Probably one of my favorite things to do is to sit in my big fluffy chair, sipping a cup of hot tea, curled up in my favorite fleece blanket, usually covered in cats...listening to music playing in the background. More often than not, it's Mozart. I reserve my other musical selections for other activities such as, water therapy, sound therapy, yoga, meditation and so forth. Mozart is my 'thinking' music. It allows my mind to become completely detached from reality. It allows my mind to remember places, events and travels that had taken place long ago in my life.

   Some such memories include: A time my friend and I went diving off the coast of Daytona Beach, Florida, and encountered the most beautiful corals and sharks I have ever seen in my life. Another memory I've had was of my third birthday, when my mother held this Mickey Mouse themed party for me, and my cat coincidentally captured 3 mice in our basement (which also just so happened to have been the only mice ever captured in our basement).Another time was when I was in Saratoga Springs, NY with my youngest boys, when they were 3 and 4 years old...and we had a picnic in one of the parks in the fall...and after we ate, we just were laying around on the blanket...watching the golden and orange leaves fall down on us, as if it was some sort of a leaf shower.

    Music, in and of itself, has a tremendous impact on me. It is not because I LIKE different types of music, but rather because music itself was literally born into me. At the age of 2, I started playing the piano. By the age of 5, I had written my first piano concerto, and by the age of 16, I had 30 concertos and minuettes written as well as 2 full scale orchestrations. Only a few of these have ever been professionally recorded, but all of them are still firmly in place in my mind, and I have also hand written several onto music sheets. Where they are right now is a mystery to me. I know they probably still exist, I just have yet to recover them.

    My musical tastes span quite a broad range of genre. I enjoy almost all types of music, with the few exceptions being Gangster Rap, Gospel/Christian, Country and some forms of what people have come to call 'folk music'. I do not like Elvis. I loathe most Beatles songs. I cannot bear to hear even one note of Pat Boone music, and the gods above and below help me if I ever have to hear "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" ever again in my life. I suppose I should also add "most show tunes" to the list of music varieties I have little to no tolerance for. Show tunes belong exactly as it states.. in a show. NOT on CD's.

     As much of a music lover as I am, I would absolutely suck in a music-based trivia game. I do not delve into any type of modern music well enough to know song titles, band names, lead singers...and many of the other bits of generalized information that most music 'buffs' know. I simply hear a song, and enjoy it. If I hear it often enough, or enjoy it greatly, I'll bother to find out the title, who performs the music and/or a bit of information about either the song itself, or the artist(s) who perform it.

   Mozart, however, is one of my absolute favorites. Mozart for memories....it serves me well.

     We've all heard the term "growing pains".  Growing pains are very real, and with some people, like it was in my husband's case, they can be very painful, sometimes to the point of temporarily disabling a person's movement. However, when you growing up and have to deal with pain from almost every angle, and not only have no idea why you have this pain, but also have no adults (professional or otherwise) who completely believe you when you try to describe this pain...that's a whole other ball game completely.

     When you're 13, and playing tennis at school, and suddenly drop to the ground because your knees lock up and you hurt so much that you can barely keep yourself from screaming, those are not normally growing pains. When you're 16, and playing in a piano recital, and out of no where, your fingers lock into place and will not move, and tears are running down your face from the pain of it all, that's a clue that there is something 'not right'. Such was my case.

     Most people with genetic types of Arthritis have lived with life-long pain. And, as was the case with me, it's generally not diagnosed until they are either in their mid-to-late teens, or early-to-mid twenties. I was actually lucky enough to be diagnosed at the age of 16, immediately after the above mentioned piano incident.  This was not the beginning, but rather, just another item on an already long list of things I had to deal with growing up.

     Now, at the age of 41, I am still being diagnosed. Silently aging, my body is now approximately 5 years older than my chronological clock says I am.  Anyone who lives with any type of chronic pain deals with this. The human body, as strong as it is, is ironically also one of the most fragile biological organisms on the planet. Therefore, the human body can only sustain so much, for a certain period of time before it starts to give out and/or wear down.

