Friday, April 29, 2005

Ty Herndon concert

Tonight was probably one of the best night of my life. I never even imagined that it could be so wonderful. I went to see Ty Herndon at the Avalon club and everybody made me feel so special. They took us in before everybody else, sat us in the front row and kept coming to check to see if we needed anything. Julia and Michael, the managers, made it a really special evening. When the concert was over I went up to thank Julia for making it so special and she told me I couldn't leave because Ty Herndon wanted to come out and meet me. I could not believe it because I heard one of his crew saying that he could not come out into the bar area but Michael said that he was going to and he did. It was too good to be true and he was a very sweet man and made me feel very special. I will never forget that moment when I met Ty Herndon as long as I live. He loves to perform so much and it shows.

 

While we were waiting for Ty Herndon to come out I met a lot of really cool people hanging out at the club. KRTY was there and they said that starting in June they are going to have country music every Thursday night. I will definitely be there, I met a lot of really good people who could easily become good friends.

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Reminiscing

Social Security called me and said that Xicor had made a mistake on my W-2 form in 2002. I had to call Xicor and it started making me think about when I used to work there...

I worked at Xicor from June 1985 until March 1995. When I first started working there I was the custodian and I loved it. There was three buildings, one 2-story building and to two-story buildings. My job was to clean the cafeterias, make sure they had paper towels and napkins, sweep the floor and straighten up the chairs and tables, clean the counters in the bathroom and make sure they have toilet paper and paper towels, dust mop the hallways and empty trash cans when they needed to be emptied . The night tying custodians cleaned the toilets and mocked the floors, all of the heavy cleaning.

Also part of my duties started to be relieving or replacing the receptionists in all buildings. I didn't like this very much but it made me feel good that they counted on me to do it. It helped me to memorize the extensions of the people and apartments and I liked that also.

Whenever the mail coordinator was absent or went home sick they would ask me to fill in for that position also. At the time I thought that was a lot more responsibility and although it made me very nervous I began to enjoy it. In between regular mail coordinators they would try to get me to take the position but I didn't want to stress. Whenever somebody doesn't get their mail on time the first thing they do is call the boss and complain, I didn't like that.

They're all was supposed to have their checks by 11 a.m. and they asked me if I could get them to them sooner and I almost always did, I tried my best but if I didn't have them to them early they would call my boss and complain. Luckily I had a great boss that trusted me with everything I did and she would tell them that if they kept complaining they would not get their checks until 11 a.m.

Weighing and posting male was also part of the job and that part I loved because that's when I got to be alone and do what I was supposed to do without too many interruptions. I usually do this at the end of the day and sometimes during lunch if there was a lot. Of course people would come down with last-minute things that need to go out and sometimes personal items, since I was going to the post office every day. I would pick up the mail at 8 a.m., usually anywhere from 3 to 10 buckets of mail, bring it back to the mail room, sort the mail and at 11 o'clock start my deliveries. The fun part of the deliveries was being able to stop and chat with people and get to know them during my rounds. People would call me from other buildings or other parts of the building to ask me to bring in supplies so I would stop by stores and get what they needed and just charge it to their department.

Eventually I started to like the mail coordinator position so I took it permanently... although my boss always said," nothing is permanent". After I took over the position part of the job was to relieve the receptionists in building 2 for 2 15 minute breaks and a half hour lunch everyday. I didn't mind it very much but I wasn't always dressed for it, there is a different dress code for mail coordinator then there is a receptionist. It sometimes did give me an opportunity to take a break and relax because I didn't always have time and I liked to stay busy.

Of course everybody has their silly little quirks. This person wants his mail on his desk instead of in his mailbox, this person wants his mail on his secretary's desk, this person only once letters and no magazines...

All in all I loved my job and I could see me doing it until I retired but I got taken away from me due to an automobile accident on March 10th 1995 before I could retire.

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Stanley's Lasix surgery

I finally got my taxes done today, I usually never wait until the last minute but it was a little bit harder trying to get everything together because of all the work that they've been doing around here. There's so many different people here that nothing ever gets put in the same place twice.

Stanley had his Lasix surgery this morning and slept most of the day. He came down here to eat some dinner and went back to my moms to sleep some more, they recommend this after the surgery. He goes back tomorrow morning so Dr. Ellis can check and make sure that everything is going well.  I had mine done about three or four years ago, it is amazing what a big difference it is. It is so great to wake up in the morning and not have to reach for your glasses before you can see anything.

Tomorrow is my mom's birthday so Stanley is going to fix us breakfast and then he has to get going home because he has to go back to work on Thursday.

Ty Herndon is in two days and we are going to be in the front row...

