Life in Weyers Cave

    This is my favorite restaurant which I have written about before. It has a wonderful 1400s theme and is in a cellar from that time period. No silverware except the large wooden spoons and huge knives. We had a super time.

Last chance. If you want me to reserve some of the space in my now-empty return suitcase for your taste buds, you need to contact me as soon as you can. Regular candy bars are a dollar, large ones are four. Really nice ones from the homemade mom and pop shop are two. Unless told otherwise, I am bringing home mostly dark truffles and marzeipans because these seem to be the favorites. Okay, a few milk. It's best to email me directly on this as opposed to leaving a note on the blog. Hey, that's a perk for being a faithful reader!

I brought my laptop to Belgium but didn't have the address book on it from my other computer. I loaded the file on a thumb drive but got here and realized I had an older version of Outlook on this computer. It took some major geeking to get it moved over. How do normal people do it? It is nice being able to solve problems. That is something that really gives me a high. Last night at the restaurant, we had Bricks for the appetizer. Fancy Tunisian restaurant with lamb flown in from New Zealand as the main course. The Brick was an eggbased dish like a quiche with a crust and LOTS of vegetables and a red tomato based sauce. Very good. Always fun to have something new. We also had Tunisian crepes, filled with tuna and cheese. Very crispy and nummy. I stopped at "my" chocolate shop and my friend Annie's shop and my little grocery store Prima today. Prima is a lot like the little Super Save Grocery store in Weyers Cave -- in fact it is about half the size and very crowded wi...

We arrived in Belgium this morning at about seven with very little incident. We had seats with plenty of legroom for David, but he had an aisle seat and I had a wall seat. They had taken out the window. But we got a great view of the restrooms. Jim Kelley picked us up -- always a joy to see him. Then we came back to "our" flat and unpacked, quick nap, and off to the hospital to pay be bills from last time. In typical Belgian fashion, they couldn't tell me if more bills were forthcoming, couldn't give me a diagnosis, couldn't write "paid in full" on the bill, and in general seemed not to feel they had to cooperate very much. But one guy was helpful and showed me how to find out the American equivalents of the charges so that I can now submit it to insurance. We then came back to the flat, through the cold, misty, weather, and took another short nap. David has been working hard t get his stuff packed to take back home. We have six suitcases so I don't...

I have four dinners with friends lined up and more to come in Belgium. I have a suitcase full of Milano cookies and various cake mixes and seasoned popcorn salt. I am trying to gather all the loose ends. I will be bringing three footballs as presents for boys. Poor Santa. I washed his suit last year (cold water, quick wash) and all the trim turned pink. I took off the trim and bleached it, hot water, extra long soaks, triple detergent, and finally got the RIT dye remover, all to no avail. Martha says I should just put the trim back on and say he/she is politically correct. Martha, I love you, but I am decidedly NOT politically correct. And don't think Santa is either. She said I should sell it on Ebay. Anyway, I will have to look for more white trim which will be tough to find here (fabric stores are not Harrisonburg's specialty) and Santa is just going to have to rent a suit in the meantime since I won't have time to get him fixed up. I bought Gail three pairs of pajamas a...

This is the house that we bought for Allen and Chantell in Waynesboro and they were supposed to fix it up. But they really never got around to doing anything, so my brother Jeff came and saved the day be fixing it up. He did a wonderful job and now we are selling it. We have a contract on it to close February 15th, but will see if it falls through, since three other contracts have.        

Hey, mom says she wants pictures on the blog! So here is my niece, Robynetta.

I wish I could just remember things that I want to do. I needed a key copy for Allen's truck. So I took the key and got in the car. but had to go back in to get my keys so I could drive my car. Then I forgot what I went back in for. Tried again, then remembered I needed keys, and made it to the car with my keys and Allen's key. Went into the co-op. Had left Allen's key in the car, so went back to get it. Had the keys made without incident, paid for them, came home. Where are the key copies? Empty out purse, search car, no keys. Go back to co-op and ask. They remember me putting them in the purse. Come home, hand purse to Dianna and tell her to find keys. They are in outside pocket. I quickly label keys and put them away before I lose them. Can't find my ozone generator. Loaned it to someone, and, at three hundred dollars, can't afford another one. But I've asked everyone I can think of having loaned it to. Can never remember to bring my cell phone, or to turn t...

