely different kind.

Having been raised as an only child I had no experience with siblings near to my age. All my brothers and sisters on Dad's side are much younger than I am which leaves me bereft of sibling stories to share. Hubby's entire family takes the notion of "partners in crime" to new heights. Even the girls have their share of hair raising, death defying acts in their life history. I have marveled time and time again that any of them survived their childhood, much less without a broken bone in the bunch. Best I can say is farming must build strong bones because had I experienced any of their "adventures" I would have spent time in the hospital or at least with something in a cast.

One of Hubby's sisters is 3 years older than he is. With both of his parents working and all 3 boys working the farm, household responsibilities fell to her. They were all early risers because the boys needed to get out and milk the cows every day. Saturdays were no different than any other day. His sister did the bulk of the heavier housework on that day, which would include mopping and waxing the floors. Hardwood floors, on her hands and knees. When the boys were done in the barn, they were supposed to enter the house through the woodshed where things like barn boots were supposed to be changed. Barn boots were not allowed to be worn in the house.

Hubby at 9 was no different than any other child of that age. He figured that what Mom and Dad didn't know about wasn't going to hurt him. They were at work, so he didn't have to take his boots off, he was only going to be in the house for a bit, just to pick something up that he forgot to take out to the barn with him. His boots were muddy because he'd been cleaning the barn that morning, and it had rained most of the time. The woodshed opened into the dining room, and his sister had just finished paste waxing the hardwood floor there. She was waiting for the wax to harden up so she could buff the floor. Again, this was done on hands and knees with a lot of elbow grease applied. She yelled at him to take his boots off and like any 9 year old he ignored her and tracked that mud and quite possibly cow manure onto the not quite hardened paste waxed floor.

She grabbed a broom and started swinging at him. He ran around the room a couple of times, just to add insult to injury. He finally escaped out the door with sister hot on his tail still swinging the broom. She chased him across the lawn, the road and up to the barn where he started climbing the silo ladder to get away from her. By this point she was beyond frustration and into white hot anger. She discarded the broom, picked up the pitchfork that he'd left laying on the ground and without a moments hesitation threw it at him.

Fortunately Hubby has a hard head because the tines of the pitchfork broke his scalp open, and didn't pierce any bone. He was lucky, very lucky. She was frightened out of her wits because she had never seen so much blood, and she thought he was dead. She called a neighbor who told her to put a compress on it and she'd be right over. In her panic she grabbed a white bed sheet and proceeded to wrap it around his head which is what the neighbor found when she arrived. When she unwrapped the mummy, got his wounds cleaned it was discovered that no stitiches were necessary. Not that much damage had occured, head wounds bleed profusely but only for a relatively short time. The tines of the pitchfork had just grazed him.

He spent the rest of the day with a headache and she with the knowledge that Mom and Dad were not due home for a few hours and her ordeal was not yet over. There was that long wait to see what type of punishment would be meted out. Their parents didn't punish either of them because they thought the situation itself was punishment enough. It was for his sister, she never threw another thing in anger at anyone. Hubby, however, is another story.

He'll be 59 on the 25th of this month. His habit of not picking things up left a pitchfork where an angry sister could use it as a weapon against him, and 50 years later he hasn't changed. Fortunately for him I don't mop on hands and knees, because he still hasn't learned to take his boots off when they're muddy either.

I started the week out thinking I'd like to do a compilation of disco music for this Saturday night. Songs like "The Hustle" by Van McCoy, "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor, came to mind but they aren't the type of music I truly like. They don't get me up and shaking my groove thing, so I chose my songs, and decided to do a little research on those selections for my post. What a shock. NONE of the songs I call "Disco" are actually Disco in it's original form. They represent the change from Disco sound to the Dance sound that became more popular in the 1980's. The disco sound consisted of, strings, horns, electric pianos, and electric guitars. They created a lush background sound, with orchestral instruments used for solo melodies (unlike rock, lead guitar is rarely used)

Major mid-1970s disco performers included Donna Summer, The Jackson 5, Barry White, The Bee Gees, and ABBA. Many non-disco artists recorded disco songs at the height of its popularity. Films such as Saturday Night Fever and Thank God It's Friday contributed to disco's rise in mainstream popularity. While disco music declined in popularity in the early 1980s, it was an important influence on the development of the 1980s and 1990s electric dance music genres of house and techno. It also was believed to contribute to the popularity of cocaine usage, which was pretty prevalent in some clubs like Studio 54.

