Tired_Old_Man

And may they all celebrate as many more birthdays as they wish!

Hi, everyone. Things worked out nice on my birthday. Tina and I went to eat and we spent quality time together. In the evening, my son, DIL and and grand-children came over to 'cut a cake'. Rocky sang "Happy Birthday" with the rest of the family (or should I say barked "Happy Birthday"?) We gave him some vanilla ice cream because he can't eat the chocolate/vanilla ice cream cake. Tina's mother is still the same. I do the best I can to keep Tina's mind off of her mother's health. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

Since this is a thread for Christians, I would like to wish all the Christians here at LBT a Merry Christmas. Today, April 17th is the Birthday of Jesus Christ according to many Historians. Here are just three of dozens of sites that explains why Jesus was born on April 17 in the year 6 BC. http://www.utopia-net.org/English/0417jesus1.html http://entertainment.webshots.com/photo/2103143560086389096gLKCHE http://www.eclipse.net/~molnar/ So Jesus and I share at least one thing in Common, since today, April 17th is also my Birthday. MERRY CHRISTMAS

April has been cruel to Carlene, T.S. Eliot and me. BUT: Today, April 17th is the Birthday of Jesus Christ according to many Historians. http://www.utopia-net.org/English/0417jesus1.html http://entertainment.webshots.com/photo/2103143560086389096gLKCHE http://www.eclipse.net/~molnar/ So Jesus and I share at least one thing in Common.

Today is my 62nd Birthday. I am living the day in fear. Tina's mother has taken a turn for the worst and I am praying that she does not die today. My mother died on my 19th Birthday, putting a stain on my birthday for the rest of my life and the last thing I need is for Tina's mother to die on my Birthday. Tina has elected to stay here with me in Florida. She found out that her mother has been running an extremely high fever for about 4 days, but decided that sitting in the hospital room watching her mother sleep would be too much of a strain for her, so she elected to stay. How many times can she fly up to Brooklyn? Besides, I can console her and try to take her mind off the situation while we are together here in Florida. This is always a bed week for me: The anniversary of my mother's death is April 17th. The anniversary of my father's death is April 18th. The anniversary of my step father's death is April 12th. TOM PS: These anti-depressants are depressing me.

I need to apologize for not getting back to this thread for so long. My only excuse is that I have been having a hard time with the anti-depressant that the neurologist put me on. I have had no energy and have been unable to motivate myself except to do what I need to do to keep Tina and I happy together. I have not been on the computer except to enter my receipts into Quicken for the past two weeks or so. I have not even been coming to LBT to read threads. Tina's mother wound up back in the hospital, dehydrated and with another urinary tract infection. She was taken to the hospital the afternoon of the day Tina flew back home to me, but Tina's brother did not call to tell her until 2 days later. As I mentioned earlier, Tina loved the yard work, so next morning while she was still in a good mood, I treated her like she was my 20 year old “Sex Toy”, which almost killed my “one month shy of 62 year old body”, but it was worth it for both of us. Sex is not everything, but when combined with love and caring, it is a wonderful thing. The rest of the day was spent cuddling and then going out to dinner. I have a little confession to make; I didn't quite finish the yard work, because of unexpected rain and the day I wasted running around between doctor's offices, but that worked to my advantage because when Tina came out to help me and saw how much work was involved, she realized how much I must love her to crank this old body up every day to do so much by myself. She was able to help me by driving the truck forward as I shoveled rock out of the pickup truck bed. The funny part is that Tina can't drive. She has had permits 3 times in her life, but never got a license, so she almost killed me a few times by almost tossing me out of the pickup bed. She decided that she would celebrate her after all and I mobilized myself to give her a Happy Birth-Week. I took her out to dinner every night from the Tuesday she got home until the Tuesday after her birthday. And we went to the movies a few times and to a “Play Land USA” where we played miniature golf and other games. My son and daughter-in-law had to be out of town on Saturday (her birthday), so we decided to give her a surprise on the day after. On Friday, the day before her birthday, I went to Publix and bought a few items for the house including some chips for Saturday's baby-sitting for our grand-daughter Brooklyn and I also got a carrot cake with Happy Birthday Tina on it, a “3” candle and a “9” candle and a ½ gallon of ice-cream for Saturday's surprise party and a big Carvel ice cream cake and some chips for Sunday's surprise party. When I was checking out, I told the bagger that I had to put things in three different sets of bags. He asked why and I told him that some things were going home and it was ok for my wife to see them, some things were for a surprise party at my house ( and it was not ok for my wife to see them) and some things were for a surprise party at my son's house. He said, “That seems like an awful lot of work” and I replied, “That's why I'll be celebrating my 40th wedding anniversary in July”. Saturday's party was a comedy of errors. I could not find any matches to light the candles. Finally I had to break down and ask Tina where the matches were. She didn't have any either, but she gave me a cigarette lighter (“Flip my Bic”) that we had bought in Brooklyn before we moved here in 2003. Well, you have probably guessed it; it would not light, so I wound up presented a birthday cake with unlit candles as Brooklyn, Rocky and I sang (and barked) “Happy Birthday”. Tina was surprised and then Brooklyn asked “where's the big birthday cake?” to which Tina replied, “we only have a small cake because there is only you, me and grandpa”. “But grandpa brought a big cake over to my house yesterday”. I had to admit to Tina that I had a surprise for her the next day and after my son, daughter-in-law, Brooklyn and us went to a Japanese, Thai restaurant for dinner the next day, we had another party. Except as I explained above, things have been ok since then. Oh, I forgot to mention getting the flu or some virus which knocked out for a few days.

