**Over 30 Writers Club ***

My specialist said that I could have the other eye done to "balance them out" but my other eye doctor said that it would essentially be cosmetic and won't make any real difference. My problem now is that my eyes don't work together, and I would benefit more from vision therapy than surgery, so I'm going to look into a local doctor who specializes in that.

A couple eye doctors suggested I wear bifocals, but I declined. So, I need to hold books close to my face and I can't read a street sign until I'm practically on top of it. Oh well. I'll get bifocals when I absolutely need them. Otherwise, I'd rather not.

 

Let me tell you, "I love bifocals!" If you get the right types of bifocals they work great. It is so nice to be able to see close up and far away. The only problem I ran into was when I bought my desktop Mac. I got the really big screen. So now I had to get used to only looking at the bottom part of my screen or I have to crank my head up to see out of the lower part of my glasses. But I got used to it. I had to raise my chair a bit.

 

Hm...

Well, I'll give my new glasses a go for a couple years, and when the time comes to head to the eye doctor again, I may consider bifocals. I'm just worried about the cost. And symmetry. My right eye is worse than my left, and its lens ends up being thicker.

I'm also worried about how bifocals would affect my drawing.

 

Just need glasses driving my car and for reading; I can still read the very small things. I have to take a test each year for the fire-dept and the doctor tells me that my eyes are improving.
Blood tests: I take those two or three times a year when they call me to give blood. Some blood - and all the white cells - is used for scientific research

 

I'm not allowed to give blood, due first to ITP, then Lupus, *and* due to having eaten beef in Europe within the last year! The horror!

 

Last I checked, I can still give blood. The problem is finding local blood drives so that I can give.

And you know those Command adhesive picture hangers, the ones where you pull the tab to remove them? Well, don't try removing them with just one hand. Whatever you're holding in your other hand can be sat down somewhere. I found out the hard way that those damn hangers snap right back once they come off the wall. Got a nasty lump on my finger now, and it hurts like the dickens to type.

 

That European beef scare kept me from giving blood. I think I was eligible, but the regulations were so complicated that the Red Cross worker said, "Why don't we error on the side of caution." I tried to give blood 5 years later and they took it. What really sucked is when I was first rejected I told my husband that they wouldn't take my blood because I was in Europe during the Mad Cow disease problem. Well, my son was listening and he went to school and told everybody I had mad cow disease. ACK!

 

Ha, oh, man. Don't you love little kids?

 

Yeah...if I lived in the Star Wars universe my kids would probably be Sith.

 

I'm afraid to have kids because I know that they'll be a bunch of smart-asses.

 

That's what I got. Before I had kids I imagined my future children acting like the Trapp Family Singers. I would blow a whistle and they would march down the steps and politely wait to see what I wanted. LOL! After all both of their parents were in the Army. How could my children not be well behaved?

Fast forward and I realize I don't have kids like in the movie "The Sound of Music", I have "The Boys from Brazil". There is still a military influence on them, but it is directed toward killing people in Assassin's Creed or Call of Duty Black Ops.

Stang, I'm a lousy mother.

 

Neither my brother nor I have kids (he is married; I am not): we were scared to death when Mom threatened us with "I hope you have kids just like yourselves."

 

My future children are going to be the biggest nerds imaginable. They have no chance.

 

Ah...the Mother's Curse. That evil curse was brought down on me and my older sister. Luckily I was much better behaved than my sister. She got the son from Hell. My kids are slobs and lazy...but so was I as a kid. I didn't have their smart mouth as a kid though. That I developed in the Army and much to my chagrine...I seemed to have passed down to them. My other brothers and sister behaved well enough to avoid the curse and they have normal kids.

 

I want my kids to be nerds, but for some reason... I doubt they'll be. "Aw man, we get Mom's comic book collection?"

 

I'll be lucky if I have them. I have PCOS and . . . issues related.

I have a new book coming out, I'm very excited. Okay, it's a romance novel, but still.

 

Romance is nice.

This day october 17 and 16 years ago I was reading one in the university hospital in Leiden after giving stemcells for a four year old girl somewhere in the USA.
I had come out of the anaesthesia (three hours) shivering cold and was getting really comfortable after getting warm blankets and yes, reading the novel became a nice passtime after some drinks and food and some water-ice for my sore throat.
I was busy reading when one of the surgeons came in telling me that his colleague was on his way to the USA
I was released the next day, on medicines to get my HB up to its usual value for 12 weeks.
A day before New Years eve I was called to come to the hospital immediately.
They needed one kind of cells to cure that girl completely. With tubes in two arms I was entertained for three hours watching Roadrunner and Bugs Bunny cartoons. The cells were collected and a courier had to hurry to catch the plane.
Again at home I saw that the plane was delayed for almost three hours.

 

Let's hope it got there in time. Bravo on being a donor. My husband and I signed up years ago to be a bone marrow donor, but I was never called in. My husband was called in for further testing but they found a more suitable donor, so he didn't have to give. I guess I should reapply, I think I moved five times since I signed up.

And speaking of kids earlier...mine came home and now there is a mystery smell in my house. It doesn't smell like anything I smelled before...maybe rotten apples...I don't know what it is. I didn't notice the smell before they got home. BOYS! Ack...they probably took off their shoes and put them somewhere. Their shoes smell like stagnate swamp water. All they do is play video games...how the hell do they get so smelly?

 

A very close friend of mine died six years ago from a genetic disorder. I had promised him my kidney and to this day, I still want to donate it. To anyone. Might be lingering guilt, but I feel that it is my duty and I have to donate a kidney. Though, I'm not entirely sure how to go about it... or if they'll even take it since I have kidney stones and was told that my kidney function, while not bad, wasn't "great." :/

 

A friend of mine back in high school got a call one day that her little brother had been in an accident, had had a pole or something enter his back and crush his kidney. She wanted to donate one of hers, but he was hundreds of miles away.

Then it turned out that he'd never had a full kidney there, just had this weird little blobby thing, and his whole life he'd been functioning with only one anyway. Nature is weird.

I really need to go to bed. I've been up doing laundry so I have nice things to wear on my trip this weekend. I leave in . . . 31 hours? Augh. I haven't even packed.

 

That plane was delayed because the courier with my collected cells had to be on that plane. He went to the airport with a police escort.
Being able to be a stemcell donor was for me the most touching moment in my life.
In a few months I will donate my 60th half litre of blood.

 

So, I decorated my front door and porch for Halloween. Put up an "Insane Asylum" sign (how appropriate), some fake spiderwebs, plastic spiders and flies, a tombstone that reads "Mona DeGroner," a bloodied length of gauze, and a couple homemade decorations, including a Frighteners-esque ghoul on my door.

This evening, as I was adding the finishing touches, I noticed something else added to the fake spiderwebs and plastic spiders...

A real spider had taken up residence in the fake web, and has even spun a real web within the web.

Only with my decorations would this happen. I attract weird like a magnet.