I am going to wimp out and use Isabelle for this post because I have too much to do to get ready for Halloween to be creative in my posting today.

Isabelle loves to tell people she loves them all the time and that they are beautiful or handsome depending on whether they are a boy or girl. She probably will tell us 5 times in one day. Yesterday she told me, “Oh Grandma, I love you. You are so beautiful. Except your bangs. You should do something about your bangs.” Honesty, you gotta love it.

When I dropped her off at her mommy’s yesterday, she was telling Ashley that her daddy was going to meet them at my house and then he was going to take her trick-or-treating in my neighborhood. (Neither Ashley or Isabelle’s daddy live in very nice neighborhoods, Ashley lives in an apartment, so that’s out.) I told her, “Isabelle, your mommy is going to go trick-or-treating with you and your daddy.”

Isabelle was concerned and she asked Ashley, “Remember that time that you yelled at my daddy?” Ashley nodded, “Please don’t do that again. That really frightens me. It doesn’t frighten me so that I am shaking, but it still really frightens me.”

I asked her to tell Ashley what I was going to be for Halloween and she told her, “Grandma is going to be a damnation puppy, like in the damnation puppy movie.”

She is going to be a pirate. A GIRL pirate, she’ll have you know. I am going to be sure to take pictures of her and of my damnation puppy co-workers. I might share them with you, if you are nice to me.

Happy Halloween. Be safe.

Ashley is sick. I hate when she is sick. I hate it because I know that she doesn’t have any health insurance and that she won’t go to the doctor to get checked out because of that. Several weeks ago, she was here cleaning her room out and she stepped on a piece of broken glass. She really sliced her foot and she needed stitches. She refused to go because she doesn’t have the money and she doesn’t have insurance. So Jason went to the store and got some steri-strips and I “stitched” it back together myself. It healed very nicely, if I do say so myself, but it wasn’t the care that she should have had.

Ashley doesn’t have health insurance because she is one of the working poor that you probably have heard about. (I am not going to make this about the problems with our health care system, we are getting that shoved down our throat enough these days. Maybe another time.) Either health insurance isn’t offered at her place of employment or it is too expensive for her to afford. Isabelle has insurance through us for a little bit longer and then her Dad will carry her on his insurance when it becomes active. That still leaves Ashley without insurance.

Back to Ashley being sick. She must have felt pretty terrible yesterday, because she went to one of those little clinics inside of the Targets and CVS’. The doctor there told her that she had pneumonia and that she should go to a clinic where they could actually do an xray. Of course she wouldn’t, so the doctor gave her a prescription for an antibiotic. She called me thinking that I had a way to get her samples, but we don’t get them anymore at work so I couldn’t. I offered to pay for the medicine if she couldn’t afford it. She called back later and said that she was able to cover it because with getting some cough syrup and some chapstick, it came to under $50.

I started thinking about it and I realized that, with the exception of WIC, Ashley has never had any government aid of any kind. Granted, she lived here mostly rent free and I took care of Isabelle for free for the first 2 1/2 years of her life, but I still think that is pretty impressive. She works hard at her job. She also knows that she needs to go back to school if she is going to have any chance of supporting herself and Isabelle in the long run. I am proud of her for that. I know she still has some issues she needs to work through. Sometimes she could use a social worker just to help her manage the simple things in her life, like getting Belle to preschool when she is supposed to go or making appointments and so on, but she is trying. I have to give her credit for that. I know that it isn’t easy to be a single parent.

It isn’t easy being the parent of a single Mom either. Especially when said single Mom is sick.

OMG! I was looking for a meme for today and I found this funny site. Particularly funny is the Meme Faqs. I took it totally as tongue in cheek. Please tell me after you read it that it is supposed to be funny. And for those of you who pronounce meme as me me, I finally have proof that it is meme which rhymes with dream! And if you don’t believe me, check here, too.

Alright. I searched for awhile for this one. The post it came from was dated June (or Junio) 17, 2004. Did they have blogs back then? Did they have the Internet back then? I am not sure if this is a current blog or not as the most recent post was in August. But it is called Publius & Company or something like that. Thanks for the meme.

You’ve seen the book one? It’s the same deal. I have bolded the ones that I have seen. If you decide to do it, bold the ones you have seen and then add three that aren’t on the list to the end of it.