Saturday, April 23, 2005

Weekend

I'm supposed to go to my moms today for dinner, luckily she is just around the corner. I'll just have to wait until there's a break in the rain and drive down there. She's making tacos, I love the way that she makes tacos because she makes them with flour tortillas instead of corn.   I woke up about 2 a.m. this morning and could not go back to sleep. I went online and found some morning glory plants. The lady that lives on the driveway side of my house is 93 years old and always complains that my driveway is a mass so I planted some morning glories in big pots and ran a Y shaped trellis so they will grow together and she won't have to look at my driveway, it's going to look very nice.  I have a 4 foot fence around my backyard and I want to get the morning glory vines to wind around that also. It's not a very big yard, mostly it's just a run for the dog but I think it would look really nice.   We did go to the nursery yesterday and I got some more plants for outside, I hope they do not die.   I'm watching a movie right now called Sweethearts Dance with Don Johnson, Susan Sarandon and Jeff Daniels. Although I have 800 channels I only watch one usually, Lifetime Movie Network. The main reason is because I don't sleep when I'm supposed to and there's always something on this channel.

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

A hole in my roof

Pete started putting the skylight in my bedroom in yesterday. I guess the dust from cutting a hole in the ceiling got into the fire alarm and set it off. When he didn't answer the phone here they called my mom's. By the time she got down here the fire truck was here and six big firemen were jumping off of the truck and getting ready to run in and save my house, my mom said they seemed very disappointed that there was no fire.

Sunday, April 17, 2005

Valley Medical visit

Friday René brought a guy over from Valley Medical. He looked like he was about the same injury as I am. He was really excited about seeing everything I have here and he said it made him real hopeful for when he goes home. We ended up talking for a little bit, he was very funny and very easy to be around. René invited me over to Valley Medical on Monday because they are having all of the newly trained canine companions in the day room for a little graduation puppy party. I think it will be good for Brodie as she is starting to get a little excited when she gets around other animals.

 

Saturday I stayed in bed because I was so excited about getting my room cleaned up and everything put away in the closets. Today, Sunday, I was supposed to go out to breakfast with my mom and my grandpa but my caregiver never showed up. I called to tell the agency that it was too late and to call her and tell her not to come but she said the girl did not have a cell phone... can you believe that in this day and age?

Friday, April 15, 2005

Ty Herndon

A nightclub opened up here not too long ago and I heard a commercial saying that Ty Herndon, a country singer, was going to be there. I had seen him about two years ago and had the worst seats possible. We were stage left way to the back where we could only see the side of him and the speakers were in the way, it sounded like a really good concert but where we were sitting it was very muffled. I wrote an e-mail to ask them if they were accessible and could accommodate my attendant, my service dog and I. The lady wrote me back and said that she would talk to her manager and let me know what they could do to make it a better experience. She wrote me back and said that she had talked to the manager, her husband, and they were not only going to bring me in first but put me right up front and give me complimentary tickets because I had such a bad experience the last time I saw him... I could not believe that..   I kind of feel bad now because I really didn't want any special treatment, I just didn't want to go if it was going to be an uncomfortable experience again.

Sunday, April 10, 2005

New friend

On Friday I met an online friend, Kevin from Livermore. It was raining really hard so we didn't go anywhere he just came here to check out my place because he sold his house and he's buying a mobile home.

Saturday and today I ended up staying in bed. I'm still nursing a sore on the outside of my right ankle and every time I get up seems to get worse, I think I'm going to have to go to the wound clinic next week. In about an hour my mom and Chris are going to come down and watch The Notebook with me, we have been going to try to watch it for long time. Chris's husband Bill is going to visit with my grandpa while we watch it.

I had my doctor's appointment on Tuesday to see about my back surgery and what a fiasco that was. First of all I almost didn't get in the door because the threshold was too high and the bolt on the bottom of my chair wouldn't go over it, I finally got in. Then their computer ate the CD that had my x-rays on it, it took me all day Monday to get the disk. They decided they wanted to take new x-rays so after three tries of trying to do it in my chair they decided to lift me up on the x-ray table. This took two people to lift me in three people to watch. They finally got me up there and took the x-rays with no problem. While they were transferring me back into my chair a guy standing on the table behind me slipped and we almost both ended up on the floor. Luckily one of the people watching was fast enough to catch him so we were saved only to find out he does not recommend surgery at this time, he thinks the problem can be solved by moving my laderals on my chair. Always an adventure...

Friday, April 8, 2005

Georgia Van Sants

David, Deziree and JohnPatrick got here on Tuesday night. Wednesday we decided to go have lunch at The Cheesecake Factory and then go to Peramount Great American. The weather was perfect and everybody had a really good time. David and JohnPatrick went on every ride they could and Deziree took a lot of pictures. After we came home we ordered pizza.

On Thursday I had a doctor's appointment with Dr. Miner. Lulu was supposed to take me but I got confused on the time so David ended up taking me.

Stanley, Janet and Corinne came down on Thursday evening.