Bubba is obsessed with mowing the lawn...it rained hard for 1/2 an hour, and as soon as it let up, he is at it again. Pushing the lawnmower at a fast pace, like when I am working on my personal best on the treadmill, he is trying to beat the next onslaught of showers. He is a man, driven.

I like a power nap. I fell asleep during the news, with thunder in the back ground, predicting the possibily of severe showers until 10p, & Bubba left the tube going in his hurry to get out & mow. I am yet again, rudely awakened by Judge Judy yelling at somebody again & again. I am amazed that people find her haraunging entertainmaning...she's, like, 100% garaunteed to be in a bad mood all throughout all of her shows. Simon Cowell in drag. And this is fun to watch why? I have to go off the shrew. Please excuse.

I am healing from my last bout with migraines. I dunno why I feel compelled to talk about my migraines. Probably as they rule such a vast portion of my life. I get obsessed trying to crack the rhomboid scapular muscle of the right side of my back where the migraines end up spasming those muscles after orginating in my eye. The crepitis is morbidly fascinating to me. I read Stephen King describe it once as a "satisfying crunch", and those words ring in my head as I try to pop the spasms loose. Bubba applied one of those Deep Heat patches to the affected area for me(so much easier when you can have someone else do the application. I must've tried 7 times to apply one on my own yesterday, leaving me short tempered and only partially successful. This is my second day free of the stabbing eye pain, but that bad boy did some damage from Friday 'til Monday. It is actual trauma. Thank God it is healing...s strange feeling to examine. My nerves are frayed and worn, but I do not think anyone has noticed, as I rolled with the punches to the best of my ability. I have lots of practice.

Thunder continues roling in the background. I must limit my self pitying, so that I have time to go hit the treadmill.

My computer ignorance contiues to challenge me. I'm thinking that it should be able to muti-task...allow me to blog while charging my ipod. Does it? I dunno. I don't want to take the chance of hurting anyting, so I will wait & charge later. But it just seems that I ought to be able to do both.

Red Hot Chili Peppers amaze me, as does my ipod. You'd think with a bona fied migraine, I'd avoid sound at all costs. I cannot deny that the silence is golden, but it was like concentrationg on deep breathing to turn on the music and be forced to concentrate on the music in my head, instead of the throbbing pain. The pain never really receeded, but it was like hi-tech bio-feed back. I just didn't concentrate on it so much. I've got just over 200 songs downloaded from my CD's & room for 300 more. Amazing age we live in.

Te rolling thuder has brought close lightening flashes which are messing with the electricity here, so I must be caustious & get off line so as not to hurt my computer. Home lights are flashing...

Some other time, perhaps.... I take comfort in the fact that I am healing. I cannot always get what I want, but today, I have what I need.

No migraine, plus the bosses gave me a 10-cent raise today... $7.65 and hour. must average out to 5 bucks a week, almost. wow.

That was the warrior yell that Xena and her lil' blonde sidekick used to throw at each other, wasn't it? Or was it some other heroine of like spirit and spunk? I dunno. Adam probably knows...will have to try to remember to ask him, but I will most likely forget.