     To look at me, I do not appear to have any physical disabilities at all. In fact, most people have told me that I do not look 41 at all, but rather closer to say 30 (tops). To listen to me talk, it would not seem as if I have any type of hearing loss, nor would you even think for one second that anything would be physically wrong enough to cause a speech change in me from time to time. But, it's all there. In order for me to 'hear' someone, I have to either see them speak (meaning, I have to actually watch their mouth move as they speak), or - as is the case with the telephone and computer - I have to have the volume up very high (to the point that most people would get an ear ache from the decibel level).

    At 5'1", weighing in at 120 pounds, and having less than 5% body fat (meaning, I'm pretty much pure  muscle), no one would ever suspect even for a second that it is nearly impossible for me to walk at times. They would not think that someone who appeared this way would have breathing problems of any kind, nor would they think that I was even the slightest bit 'un-healthy'. Then again, most people with second, and sometimes third, stage Cancers don't LOOK un-healthy, but they are.

    

     Few things infuriate me more in the political field than what I call 'crackpot politics'. I define this as "the over all unwillingness of politicians in general to hold the capability of looking beyond their own agenda in order to properly serve the communities they were elected to serve". Within these particular 'agendas', anything (and I mean literally anything) that can be seen as being bias towards any type of person, gets my blood boiling almost as fast as a liar.

     Recently, a bill has been placed before the congressional seats, asking them to place into law an  expansion on the laws pertaining to racial, religious and gender based hate crimes. Please note here: there are several types of laws that include these regulations and/or are solely based on these types of hate-based crimes, so to list them would probably give the average reader a good case of eye sore.

     The expansion would include the addition of crimes that are based on sexual orientation. This, in and of itself, opens many new doors for the protection of people who belong to the LGBT communities around the nation. It is the first of its kind, and is one of the largest and most active steps to be taken by our government to help protect the LGBT community from hate-based crimes. Sadly, these types of crimes take place far too often. More often, in fact, than any other type of hate based crime, including racial-based hate crimes.

     One of the congressmen that opposed the expansionary law expressed his concern on the congressional floor stating that he felt it was wrong to add something to an already-existing law, that would allow people to be arrested simply because of what they might be thinking. Apparently, he has not taken the time to really sit back and realize the fact that hate crimes are almost ALWAYS based on 'what someone might be thinking'.

    Gender-based hate crimes are based around the "I hate men/women" thought process. Racially-based hate crimes are based around the "I hate ______ people" thought process. Religious-based hate crimes are based around the "I hate people that don't believe in the same religion as I have" thought process. It is all "thought". What people think. How they feel. What they were raised to believe in, or, in the generalized case of hate crimes, what they were raised to NOT believe in.

     By all means, please feel free to post an comments on this.
    

    Within days we'll be moving. 16 days, to be exact. Yard sale is happening tomorrow (finally), because it was held off over and over because of bad weather and not knowing an exact date (which actually gave us more time to get more stuff together that we did not want or need). Most of the things that we have, and are taking with us, are already packed. So once the tag sale items are gone, there will be little left to do outside of packing up the few items we use on a daily basis here, and our clothing.

     Sometimes I get mentally drained over all this, but then I remember that it's only temporary. What we're going through here is nothing compared to what we're going to be going through up there. In our house in Downieville, there will be a total of 4 accumulative homes piled into one house. This does NOT include our belongings. Our items will not even reach Downieville for at least 2 weeks.

     We'll be staying in a motel until then, but it will be a motel with a kitchenette in it, and two good sized beds, so we won't have to really worry about that too much, and since they're going to allow us to have the cats with us, it won't be that much of an issue either for the cats. They'll be able to roam around the room while we're at the house cleaning, so we won't have to worry about them being stuck in their travel carriers for long periods of time. The longest they'll be in the carriers will be on the way down to Downieville.