Tina loved the yard work. She just about melted when she saw it. :hug: More to follow. Thanks for all the good wishes.

That feature depends on Cookies being stored on your computer. I have posted to the LBT site from 9 different computers in 5 different houses, using 6 different operating systems (versions of Windows, Mac and Linux) and with all systems, the forum knows which threads I have read and not read. If they had the feature of "View First Unread", it would be different at each computer based upon what the last thread that I read from each computer. I tried that for a while with Windows 95 back in the 90's. I had to move my "history file" from computer to computer using a floppy, but Windows would tell me that the file was protected and could not be over-written, so I had to use a spacial program to get around Windows, by booting to DOS. I know it is a pain, especially with "Hot" threads like the "Antisemitism in France" thread was. You come back to LBT after a few hours and thread had grown by 5 pages. WOW!! It was hard to figure out where I had left off reading. And I am getting old and senile. Sometimes progress seems like a step backward.:noidea:

I was just checking the priority list for Tina's flight out of LGA (LaGuardia Airport) and she is in good shape as a standby passenger. If she didn't make it today, she would have to wait until next Monday for an open flight, but even if she was "bounced" from this flight to West Palm Beach (one hour drive from home), she still has 3 good chances to make it to Miami (two and ½ hour drive). I hope Tina likes my surprises and I will post to let everyone know how things work out, both on her birthday and today when she gets to the house. I will be reducing my posting at LBT for a while to try to be more of a comfort to Tina. I am not being a nice guy, 'cause while I comfort her, the mutual sharing of love will also be a great comfort to me. Thanks again for all the advice, comforting words, prayers, shared knowledge and good wishes, and thanks for just being there.

The fact that the question is even asked is proof just how far our country has to go toward removing "gender bias" (or sexism) from its list of traits. This forum is predominately female, so I see less bias toward gender than most other forums that I have been a regular on. Of the 3 forums that I have the most posts on, one was 99% male, one was split about 50/50 and this one is at least 80% female as far as regular posters are concerned (as was my Lap Band Emotional support group in Brooklyn). When I worked as an aircraft mechanic at JFK, it also was an over 90% male environment, and I am going to tell you women a little secret; most men, both in the work place and at the 99% forum, claim to believe that White Males are simultaneously the people that made the USA great, are needed to keep the USA great, deserve to be kept in power and are an endanger species (at least as far as power is concerned) because they are under constant attack from the "others" and from within. "Others" are usually defined as minorities (Blacks & Hispanics) and females. From within is usually defined as (those accursed) "Liberals", who are sometimes referred to as "commie, pinko, godless, traitors who are probably fags". Let's face it, they are probably right. Wasn't Jesus a "White American Male"? Well, 2 out of 3 ain't bad (and if you are a Mormon, it's 3 out of 3).

If I posted a picture, you would not ask.:doh:

The USA calls the Military budget, the "Defense Budget" because calling it the “Department of War” has a bad sound to it. If the President (any president, not just BuSh) were to say, “I pledged to make war for this country” instead of “I Pledged to Defend this Country”, it doesn't have quite the same right. BTW, BuSh (like all other presidents) did neither, when he was sworn in he pledged: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." “Defend the Constitution”, not defend the nation, and definitely not to make War.