It's Getting Harder and Harder to Trust Folk

I had my chapters all mapped out.  Wouldn't you know it now it is the only file on my online storage account that shows completely blank.  Now I am going to have to go back to my hand written items and re-create it.  I am going to get my rest.  Thankfully I type very fast.  At my peak I can do over a 100 words a minute.  I see reaching that peak again real soon.

SOON TO BE RELEASED!

I just realized I have two versions of the cover.  I have "Soon to Be Released" on the final edit I did.  I snatched this one from my FACEBOOK photos.  Trying to keep that momentum going.

My goal is to still self-publish by Valentine's Day.  Some setbacks are just a step back to take a greater leap forward and that's what I am owning.

But it is a good thing I do work well under pressure.  I had one really awesome chapter title I had not included.  I just know now not to save anything in the cloud and don't connect the computer I write on to a network or anything else.

It is sad but I think I am going to end up doing the old bait and switch.  As my self-imposed deadline nears I don't want any glitches.   So I am going to have a good copy and a bad copy.  The bad copy will be my way of hopefully eventually tracking where the leak is.  But I hope not.  I am really hoping it is just some computer fluke.

Anyways, I am working hard on this and I want it to be something of substance.  My goal is to utilize the reading and research and best practices I have been pondering over to make it something great!

My goal is best seller out the box. I got a few other items to check off my list with this book project too.  I hope to show my true talents and entrepreneurial skills.  I am a woman writing about women issues.  I am looking for the success I feel it should bring.

Stay tuned because I hope to make it as hot and juicy as the hottest and juiciest Valentine's Day ever.  However, it won't be no porn.  I am not into that.  Maybe a heated love scene here and there but classy enough in case some young noisy eyes pick up a copy of my book from laying around.

I am getting nervous and excited so I really feel it is going to happen.  Pray for me.  Stay with me.  It is going to have a twist that I am hoping will get that thumbs up like dang she knocked it out the box.

No pressure!

Watching Your Mother Die of A Broken Heart

Please forgive me in advance for ad libbing on this post.  I am sitting at the hospital in the waiting room.  My mother is being admitted into the hospital yet once again.  Another UTI from the supra cubric catherer which was installed back in June.

My mother has a lot of years experience in the medical field.  She is very familiar with the terminally. The advance stages of diseases do not come uneasy to her because she retired as Supervisor of the Tumor Registry at a Navy Medical Command here in Virginia.  She was one of the founding members of the Society of Tumor Registrars.  She has worked with doctors from varied backgrounds from her initial days in the medical profession in medical records.

When we are at the hospital she is normally the one very well versed in the medications she takes.  She can pronounce them, knows the side effects, and probably a whole lot more than the average patient.  I remember the days when she was working tirelessly to advance up to the level she attained prior to her disability retirement.  She went out on disability retirement after 29-1/2 years of loyal and dedicated service to Civil Service.  She not only worked civil service she worked part time jobs too.  She most often worked part time as a cashier.  I remember once she even worked part time cleaning offices.  Her initial position as a cashier started out on the base in the commissary.

The past couple of years have been really rough.  My mother all her life has supported a whole lot of crutches.  She has kept a roof over the heads of others who could not afford their own roof.  Over the past couple of years as we have grown closer and she has shared a whole lot with me one thing that keeps resonating is how all the people she assisted for so long have turned their backs on her.  And she says thats okay I did my part.

Deep down inside I know it hurts.  I saw all the sacrifices she made.  I saw all the hard work she put in.  My mother was a very beautiful woman.  She really did not have to work as hard as she did because my father was a good provider.  Also, my other brother's family had lots of money.  Even though she would never marry him, she was offered a brand newly constructed home in an upscale neighborhood if she would have all expenses paid.  However, my mother was used to making her own way when necessary and she was not the type who could be bought to settle for what she did not want.

If you have read my previous postings you know my grandparents were instrumental in raising me.  My mother often reflects on how my grandfather thanked her on his death bed for always being there and supporting the family because he told her he doesn't know what they would have done without her.

I know my mother was always a champion of others.  During the holidays, back to school, and other times when others needed support financially, or just a listening ear my mother was there.  When people were sick my mother was there.  When families grieved my mother was there.   Even though my parents divorced back in 1971 they remained friends and looked out for each other as much as two best friends would until my father went on to be with the Lord back in 2008.  She was closer to my father than I was.