The transition from the late-1970s disco styles to the early-1980s dance styles was marked by the change from complex arrangements performed by large ensembles of studio session musicians (including a horn section and an orchestral string section), to a leaner sound, in which one or two singers would perform to the accompaniment of synthesizer keyboards and drum machines. In addition, dance music during the 1981-83 period borrowed elements from blues and jazz, creating a style different from the disco of the 1970s. This music was still known as disco for a short time, as the word had become associated with any kind of dance music played in discotheques.

My choices are dance music, they were played in discotheques. This is my kind of disco.

Due to some technical difficulties, I have placed the playlist in my comment section. I don't know that it's the playlist that is the problem, but some bloggers are having problems getting into my comment sections on other posts.

The only time I was ever in trouble with my Mom-in-law I had informed her that her son was a grade A slob that did not know how to pick up after himself. A case of frustration finding it's voice, that was. Unfortunately it also got me in trouble. "He didn't learn that here" was her rather firm response as she huffed out of the room. Well now, I beg to differ. He and his sisters had told me more than once that the "boys" did the barn and yard work and the "girls" did all the housework. The habit in the yard and barn was to leave whatever they were using wherever they dropped it and hunt like crazy for it when they needed it again. Oh, but, "he didn't learn that here."

All of the boys in his family are like that. Walk into brother J's garage and trip over tools, or buggy harnesses. Go to brother Babes and you'll find plumbing parts all over the place in his workspace. They get so bad at it, that most of the time they have to go and buy another one even though they may have 10 of them laying around somewhere. I hear you asking 10 of what? I don't know, 10 of whatever it is they need at the moment. Tools, plumbing parts, electrical stuff, whatever. Picking up after themselves is an alien concept for all of them which leads me to believe they did learn it at home when they were kids. Years of attempts to introduce them to the concept have met with failure on all the wives parts. To start out with they are genetically predisposed to the inability to hear us, and they can stand the mess longer than we can. It's a lose/lose situation no matter how you approach it.

In my house the question "Where's my....?" Is usually followed by the answer "Wherever you left it." It would be a gross exaggeration to say that there are days when that is the sum total of our conversation, but I have that conversation with him enough that it feels like it. Indelibly imprinted in my memory bank is the grin on his face when I give up and start looking for the missing item, while he sits down and waits for me to find it. One can unlearn any bad habit if one wants to, but why should he? As he tells me, he has a wife.

I regularly hear from customers who have found jackets, insulated vests, heavy flannel shirts, shovels, pry bars, hammers and screwdrivers on their lawns after Hubby and Sons have been there. Seems to me, with 2 or 3 people on the job, someone would take responsibility for locating and picking up everything they left laying around. Sorry, I had a weak moment. I forgot that those 2 or 3 people were men. Men that apparently learned from their Mothers that it was their wives job to pick up after them.

Ever since Monday I have been hunting for Hubby's favorite Sears Craftsman screw driver. I have no idea why he spends big bucks on Craftsman tools, they aren't guaranteed against loss, and he can't hang on to any of them long enough to wear them down or break them. I haven't been able to locate it anywhere. I've asked him almost everyday if he didn't leave it on a job someplace. His response has been that he didn't use it on a job this week. So, explain to me how I got a call from a friend of ours who found the screwdriver on the job we did for him this past Monday? When he gets home tonight I'm going to have the extreme pleasure of an "I told you so" moment. After all, when he asked me where it was, I did tell him "Wherever he left it."

My first husband had a service connected disability. He was considered to be 30% disabled because he had plastic knuckles replacing those that were damaged. He had been trapped between the bumpers of two jeeps, so along with the damaged hand his legs had been broken. The experience triggered the autoimmune disease Rheumatoid Arthritis so he spent much of his time in serious pain. He made around $300 a month for his disability. It got him free medical care at the local VA hospital, the closest one at that time was in Syracuse, NY. That was it. He was unable to work full time because of the pain but all he got was $300 a month and free medical care.