I don't want to live forever...no way, not in this lifetime. I recall John Mellencamp crooning, "Life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone." Some busy body reporter hounded him during an interview I saw, until he finally admitted that the thrill, for him, still wasn't gone, but it made good lyrics for the tune. I dunno John personally, but I have friends that do, and I think he told her he was still thrilled just to get her off his back. I hear, from those who know him, that even in his mid-life, he continues to be a rebel without a cause, a basically unhappy guy without a pause. His small town is just down the road from mine. The folks who claim to be in the know claim he is surly, bitchy, irratiable, and not very pleasant to know on a one-to-one basis. Like I said, I dunno. I do know a girl who used to take care of his exterior landscaping, and interior decorative plants. She was working on a plant one day when he came down the stairs, possibly hung over, tolld her that her haie looked like crappola(he used the other word), and he proceeded to grab a pair of scissors and hack off her ponytail. She pinned the ponytail to her office wall, and got her hair styled short & cute, but insisted she be the only landscapist to visit his residence, and claimed she tried really hard not to piss him off most of the time. I don't think they were really buddy-buddy when he cut off her haie...he just knew that he could get away with it, and rightfully so, I suspect he was providing her with a worthwhile story to tell & listen to. She told me that he would hurt my feelings is I tried to work for him(pony-tail girl was my asst. manager in a previous job), and that his account was strictly her domain. I didn't press the point. His music makes me dance, and that's all I really care about. I don't care if he is bored or bitchy...just as long as he continues to rock. He played all those Farm-Aid shows...so what if he was grumpy? As long as he rocked. He does a lot of tunes I like. his version of "Wild Nights," Rain on the Scarecrow." and "Martha Say," among my favorites. I hope he continues to rock and to learn.

This beautiful Spring Monday, I am in the third day of yet another one of my infamous, all-encompassing migraines. Ice, medication, sleep, relaxation, exercise, pills, deep-muscle message...nothing can conquer the pain until it tires my body out and leaves of it's own volition. It is not as bad today as it was for the weekend, but it still rules my life, makes me feel defeated, and weary. My voice is subdued and weak from the long encounter. Yhis too, shall pass. Once it took over 2 wks to pass. But I have hearned a few things about pain management & biofeedback to keep my self in some semblance of control. I've made it to work & home every day. I bowed out of visiting my folks, mainly because though they are sympathetic to my plight, it also makes them short-tempered and suspicious of the frequency and the depth of my pain. Most people in my life have told me that it "is all in my head" at one point or another. I used to let their off-hand diagnosises enrage me. Until I got together with Bubba who also suffers from similar headaches. He laughs, and nods his head up and down, and says, "Did you tell them that they are right? That that is where the pain is so of course it all has to just about all has to be in your head!" And, even though I am hurting, there is laughter through the tears, 'cuz he is right.

So, as I was mincing my way through the workday, trying to control the intensity of my pain(almost a straight legthwise line, a tight bolt of unceasing lightening from my right eye & even some nasal involvement, up and down straight through to my right scapula, ending in scapular muscle spasms of an unimmaginably rock hard mass. I have to lie on the bed, with a hardball under the scapular spasm, changing the positions of my arms, putting all of my weight there at the orgin os the pain, and feel the nerves and muscles snap, crackle, pop & crunch in protest to me trying to break up their party. Oddly, I find relief, a kin of pain management when wearing my ipod. It still hurts up there, but my concentration on suffering is broken by the gifts of my music. John Folgelberg, The Moody Blues, The Grateful Dead, Simon & Garfunkel, Carlos & John Lee Hooker ("The Healer"), and anything, everything Santana...the music breaks up the overpowering electic pain. Still it is excrutiating. It makes me whiney, exhausted, and feel like a lost cause. It was while working , that the thought occured to my throbbing head that at times like this, indeed, the thrill of living is gone."LIVE, SUFFER, DIE," some half-baked factory worker has scratched with his knife, on the asprin dispenser at work. There are days like this that I can see the orgins of where the graffitti artist was coming from. The factory out on the floor is so hot and noisy, muggy and overwhelmingly, an assualt on my senses & my nervous system. Folks have to yell in my ear of the cocaphony of some 40 ancient productuction machines. I'm jumpy, and the pain comes in waves when somebody claps their hand on my shoulder good-naturedly to get my attention in the midst of all of that that commotiin and conversation bleeding over into the break room. It's hard enough to handle, even when one is not in the midst of a migraine.

