Opera-Challenged

This is the pill I NEED, after downloading the new free Opera browser yesterday. Sure, Opera looks great, with all those skins and layouts to customize, except I can't GO anywhere, for some reason. I type in an url, and nothing happens! Or the website has a problem with Opera's security configuration---or this stupid cartoon MONKEY pops up to tell me the mods "don't like" certain keystrokes, etc. I think I'll just stick with my Firefox. I know Darwin's right and all that, but I still hate to be lectured by a monkey.

LEAH'S GANTZE MISHPOCHA

The one standing on the far left is Leah, next is her husband, and her son. Seated are her mother, left, and father. Leah's put her photos online, but for some reason the url doesn't work for me. I'll have to copy it down and manually insert it into my browser. Boy, are we getting lazy or what? You can click on the image to get a better view, as I had to reduce it or it would have taken forever to load.

My Old School Chum

I'm pleased to present Leah, one of my old friends from Pennsauken, whom I haven't seen in 30 years. Looks pretty good for an old broad of 56---better than I do, in fact. I'm hoping to get down to where she lives, but with the current price of gas....
She hasn't changed a bit, looks like. I cropped this from a larger photo showing the whole family, which I'll post shortly. Her parents emigrated to Isreal after retirement, and she hadn't seen THEM for about sixteen years or so, what with raising a family and airfares, so I'm glad she finally got over there. Her family was very good to me, almost like my OTHER family, in a way. I hadn't seen them since we moved in 1971, and it's a bit of a shock to see them as old. It's funny, but you never actually think of people you know as aging, even when you KNOW they must have. I still remember them as they were then. Of course, the changes are mainly exterior, because under the skin (be it ever so wrinkled) we still ARE the same as we were then.
To Leah and her family---biz ah hundert und tvanzig! Amen, selah!

HELLO AGAIN!

Yeah, I know I haven't posted in a long time. It's called procrastination, which I have honed to a fine art over the years. I figure the more I put things off, the longer I'll live. Sounds crazy, but it just might work. A Lubavitcher rabbi once explained that we all have a mission in life, and once we fulfill it, we die. He wasn't very happy when I opined (in my sensible way) that we should find out what our mission is, then stall so as to live forever! Hey, God's eternal, right? So why should HE care how long we take to do our job? Anyhow, only the good die young----as they say. Being already 56, I'm obviously past all hope of being good. Not that I'm EVIL, mind you, but I have my faults. Ask my mother-in-law; she LOVES ennumerating them. At any rate, if I live long enough, I'll probably evolve into froggy, here. Well, I always WAS bass-ackward. Why change now?

The Procrastinatress Gets A Round Tuit

So, I finally got back to posting! Bet you thought I never would. Actually, I was beginning to wonder myself. But life goes on, even if it seems to bypass me. As they say----!@#$ happens. Like today, for example. Just when you think it's going to be another boring day, Murphy's Law intervenes. I get up early, go downstairs, check on the guinea pig and the gecko, and somehow end up tipping over one of those glass Galilleo thermometers---which breaks and spills God-knows-what toxic liquid in the gecko's tank (fortunately, the gecko knows what a klutz I am and got out of the way in time), and thus I am forced to chuck the tank and buy a new one, because geckos can live to be 30 yrs old. Did you know that? Neither did I, until the petstore told me. Now, since I BOUGHT the gecko there some 10 yrs ago, you'd have thought they would have told me THEN. Are you kidding?!! So, of course I now have to shell out about $200 for a whole new habitat for a critter who's likely to outlive ME. Oh well...
Then there's the guinea pig, who enjoys urinating on my son, and you'd be AMAZED at how much urine that little !@#@$ can leak. Anyway, since his cage is right next to el gecko's I can't be sure it hasn't splashed in there as well, so he has to be bathed (ever try bathing a cat? My cavy HATES water) in the tub and his cage cleaned. I swear, for a little fella he sure seems to give me the Augean Stables every time. This is no small cage, either. It's about as big as a bathtub (again, the petstore said he'd NEED it for exercise, but he doesn't, and he never puts on a POUND, dammit). So today, of course, had to be the hottest day of the year thus far, and tomorrow I have a craft fair. I'm pooped. At least the animals are happy...

Somebody ELSE Wants To Be ME?