In the beginning his appointments were scheduled every 90 days. Which meant that 4 times a year, we had to leave the house by 7:30 am and make the one hour trip to Syracuse. Once there we had to find a parking place at one of the parking garages on Irving Ave, because the VA had very little parking which was usually used by employees. Once parked you had to climb a rather steep hill to get to the hospital. By the time we'd reach the door he'd be pale from the pain caused by climbing that hill on knees that were afflicted with RA. His back would be bothering him because it too was afflicted. Once in the door you reported to the desk with your appointment paper. They would hand you your files in a manilla folder that had nothing on it but a number, in color. The color corresponded with the arrow on the floor that you would be told to follow to the examination room area where your assigned doctor would see you. All morning appointments had to be checked in by 9 am. If you were as little as 5 minutes late your morning appointment was cancelled and you were reassigned an afternoon appointment. This created a 4 hour wait, and if you travelled any distance you were stuck there. Even if you were on time, there was no guarantee you would be seen by the doctor at anything approaching your appointment time.

You followed the correct arrow until you came to a short hallway where chairs would be lined up along the wall. This was the waiting area. Sometimes you could sit in one of those chairs from 9 in the morning until lunch time and if you hadn't been seen you had to come back after lunch and wait some more. Until you were seen by the doctor you carried your medical records with you because you might not see the same doctor you saw last time, and because when you were called in, the nurse called you by number, not name. I don't think he ever saw any doctor more than 2 times, contitnuity of care was nonexistant. After the exam by your "doctor of the day", you were either sent to the lab, or for x-rays, or to the pharmacy for your 90 days worth of prescribed medications. If these were meds you needed you better make sure you got to the next appointment or you were out of luck. If you were really lucky enough to get done by 4:45pm, you then had 15 minutes to get to Travel Finance for your "Travel Funds". They amounted to somewhere around $12 depending on how far you had to travel to get there. If the office was closed, you got nothing. It was not at all uncommon to be there for 10 hours, and this just for an appointment that would take an hour at a civilian doctors office.
Since you paid with so much time, I used to wonder why it was called "free".

My ex husband had to have surgery two times during the time we were married. He had a transurethral prostatectomy because of enlarged prostate which turned out to be cancerous. I didn't know. Family was not addressed in any way. When I arrived on the floor after his first surgery and saw all the blood in his foley, I was scared. They wouldn't even tell me whether or not this was normal. It wasn't. Some blood is, but not nearly as much as he was producing. The doctors did not talk to you, the floor staff did not talk to you. They spoke to the patient only and the family didn't exist, or count in any way. He faced his cancer with no help from me because he was in denial, and didn't tell me. I, as his wife was not allowed into the room when he was told that the biopsy results were positive. I was not in the room to hear him refuse any treatment of any kind and he died because he waited until it metastasized to his brain before he would accept treatment. Would it have mattered?

After his surgery he became abusive, and I separated from him for my own safety and well being. At first it was verbal abuse which broke my heart because I had no idea what had changed. Then he shoved me and I fell onto the coffee table. We agreed to disagree, and I moved out. It wasn't until after I met my present husband that I found out he had cancer and figured out that had been the cause of our trouble. His erratic and abusive behavior was most likely a result of dealing with the monster of cancer that he chose to battle alone. I agree it was his choice, but if the VA had bothered to include the family in it's treatment of it's Veterans it might have been possible to save him. It took 7 years for him to die and that was without any early treatment. What would have happened with early treatment? Would he have become abusive? Would he have frightened me with the change in his personality? All questions that have no answers because back then the VA excluded family during the treatment process.

We were divorced when he died. He had another woman, they were living together. He had petitioned for a 100% disability because he no longer could work at all. He was denied. I guess the government felt that his hospital stays and chemotherapy were costing them enough, and cancer isn't considered service connected anyways. The problem I had with it at the time was that he was applying for non service connected disability. He couldn't get Social Security disability because you have to be employed, and with cancer of the brain, he wasn't. He was finally awarded SSI which did little good because he was all ready dead. His girlfriend was furious with me because the only time I mattered at the VA hospital was the night he died. Despite instructions from his brother, the hospital called me to notify me of his death. We hadn't been together then in 5 years, but his OLD records indicated that I was his wife. So they called me instead of his brother who he had listed on his then CURRENT admission papers as his next of kin.

I haven't had any reason to explore the VA's treatment methods now. I know a clinic has been opened in the former base hospital building at what is now the Griffiss Business and Technology Park. I hope that Veterans and their families receive better and more compassionate treatment than they did back then. I hope that no further veterans or their families are ever treated with so little dignity or compassion. I hope that finally our veterans have, in the eyes of the VA administration, become people, not numbers. I hope, but I doubt it.