Mid-morning while in the whirling dervish of my work day, the girls that frequent the back table in the break room, couldn't wait to tell me the news they had just caught in their daily papers. They flagged me over to their farside of the break room from where I was frantically trying to get my job done. I took a deep breath, counted to 7, and walked toward their beck & call, expecting to hear them copmplain about something or give me advice, only to find them pointing at picture of the Grateful Dead's keyboard player, talking over one another in a rush to explain that Vince Welnick had died that last Sunday, in a South Carolina hotel room of causes yet to be determined, awaiting the results of an autopsy. Vince was the the most recent keyboard player for The Dead-their 4th keyboard player to die.

Pigpen, their first keyboard/harmonica/singer died young of cirrhosis just before I became one of the Faithfull. Kieth Godchaux was the second keyboard player, & he died in a car accident, & a few years later Brent Myland died of a drug overdose. And, now, Vince Welnick of causes yet to be determined The ladies watched me closely for my reaction. But I was already overcome with migraine pain, and numb to the news. I wear a lil' dancing bear on a leather string everyday to work around my neck,proud to be an old flower child, but still keeping a low profile. The news only made me weaker, sadder, and forlon....it registered that "the boys", had lost another one, as well as myself.

I'm Ok. Drained, and still in migraine pain. My heart is heavy as I realize that all things must pass...lately, so many things around and from my age. I'm gonna go hit the treadmill, put on the ipod, and freefall out into nothing on my own two feet. I look forward to sleep. to not feeling pain, sorrow, frustration for a few hours.

Tomorrow is another beautiful Spring day. With any luck, most of my pain will have lifted. I remember my Dad called me when Brent died, hoping I wouldn't take it too hard. MokieJo called me and broke the news when Jerry had his heart attack, worried about my reaction. And the girls at work, were sure that I waa going to freak out. I only feel defeat. I know that it is temporary, for all things, keyboard players, feelings of saness & loss, someday even I...all things must pass. That is just what it is. And it is what it is. & I'm doing fair-to-middlin' truckin' through the changes.

Here's to a pain-free tomorrow.

Gotta be quick...I'm bushed & headed for crashtown

1. When I work, I give it my all, full tilt boogie, attempting to please all of the people all of the time. I have to force myself to take a break. It is not the norm for me to take a break. Today, I stopped for nothing. I dunno why. Trying to prove myself? So much work, so little time? I am exhausted, physically, and mentally. Emtionally, I am weary, but managed a nice, laugh filled evening with Bubba. But:

2. I'm in the middle of a 12 day work stint...limited hours, grant you, but every day. It's long story, with boring details, sufffice it to say I got things mixed up & am now paying for having last Sat & Sun off. I will ger 'er done

3.I'm no worse than most folks, but I can be better. That, too, will take time, work, energy, dedication & all that crappola that self-improvement encompasses. I will try. Sometimes harder than others, I imagine...

4.I know what I did wrong w/my i-pod, light bulb moment in the middle of the night, but have not had the time or the energy to redo & continue loading. I shouldn't get "Stadium Arcadium" until Tuesday, anyway, so I'm not stressing. Yeah, Me!

5. My nephew is returning from the Great Wall of China soon, where he ran a marathon with his sweetie. He has proposed to the love of his young life & she has accepted, & he graduates from Harvard Business School in the coming weeks or so. How awesome is that?

The bosses brought new bosses & came to visit me today for introductions & to tell me out of the kindness off their hearts they will not write me up for working until after 2:30 yesterday. Tons of stuff was still not completed by me then, as in today, for their heart-to-heart took a good 45 mins. So, the hour I worked OT yesterday, & the !/2 hrs I worked over Tues & Wed, I got to apply them to Monday which was time and 1/2 Hoilday, and I had left 45 mins early 'cuz I was unsure how they wanted me to work holidays, & since they had the whole wkend off, & didn't tell me how they wanted it handled & it was so terribly hot, I booked 45 mins early. So as not to stir up too much crappola. So all wk, regardless of how I worked, my time will read 7:30-1:30. They are nickel & diming my good attitude to an early demise.