     My mind has been racing from one idea to the other lately. My mother has been getting stuff together for us down at the house, while I'm packing everything possible up here. We still need more boxes, A LOT more boxes, but those are easy enough to come by from the movers. Right now, it's packing tape and cat carriers we need to worry about, as well as getting someone to haul off a ton of stuff from our garage that's water damaged and so forth.

     One way or the other, things will work out. HOW is beyond me at this point. Then again, it doesn't matter HOW, it just matters that we get it done. *headdesks*

   A few days have past since my last posting on this topic. So far, we've managed to gather almost half of the items necessary for our tag sale. I use the term 'necessary' because to us, it's pointless to bring items to Downieville when there are already items in the house. For example, if we brought all of our desks, we'd end up with 6 desks in the house. We only need 3, tops (and that's because of our computer systems only, plus one for our son's room).

   I've been talking with my mom over the past few days in regards to the items that are already in the house, so we can understand what we actually need to bring, and what she and I will have to get rid of at the house in Downieville. I thought about selling our couch because my grandmother already has one. However, after talking to my mom, I decided to bring our couch simply because my grandmother's couch is totally shot and needs to be gotten rid of.

  There are a list of things that have to be done to the house itself before we'd consider it 'comfortable' to live in. Fortunately, none of these things that need to be done are to the structure of the house itself. Just cosmetic and menial things. New paint on the outside, a heating coils for the ovens, a lot of generalized deep cleaning, etc. So nothing really all that major needs to be done before the house is comfortable to live in. Cleaning is going to be the longest of these projects.

   It's not just the sorting out of the home's contents that need to be cleaned. See, when any home sits unused for long periods of time, there's the natural dust and dirt collection that builds up on everything in the home. So that's the primary part of the cleaning. Tub, toilets, sinks, floors, windows, and so forth. I figure that by December, we'll be living comfortably in the home.

   We knew this day would be coming at some point in our lives. Now, there's only the mental preparation to be done prior to the move. I'm not close to kidding. My mother is a hoarder. It's one of the many effects she has of her OCD. She's had this since birth, and over the years, it has become more and more prominent. As it is right now, the floors in her home in Downieville cannot be seen. Most of the walls cannot be seen. It's difficult to find the light switches because of the clutter, and there is food that has been left in the refrigerator for at least 5 years. MAJOR cleaning to be done.

    I will say that my mother has allowed the home to get to this point simply because she's not living in the home, but rather using it as more of a catch all storage home. Simply put, it's a warehouse for her stuff. Hoo  boy... break out the Windex and the Lysol LOL

Welcome to downtown Downieville, CA. One of the original Gold Rush towns, and the original capital of the state of California (until 1852). A once booming town of 5,000 people, the population has now dropped to around 350 - 400 people (tops). It is listed as a 'living ghost town', and is nestled around 3,000 feet in elevation in the high Sierra Mountain range of central California.

   The image you see here is one of the original buildings in Downieville. It is a shared building. On the top floor is home to California's oldest weekly newspaper, The Mountain Messenger. The lower floor is home to Cathy's Salon (not saloon, that's on the other end of town, and yes, it's still called a saloon, not a bar). At one point, the saloon in Downieville boasted the longest bar top made from a single piece of wood, at 70 feet in length. Not sure if that record still stands or not.

   The Downieville Project begins with a long-strung moving preparation. Back in 1964, my grandfather, Johnathan Alexander Serocki, built a house in Downieville, and moved in there with my grandmother, Anna May Serocki as a retirement location. Unfortunately, my grandfather only got to enjoy 4 1/2 years in the house before he died on August 29, 1969. My grandmother died on June 2, 2000 at the age of 92.

   Now then, the long-strung moving preparation begins in Downieville. My mother, who owns the home now, has been using the house as a storage type house since she married her current husband, Andrew Carpenter. Since they live in Camptonville, the only use for the house was for nothing more than a 'catch all' of sorts.