Weird. We apply for a line of credit and get a report which states we owe $600 to AT&T Wireless that was sent to a collection agency for non-payment---except we never HAD AT&T and never got any notice of any overdue bill. Naturally, being concerned about our credit worthiness, we checked with the collection company, and the Social Security number was MINE. Problem was, the person to whom this number supposedly belonged was not ME, but someone living in New Jersey whom I had never met. More interestingly, she'd been using my number since Y2K! If we hadn't applied, we'd never have known.
WARNING! Never assume you are so unpopular, unloved, unwanted that SOMEbody won't "need" you. After all, who in their right mind would WANT to be me? Obviously this is someone who is ignorant of the dangers of posing as a nerd. Still, it's a nice "boost" for MY ego, knowing I'm not totally useless. I'd really like to meet this person and thank her personally. Of course, I'm afraid the POLICE would frown on this, as using someone else's S.S. number just happens to be ILLEGAL. Then again, this person just might be an "illegal" herself. How ELSE can a poor, misunderstood, undocumented alien get a driver's license, etc. here? Being a registered Democrat, I'm sure she'd be an asset to WHATEVER party she joined---as long as it was Republican. But now that she's been exposed, she'll need a NEW Social Security number, unfortunately. Maybe you'd better ask for YOUR credit report, just in case.

I WASN'T GONNA COMMENT BUT...

Yes, we've all heard of whatsername, who supposedly wants to die but can't tell anybody, etc. And I really didn't want to bore you with my innane musings, but as every OTHER idiot seems to be bloviating on this mess, why should I refrain from adding my OWN idiocy? So, it started off with the not-quite-dearly-departed's hubby claiming the right to pull her plug. Okay, I can see that. After all, as Jerry Foulwell has kindly pointed out, he's currently (gasp!) LIVING IN SIN with another woman, so I guess it would be somewhat of an inconvenience to have his first wife hanging around. And I understand that he'd gotten a big windfall from suing the doctors after his wife became a veggie, so her parents, understandably enough, wanted a piece of the pie. He said no, so they said (I'm guessing here, but it might be plausible) that he'd be sorry. So you've got a tug of war over a veggie. Now, mind you, Terri MIGHT just pop out of this state, unlike the veggies you buy at the grocery, because God could decide to do a miracle. Then again, we could be invaded by Martians tomorrow, too.
At any rate, the doctors are very helpful; they pull any tube you want and put it back again---as long as they're paid for it. How nice. I think Dr. Kevorkian should pay THEM a visit. However, you can't really blame the poor doctors, since they're probably just as brain-dead as Terri but can still move around. God forbid any of US should get doctors like these. No, the REAL stupids are the politicians, I'm afraid. But what can you expect? Hey, they've gotta keep a finger up to see which way the wind's blowing, right? And they just CAN'T pass up a winner like THIS case. Except it seems that over 60% of Americans are blowing the OTHER way.
So, if I've got this right, the Republicans feel that allowing Terri to die is wrong, but it would be okay to kill her if she was a criminal. Well, gee, there must have been SOMETHING she did that was criminal by Republican standards. I mean, maybe she supported abortion, or voted for Liberals, or even opposed the war in Iraq. And she COULD have at least thrown a fit about her husband carrying on with another woman. About the only ones showing any SENSE here are the Democrats and the Federal Courts! Of course, the Republicans scream THAT'S because the courts are obviously controlled by Satan, and Democrats are devils ANYHOW. Isn't it comforting, knowing Big Brother cares for a poor veggie (especially when it's such a great campaign issue)? Why, she might snap out of it and vote Republican. Of course, as her husband is LIVING IN SIN, they claim he's no longer her husband, somehow. So why don't they charge him with bigamy, then? Well, it seems they kinda can't, since he didn't actually MARRY the other woman. We all know none of these fine, upstanding, Godly Republicans would do something SINFUL---at least not publically. I'm sure none of our PRESIDENTS have ever LIVED IN SIN, except for Grover Cleveland, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Clinton...
All I know is, I'm making one of those wills. I'm going to specify that if I look and act like a veggie, then put me in a pot of hot water and make soup. I'm fat enough it should feed about half the world, I figure. Hey, if the Donner Party could do it, what the hell. Soylent Green, anyone?