Here’s an update on my mom. The doctors didn’t come to any conclusions about my mom not being able to swallow other than it is “probably neuromuscular,” so they sent her home on Wednesday. So a couple of hours after mom gets home and a few minutes after I had arrived home from work I get a call from my brother. “Mom called and said she fell and can’t get up. Could you go check her?” Of course, so I ran right over with Michel. Michel took a look and decided that mom’s hip was probably broken. Ack! So we call the Fire Department and they send over the Fire Chief and two ambulances. (Things tend to be quiet around here.) Everyone agrees that mom’s hip is probably broken so she is shuttled off to the hospital. After X-Rays and a CAT scan (she bumped her head, also) they say, yes, her hip is broken.
Yesterday, she had surgey to insert a couple of pins and it went great. She will be in the hospital for about 5 days, then rehab for a month. But for 88, she is a tough old bird. She told me that she actually fell by the bathroom and pulled herself to the bedroom with a broken hip to get to the phone. I think it will be time to get her Life Alert when she gets back home.
Down in Tina’s neck of the woods desert, they have been able to “protect the integrity of the voting system,” according to State Rep. Russell Pearce, by keeping a 97-year old woman from voting.
Shirley Preiss, a resident of Surprise, Arizona, wanted to re-register when she moved to Arizona to live with her son, Joey, a 78-year old veteran. But the state of Arizona requires proof of citizenship and Ms. Preiss can’t prove to the satisfaction of the people of Arizona that she is an American. Ms. Preiss was born in Kentucky before that state issued birth certificates. Ms. Preiss can’t get a “delayed birth certificate” because everyone who could have identified her place of birth is dead. The schools she attended in Tennesse don’t exist anymore and all their records are lost. Ms. Preiss has never left the US so she has never had a passport. She hasn’t driven in many years so her driver’s license has expired.
The only things Ms. Preiss could produce were her Medicaid and Social Security cards and an expired Texas driver’s license. That was insufficient for the people of Arizona and a woman who has voted in 19 presidential elections (every election since 1932 when she voted for FDR), a woman who was born before women had the right to vote, was unable to vote for the first major party woman presidential candidate in the Arizona primary.
As her son said, “I’m pissed. She’s an American citizen who worked her whole life and I want her to vote. The sons of bitches are taking away our Constitution.”
The cause of this is the mythical voter registration fraud that states like Arizona are using to keep the poor (and Democratic) from voting. Arizona has rejected 40,000 applications for voter registration and yet they have no idea how many of those people really are American citizens who are being denied their most fundamental right, the right to vote.
Linda Brown of the Arizona Advocacy Network said, “Arizona has a long, shameful tradition of voter suppression. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 actually names Arizona as one of the states that can’t pass laws on voting without approval from the Department of Justice. When voters passed the 2004 ballot initiative that restricted voting, the career attorneys at the Justice Department wanted to block it, but they were overruled by the political appointees.”
Read “political appointees” as Bush/Republican hacks.
Welcome to the Friday song off my iPod of the week.
Lacuna Coil is a gothic rock band from Milan, Italy. Lacuna Coil means empty spiral. Beth introduced Lacuna Coil to me and they are very good. The lead singer is Cristina Scabbia. Scabbia became a singer almost by accident as she says, “it just kind of happened”. Her voice has made her one of the most popular female musicians in gothic rock.
This song, Enjoy the Silence, is a Depeche Mode song originally released in 1990. The Depeche Mode version of the song reached #8 on the Billboard Top 100, the only Depeche Mode song to get into the top 10. The Lacuna Coil version was named as one of the Top 100 Cover Songs by the NY Times.
Enjoy the Silence
Words like violence
Break the silence
Come crashing in
Into my little world
Painful to me
Pierce right through me
Can’t you understand
Oh my little girl
All I ever wanted
All I ever needed
Is here in my arms
Words are very unnecessary
They can only do harm
Vows are spoken
To be broken
Feelings are intense
Words are trivial
Pleasures remain
So does the pain
Words are meaningless
And forgettable
All I ever wanted
All I ever needed
Is here in my arms
Words are very unnecessary
They can only do harm
Some people are just not very good at being criminals. Francis Connor, 21, is a criminal who really needs to think about finding a new career. It was 3 AM in Marblehead, Massachussetts when Francis decided it was time to do a little breaking and entering. Francis scoped out a target and went to work. He walked up to the glass door of a store and kicked it in. Only one little problem…
The store Francis decided to break into was HomeLogic, a home security store that specializes in internet-based monitoring systems. Yes, that is Francis in the picture in the upper right. “This guy decides to pick the only building in New England or North America that’s wired with this technology,” said Joe Lautner, vice president of marketing and sales for HomeLogic. The video allowed the police to identify Francis and showed everything he touched so the police knew exactly where to look for fingerprints. Francis wasn’t even smart enough to steal anything of value. He grabbed a demonstration kit that he left outside the door after realizing it was worthless.