    And, so it begins.....

Well, this is a photo my daughter, Pam, took of the sunset at our beach here in California. Lovely, isn't it? Anyway, things are back to normal temperature wise. The high temperatures are back to being under 70, and the lows are back to dipping down into the low 40's and upper 30's at night.

  The other day I got a call from the pain management clinic where my GP has had to refer me. My doc is literally at a total loss as to what can be done for my chronic pain at this point, and since I have so many allergies to narcotic-based pain killers, (I literally cannot take any of them at all without risking heart problems and breathing issues - like I need more of those, right?) he decided that physical therapy and pain management were my only two routes left. The sad part of this is, he's right.

   So the disability people also called me the other day. They asked me to clarify the dates I put on my (third) application. They told me that in my listing, several of my disabilities were listed as having started on 9/18/68, while others were listed as having started at obviously later dates. So when the lady asked me about this, I said, "Well, 3 of them I was born with, so yeah, 9/18/68". She went on to explain to me that because of the way their system works, I can only list myself as being disabled from the date in which I was unable to work. Ok, so that would be around April of 2001.  But that's not what the questions on the form ask for. It asks you to list the disabilities you have, and the dates in which you began having them. NOT for the disabilities you have, and the dates in which you were incapable of working because of them. BIIIIIIIIIIG difference!

                                                                        
   Another lovely night time photo my daughter took of the full moon (on her cell phone... go figure).
Anyway, back to the pain management clinic, the lady there asks me how often I have pain. I told her that it's not a matter of how often I have it, or when I have it... but rather a matter of how bad it is at the moment. She laughed. I wasn't laughing. I was dead serious. She stopped laughing when she realized that I was not even close to kidding about that.

    I remember my first time going to see a doctor about my disability claim. They took me in to this run down place that they called a 'medical office' (looked more like a war torn living room with a scale and green walls). First I had to see a doctor (I'm still questioning as to how much medical schooling this piece of work had), then they had me see a psychologist. Now THAT was odd, at least I thought so.

   So before the quack said a word, I asked him why I was supposed to talk to him. He said, "well, sometimes people who claim they're disabled, really have underlying emotional or psychological issues that keep them from functioning properly". I was ready to leave, but thought that it might be fun to at least humor the guy... make him feel like he was doing his job and all. So he started with a series of questions that went along the lines of...
"If you take 101 South all the way to the end, what city do you end up in?"  And I'm like, "I've never taken 101 south all the way to the end before, but I'm going to stab at San Fran." His response to that was, "ah, so you drive!" And I'm like... "No, I fly. YES I bloody drive, how in the hell do you think I even got here? By riding a freaking Elk?" He kinda shut up after that.... ROFL

   It's been a little while since Scooter decided to adopt us as his family. Although he's still primarily an outside cat, he has chosen to set a schedule for us. (per se LOL).  Ever since Scooter figured out that cat toys are best used on the inside of the house, he's been enjoying a more 'in-home' feline schedule of events. While he'll still remain outside at night (averaging about once or twice a week right now), he's beginning to alter 'our schedule' so that he's outside with our other two cats (Willow and Thomas) during the day, and sleeps inside at night. Below is a picture of him during one of his 'morning moments'.



Scooter seems to be a 'hoarder'. Meaning, if he sees something he likes, he takes off with it and places it in his own personal 'collection stash'. The only problem with this is that said 'stash' is located someplace out in the woods in the back or our home (and we have yet to locate it, so we're assuming his original night time sleepy spot is located somewhere in the deep reaches of the Blackberry bushes). The other day, while Jerry and I were enjoying a mid-afternoon stroll in our back yard, we spotted Scooter walking across the yard carrying a miniature red Xmas stocking in his mouth. We're assuming at this rate, we'll be having to replace almost all of the cat toys by June.