Friday we went to an Airborne Museum. On the way in, there was some excitement behind the museum because a guy had just stepped in front a train. I guess he lost his leg. Drunk. Anyway, the museum was great, but I was having terrible trouble keeping awake. I was stumbling and couldn't walk. (No, I wasn't drunk as well.) So I snuck back into the car and took a nap in the back seat. We did go shopping, something I swore I would never do on Black Friday, but we didn't get to the stores until 5. Allen bought some clothes. Since he has lost a total of nearly fifty pounds, and has only worn Army stuff since August, he doesn't own anything that fits him. He got a new suit for church and a baseball cap for his bald head. We went to dinner at Red Robin and Allen was kidding with the waitress Amber big-time and she was dishing it right back. They had a lot of fun. Saturday morning they changed the rules and Allen's roommate Tanner was allowed to go out with us. He came to th...

We drove down to Fort Bragg yesterday and took Allen out to dinner last night. Then this morning we took him out to "The Club" (thanks, Mom), his favorite and a family tradition. Unfortunately, mom is up in Northern Virginia with my brother Gary and his family, and although it was great, without the Allaways and Blisses and Grandma it just wasn't the same. We mostly talked about holidays gone by. Allen brought me the book "The Once and Future King" which is the book about Camelot, including The Sword in the Stone. He was right -- I am really enjoying it. I have always liked to read books my kids like. With a few exceptions... He also brought me some Ritter German dark chocolate from the Commissary. It has a dark mousse filling and is his favorite. I think it is super, but still am looking forward to Belgium next week. We are staying in a very nice Marriott Residence Inn. I am spoiled. But it does make me appreciate that even though it is nice here, I really do ...

No more attacks of the killer kidney stone. I don't know if it has passed or is lying in wait to terrorize me at the most inopportune moment. But I am prepared! Have Percocet, will travel. (But only as a passenger if I have actually taken the percocet.) I am taking the med that is supposed to dissolve it, so who knows? I didn't sleep well last night at all. Something that sounded like a single ring of a phone on vibrate kept going off every two minutes over by David's bed. I finally had to give up and move into Dianna's room, but her bed isn't as comfy as mine (and it's kinda lonely). Then of course the cat had to wake me up. And David's alarm went off at 6. So the night was shot. The computers I've been working on are all falling into place. I had a tough time finding how to get to the hard drive on the laptop, couldn't even find it on the HP Tech site. But eventually I got the right screws and twist and it just dropped into my hand. Replacing i...

Another kidney stone! :P Good vibes and sympathy sent my way are greatly appreciated. Now where's the percocet?

When the boys were little we had this fun little toy car. When you turned it on and put it on the floor and it zipped on ahead at full speed until it bumped into a wall, then it backed up, paused for a second, turned a little, a took off in a different direction at full speed again. Again it would bump, back up, pause, and turn. Eventually it would find a door and then it would be FREE! That's how I feel when I am working on these computers. Can't find a password, missing a file, won't recognize the mouse, needs a disk, etc. I pause and regroup. Sometimes I solve the problem and then I find another one. Until all of a sudden, without realizing it, I've taken a right turn and everything works! Anyway, one day the car bumped once too often and died. The End

Today I had a letter to the editor published. A local mover and shaker called me to get permission to use parts of it for his radio blogs. And I had an appointment at 10:00 in Broadway, but couldn't leave because Dianna was washing her hair and the water is so soft it takes ten minutes to get the conditioner out of her hair. Bleah. I went to Broadway and returned the computer that took two days to fix. Vista. Sigh. I brought it home because she wanted Printshop on it, but it isn't compatible with Vista without an internet upgrade, and she can't go on the internet. Vista of course loaded all its little Vista upgrades and one of them turned off the USB ports. No keyboard or mouse. No other way to plug them in. Research showed a lot of times this has happened, but none of them show how it was fixed. I poked and pried and tried all kinds of things. Keyboard is fine to go into BIOS, but once Windows kicks in, the lights go off on the mouse and keyboard and boom, dead in the w...

It was a blistering 72 degrees in the house today. I had to turn off the heat and open the doors. I went out in sandals and short sleeves and sandals and was finally comfortable. There were only a few little snowflakes, it wasn't REALLY snowing. Ah, the joys of being over 50!

Don't steal your perfectly wonderful daughter's keyboard to fix someone else's computer, and then not return it when you said you would because you're "too busy"... Because your amazingly bright and talented daughter will have to use your computer while you are away and then has the ability to sabotage it! Heeheehee...

Yesterday Dianna and I went off bright and early with the to do list. There was a long wait at Alltell, the bank was closed, the post office was closed, the key making machine didn't work at WalMart, there was still a long wait at AllTell, and basically everything I tried to do seemed to be slamming into a brick wall. So today, I got up early and went to Gail's. I had two letters for her to sign. One was for me to change her old cellphone to a newer one since her old one has a four minute battery life. The other was for me to have some local say in her medicines and talking to doctors. It took Gail 20 minutes to sign the Alltell one and she never signed the other. She says she isn't sure, which is what makes it so tough for me to work with the doctors. Alltell wasn't open. Dianna and I went to the hospital to get the stuff the bulldog left there. We found some of it, the rest had been thrown out. Alltell said they couldn't switch Gail's phone to the new one ...