The police found Francis sleeping in a park not far from the scene of the crime. No word if Francis had been drinking. Oh, and Francis is a fugitive as he is wanted in San Diego for burglary.
Beth and her friends went to the beach along the north shore (over by Huntington, I think) and Beth took some pictures. She loves photography and is pretty good at framing a shot.
My mother has been in the hospital for a week. We took her to the hospital last Thursday because she couldn’t swallow. Her doctor (who is an ass) wanted to put a PEG tube in her but we have been refusing to allow it. She has been getting everything through an IV. She has been in for a week and they still have no idea why she can’t swallow other than, “It’s probably neurological.”
My sister came up with the idea that it might be myasthenia gravis. I have no idea where she got it from but myasthenia seems to fit my mom’s symptoms. She has had a drooping eyelid for awhile and her trouble swallowing has been around for a couple of months and has been getting steadily worse. We haven’t heard about the results of any of the tests they have run. As I said, her doctor is an ass.
By the way, in case you didn’t know, the image is a detailed view of a neuromuscular junction:
1. Presynaptic terminal
2. Sarcolemma
3. Synaptic vesicle
4. Nicotinic acetylcholine receptor
5. Mitochondrion
So how long do you think someone could live in your house without you knowing? The answer for one 57-year old Japanese man was about a year.
The man became suspicious that someone was breaking into his house and stealing his food so he put in a hidden camera. When the camera detected an intruder, the man called police who found a 58-year old woman, Tatsuko Horikawa, living in an unused closet.
According to police, she had made the top shelf of a built-in cupboard into a sleeping area. The woman had a mattress and water bottles in the closet with her. “I didn’t have anywhere to live,” said the woman. The woman did not steal any money or other items other than food but she did make use of the shower and toilet.
The police described Horikawa as looking neat and clean. She probably would have been easier to find if she hadn’t been.
We certainly had excitement this weekend. First the good stuff. Two of Michel’s cousins who live on the west coast flew in for a visit. John flew in from LA. John works in the movie biz.
And Michel’s cousin Moya flew in from Vancouver. We hadn’t seen Moya since 1986.
We had an absolutely wonderful time with them. Michel spent the entire day Friday in Manhattan with the two of them floating around visitng various points of interest such as The White Horse Tavern. They didn’t get home until 1 AM.
But Saturday was the real excitement. Michel had dropped off Beth at her friend’s house and was going to take John and Moya to Sagamore Hill, Teddy Roosevelt’s home. Apparently, “Bully” had been shouted quite a bit the night before, making a trip there seem required. As Michel pulled away from Carolina’s house, Moya noticed that Michel looked a little woozy and told Michel to pull over. She immediately passed out. That was the second time in a week. They called me not knowing what to do and so I told them to drive her home and we put her to bed. She slept and we had a barbecue. I even got John to put together our new Weber grill. I think John felt sorry for me because he volunteered to be the designated driver for Beth so that I could join Moya in a few gin and tonics.
Sunday, John and Moya went in to the city to take a tour with Michel’s cousin Kevin. They missed most of the tour but did get to spend the afternoon with Kevin. Then we all met at Michel’s brother Jimmy’s house for a barbecue. And Jimmy wasn’t the least bit annoyed that we showed up 4 hours late and delayed his supper.
Today John and Moya went into the city with John planning to stay at the Hotel Pennsylvania which apparently is not quite as great as it once was. Anyway, Moya wasn’t impressed when she saw John’s room although John didn’t seem to object too much. The two of them went to Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Rockefeller Center, and other mid-town tourist sites. Moya took the 5:33 back to Hicksville. This was the same local that Colin Ferguson shot up when he killed 6 and wounded 19 back in 1993. Moya reported no untoward violence during the ride.
So John is in the Hotel Pennsylvania and Moya is on a plane making her way back to Vancouver, British Columbia. Michel and I can’t wait to see them again.
Down in Tina’s neck of the 
Lacuna Coil is a gothic rock band from Milan, Italy. Lacuna Coil means empty spiral. Beth introduced Lacuna Coil to me and they are very good. The lead singer is Cristina Scabbia. Scabbia became a singer almost by accident as she says, “it just kind of happened”. Her voice has made her one of the most popular female musicians in gothic rock. 
hospital last Thursday because she couldn’t swallow. Her doctor (who is an ass) wanted to put a PEG tube in her but we have been refusing to allow it. She has been getting everything through an IV. She has been in for a week and they still have no idea why she can’t swallow other than, “It’s probably neurological.” 