1. CITIZEN KANE (1941)
2. CASABLANCA (1942)
3. THE GODFATHER (1972)
4. GONE WITH THE WIND (1939)
5. LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962)
6. THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939)
7. THE GRADUATE (1967)
8. ON THE WATERFRONT (1954)
9. SCHINDLER’S LIST (1993)
10. SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN (1952)
11. IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946)
12. SUNSET BOULEVARD (1950)
13. THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI (1957)
14. SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959)
15. STAR WARS (1977)
16. ALL ABOUT EVE (1950)
17. THE AFRICAN QUEEN (1951)
18. PSYCHO (1960)
19. CHINATOWN (1974)
20. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST (1975)
21. THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1940)
22. 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968)
23. THE MALTESE FALCON (1941)
24. RAGING BULL (1980)
25. E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (1982)
26. DR. STRANGELOVE (1964)
27. BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967)
28. APOCALYPSE NOW (1979)
29. MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (1939)
30. THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (1948)
31. ANNIE HALL (1977)
32. THE GODFATHER PART II (1974)
33. HIGH NOON (1952)
34. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (1962)
35. IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (1934)
36. MIDNIGHT COWBOY (1969)
37. THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (1946)
38. DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944)
39. DOCTOR ZHIVAGO (1965)
40. NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959)
41. WEST SIDE STORY (1961)
42. REAR WINDOW (1954)
43. KING KONG (1933)
44. THE BIRTH OF A NATION (1915)
45. A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (1951)
46. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971)
47. TAXI DRIVER (1976)
48. JAWS (1975)
49. SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS (1937)
50. BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID (1969)
51. THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940)
52. FROM HERE TO ETERNITY (1953)
53. AMADEUS (1984)
54. ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (1930)
55. THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965)
56. M*A*S*H (1970)
57. THE THIRD MAN (1949)
58. FANTASIA (1940)
59. REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (1955)
60. RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981)
61. VERTIGO (1958)
62. TOOTSIE (1982)
63. STAGECOACH (1939)
64. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977)
65. THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991)
66. NETWORK (1976)
67. THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962)
68. AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951)
69. SHANE (1953)
70. THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1971)
71. FORREST GUMP (1994)
72. BEN-HUR (1959)
73. WUTHERING HEIGHTS (1939)
74. THE GOLD RUSH (1925)
75. DANCES WITH WOLVES (1990)
76. CITY LIGHTS (1931)
77. AMERICAN GRAFFITI (1973)
78. ROCKY (1976)
79. THE DEER HUNTER (1978)
80. THE WILD BUNCH (1969)
81. MODERN TIMES (1936)
82. GIANT (1956)
83. PLATOON (1986)
84. FARGO (1996)
85. DUCK SOUP (1933)
86. MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY (1935)
87. FRANKENSTEIN (1931)
88. EASY RIDER (1969)
89. PATTON (1970)
90. THE JAZZ SINGER (1927)
91. MY FAIR LADY (1964)
92. A PLACE IN THE SUN (1951)
93. THE APARTMENT (1960)
94. GOODFELLAS (1990)
95. PULP FICTION (1994)
96. THE SEARCHERS (1956)
97. BRINGING UP BABY (1938)
98. UNFORGIVEN (1992)
99. GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER (1967)
100. YANKEE DOODLE DANDY (1942)
101. THE CAINE MUTINY (1954)
102. METROPOLIS (1927)
103. PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE (1959)

and my 3

104. PRINCESS BRIDE (1987)
105. BIG FISH (2003)
106. DIVINE SECRETS OF THE YA-YA SISTERHOOD (2002)

Alright guys, I really need some memes. I want to at least finish out 52 weeks of Meme Monday. After that I will reassess my desire to continue on with this.

I saw over at Speck’s that she thinks grown ups who pick dumb costumes for Halloween are idiots. I love you, Speck, but I am one of those idiots. Am I excused because I work with children all day and they like to see their favorite doctors and nurses dressed up for Halloween? I hope so. Please don’t laugh at our choice of costumes for this Halloween. Okay, you can laugh. Just don’t make fun, okay? I bruise easily.

There are about 15 nurses, 3 receptionists and some other support staff. I don’t know if any of the docs are going to participate, but the rest of us are going to be dalmatians and one of us is going to be Cruella DeVille. You know, for 101 Dalmatians? Yeah. I think it will be cute and the kids will love it. Stop laughing. It will be fun.

What are you going to be for Halloween?

OMG! First time ever that I didn’t post because I forgot to! Does this mean that senility is setting in? Or was it because I was so damn tired last night? Maybe it is because I don’t really have anything to say. Probably it’s a combination of those things and a few other things going on in my life right now.

So, don’t worry. I’m here. Sorta. My brain is just preoccupied right now. If you want to know why, I will tell you if you email me or say so in the comments. If you already know, then, um, I guess you know. lol

In other news…

I took the puppy to work the other day to meet my coworkers. Mostly because they BEGGED me to. Anyway, while I was there, I weighed her on the baby scale. She weighs 2#6oz! Can you believe it? She is so very tiny.

We have something coming up tomorrow that is going to be stressful. I am very nervous about it.

The puppy and the kitty are finally making friends. There were a few very tense days at the beginning.

It’s beautiful here, but I wish it was raining. I am so tired and I want to sleep all day. *sigh*

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.