When Dianna says she can't get out of the car if it is locked, don't believe her.

Well, we don't say "nursing home", it is a "skilled nursing care facility." (A home by any other name would smell as rank.) Anyway, it isn't as bad as it could be, she has a caregiver with her, and she is really doing a thousand percent better now that she is off the medicine. I doubt I can get the doctor to admit she is "allergic" to it, but I will make sure she doesn't get on it again. I stayed with her for five hours today, then came home and called a lot of her friends to tell them where she is. Hopefully she will have visitors. She is not too tired and making great strides, but still having a tough time walking. Allen gets day passes only at Thanksgiving, so we will try to see him at Fort Bragg. Someone took his socks since they all go in a big hamper and, heck, how can you distinguish your socks from someone else's. Maybe I will embroider some roses on the new ones I am mailing him. What do you think? I remember the church onc...

Don't accidentally hit the LOCK button on the keyring when Dianna is waiting for you in the car and you are stuck in the store for a while because she might want to get out to go to the bathroom and once the car is locked, it won't let her out. And then she is grumpy.

Yesterday, when I went to visit Gail in the morning, I waited for the doctor to come. I confronted him about the hydralazine that Gail had been put on two weeks before she got to the hospital, and said she needed to come off it -- now! He disagreed, said all the medical personnel, pharmacists, and online studies I had done were wrong and there was a "one in sixteen million chance" that it was causing any of Gail's problems. BUT he would take her off since I was so insistent. (This is after unanswered phone calls, letters, and notes in the chart.) So he took her off. By evening, the staff noticed a difference. Today when I went in, she was totally back to her old self again mentally. Laughing and joking, asking questions. She ate all of her breakfast, was up and alert for six hours when I left her, and is working hard to get the strength back in her legs after not standing for nearly three weeks. The improvement in one day is nothing short of a miracle! Gail's...

PFC Fordham, Allen S Class 01-08 A Company 3rd BN 1st SWTG(A) Bldg D-2723 Merrill St. Ft Bragg NC 28310

  Yup, this makes me giggle.

Yes, Dianna and I arrived home again tonight after a relatively easy nine hour drive from Atlanta. Faraday was happy to see us and hadn't vomited once while we were gone. But she is in my room BEGGING for treats and I know that usually precipitates her vomiting. Hard to say no. Well, not really. It was so fun to see Tammy and her family. I was particularly happy to get to know Forrest better, hear him on the double bass, and work with him on the computer. The home is gorgeous, of course, particularly the kitchen and master bath. Dianna enjoyed playing the Wii -- I'm glad she won't be around long enough to beg for one. Our time was all too short, and we had to leave at 1:00 to drive home. Fortunately, Daylight Savings Time ends tonight so we get an extra hour of sleep. It's always good to sleep in my own bed!

Allen graduated from Boot Camp today and will be leaving on Saturday to go to Fort Bragg to be in the 82nd Infantry Psychological Operations. It was a neat ceremony on a huge outdoor field. First there were some colorful smoke bombs set off. Then two tanks went across the field very fast, missing each other by inches. Soldiers came pouring out of the tanks in the middle of the smoke and made for some interesting pictures with the smoke. A small army band played, the soldiers (about 450) marched out and they had presentations and some maneuvers and then they were graduated! We took Allen and Private Franca out for the rest of the day. Out to lunch at the PX (where we didn't buy much of anything) and then to the Infantry Museum, then dinner at Johnny Carino's and then back to the hotel room to play Who Wants to be a Fifth Grader or something like that. We didn't really play -- just asked questions like Who wrote Little Women? and How fast is the speed of light? We got...

Dianna and I drove down to Columbus, Georgia on Tuesday. We left at 9 in the morning and got in at 9:30 at night, the only problem being a traffic jam in Atlanta. We were grateful to have two in the car so we could take the HOV lane and even MORE grateful that we live in a town that doesn't have traffic jams! We spent the night with my cousin Wendy, whom I have never gotten to know well. It was great. She has a beautiful home but was very laid back. The next morning we got up and went to Fort Benning. We got to the base at 8:30 and the Family Day program was at 10, but it took half an hour to get a base pass and try to follow the poor map and directions. Finally, I got gas and asked at the gas station and found a soldier who was going in that direction that I could follow. There were lots of people hawking pictures of the soldiers, but the lines were very long, so we went to the presentation field to wait. Even though we were an hour early, we got one of the last seats on the...