But cool. Left @ 1:30 today & joined the dogs just in time to watch a spectacular thunderstorm roll on by. Yup, headache-but medicated myself in a timely manner & beat the sucker.

Bubba's mom went for a 4hr Alzheimer's test today, which was, no surprise, a positive test. Not bad enough for a convelescent home yet, but soon. Hard to estimate velocity of the disease's progress...once it hit my folks, it was like a runaway train.

Hit the treadmill. Splashed around the Stream a bit, Amazoned Season 3 "Columbo" for Bubba, and Red Hot Chili Pepper's "Stadium Arcadium" for my ipod & me...reviews say it is great for working out to. I saw RHCP open for the Dead @ Oakland Auditorium in the late eighties before their clash with the evil H. I was blown away then, by how intensely cool they were-us Deadheads can be pretty picky...anyway, I am optomistic about this out-of the-norm to be in my ipod.

I'm gonna be 54...better enjoy a 6 hr work day while I can, but am job hunting next Monday...M.E.-I'll get back to you with the specifics you requested...outta time, hour of the crashola is upon me all too soon again.

I took Rex with me to see th folks on Sunday, always a smart move.

Purchased some Sugar Free Red Bull, nasty, but powerful wake-up crappola. Gets the blood rushing, makes you make srewey yecking smirks full of yuck and gets yer ass outta de door and on down the road.

Missed a phone call from Carrie, the lil witch what came thru my doggy door and stole every single prescription pain pill I had. Didn't return her call. I can forgive her-she's just a stupid kid who is sick in her head, but, I don't want to let her know that I forgive her. I have faith that her Karma has come back around, and kicked her buttinsky, but, I dun't wanna hear about it. She's awfully young to be a psycho witch-in-training, but if I was a betting woman, I'd bet the entire kitty that she is at the top of her class. IF, she had any class, of which I have failed to observe to date.

I bought myself a relatively modest i-pod nano @ Radio Shack. I tipped the kid to get me started properly on downloading my softwware, then, my CD's but it stopped in the middle of Tom Petty's "Free Falling", and though I thought I succesfully downloaded "The Essential Santana", I've yet to be able to find it. I am happily stuck here in Jerry Garcia Band Land...a double CD..."Lucky Old Sun"," Evangeline","Don't Let Go", and "Tangled up In Blue," most recently I. still need to work out some bugs & glitches, but it's getting late & crashola time is just around tha corner,"that lucky ol sun ain't got nuthun to do, but roll around Heaven all day..." & me, I'm looking forward to deep, sweet, glorious sleep.

The heat in the factory is beyond belief, unless, you already know from experience, My job is constant in the sweltering heat, then as quickly as I can, to the A/C breakroom, still constantly busy, sweating, then load up and head back out to waves of heat. I got myself 2 neck ice-ties that I trade off throughout the day. They alternately sit in ice water but by the time I roll on home, they are both as warm as the rest of me. Sweating into my eyes fogging up safety glasses walking through the poor kids stuck out there on the floor in the midst of the worst heat, the majority of their 12-hr shifts, feeling short tempered, and griping, cuz the products I am delivering to them to help cool them off are delivered at room temperature, until the machines chill 'em up in a coupla hours, and they are in no mood to wait. I always suggest they grab a styrofoam cup & ice 'em down, but, really, they just want to bitch. And I can see it, as I want to follow suit.

I'd love to hang out & chill on the Stream, but Mr Sandman is sending me a dream, and that lucky ol sun gets a bit witchy, if I'm still splashing in the Stream past the crashola hour-which is what it is now, and for the next 8 hrs, hopefully what it will continue to be, so, "Stop that Train, I'm Leaving, and it won't be too long whether I'm right or wrong."

Man, I just love Jerry Garcia Band. Especially when they played at the Warfield & I got to go. I already know what I am going to dream about tonite...nothun left to do, but smile, smile, smile.