Now as I see her suffer so much I often ask why.  I know there is a deep rooted bitterness in watching her in pain and suffering so much.  I keep running across our history in my own mind.  I often reflect out of all the people in the world she was close to I was probably the one at odds with her the most.  She always told she didn't want any girls.  I was raised by a no nonsense grandmother and I was tough enough to take it.  I didn't fall apart.  I know a lot of the reasoning behind it was the Freudian concepts.  So much so that it was one of the reasons that inspired me to want to be a psychiatrist.  When I first started college at Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi that was the focus of my major.  I was on a four year academic scholarship.  The reason why I even found out about the college is because one of the psychiatrists she worked with at Boone Clinic in Norfolk had graduated from their as his undergrad and his mother was a professor there.

My mother's mantra irregardless of our sour relationship was that her children were never going to want for anything.  She really spoiled us.  When it came to finances, we never saw money issues.  She would give us an allowance very week without fail.  Often times she would keep the house so supplied even when she did not live with us until we were pretty much in high school she always made sure we had.

She would let us participate in any event we wanted to.  I remember she would pay for me to go to band camp at William and Mary most every summer until I got older and wanted to do other things.  I remember there were times I went for different camps or events.  I enjoyed getting away and for most of the visits I was in a room alone because the other girls did not want to room with a black girl.  I was real good with that.  Being the spoiled, selfish, self-centered person I was I couldn't have asked for a better set up.  The only black girl who may have come from time to time could wear the white hat.  I guess they just didn't want to room with me because I was never taught to wear the white hat.  It was something that didn't come up for discussion on my home.  And my mother and father both when I was growing up was always for blacks.  They both held supervisory positions.  My father was a Chief in the Navy.

Her main goal is that she wanted her children to be a success.  She was always very adamant she wanted the best for us.  We received new everything every Christmas.  Our birthday parties were fabulous.  Our wardrobe for back to school was a given and she even went as far to buy us a set of clothes to play in.  We had a new coat for school and a new coat to play in most every year.  When holidays like Easter, Christmas, Valentine's Day came around she brought us new stuff.  We got what was trending.

As for me, she was tough on what grades I received.  Most of my play items revolved around educational games.  I was often ahead of what ever they we were studying in school.  I took study aide classes for the fun of it.  I learned the four R's (read, review, write reread).  I normally did it ahead of the material being covered in class.  The one thing I can honestly say I detested was when she showed up to beat me if my grades were not up to par.  My brother could fell everything backwards and he was still her baby.  During my formative years it was mainly just me and my brother as far as siblings.  My knee brother was raised by his paternal grandparents and my youngest brother there is an age gap of fourteen years.  He was basically a toddler when I left to go away to college.  He got more than most all the rest of us because he got a private school education.  My knee brother ran the city where he was raised so he went to public school, not that they could not well afford private schooling.

I'm at the hospital typing this.  My mother is in her hospital room resting.  She was in a lot of pain when we first arrived via a fire truck which is by standard the emergency medical vehicle that comes to pick her up because it is just two and half blocks away from her home.  Once we got to the emergency room they rushed her right in faster than I ever known them to do.  Her temperature was a whopping 103.5 degrees.  It was 102 degrees when we left the house when the EMT checked it.  Her temperature went up on the ride over.

Her supra cubic catheter is yet causing another urinary tract infection (UTI).  My mother always had said she was never going to let anyone cut on her no matter how bad off she got.  I am sitting here wondering why it did not apply to this apparatus.  They changed it in ER and they changed it again once she was assigned to a room.  I'm thinking there should be a better way, especially for women.

I guess it is one of those things were the benefits far outweigh the complicity of it all.  It is a great help in that since she is wheel chair bound she does not have to worry about the arduous task of getting on the toilet when she has to go to the bathroom.  Dang if you do and dang if you don't.

Now that I have drifted as far as the seven seas.  I guess because it hurts me just as much or more than hurts her I am very sorrowful two of her sons have not come to see her once in the past almost two years.  I think it is a travesty.  I can understand the friends and extended family members that abandoned her, but her own sons I find it hard to take.  I know people have their own lives and she has had this disease (Multiple Sclerosis) for a long while and maybe it is just too much for them to continue on.  The doctors only gave her a year to live about two decades ago and she has been winning every year.

The pain in her face I know it is from the heartbreak.  She mentions it all the time.  She says F* them but I know she cares.  How can she not care.  I get it that they want to remember her in the best of shape.  But the worst of shape she is in now I don't feel is all her disease, I think it is from heart ache.

Like the old familiar saying goes, what makes you laugh will also make you cry.  Lord I am asking that you heal her heart, wipe away the sorrow that shows across her face, put the s back in her miles and restore her smile.  This and all things I ask in your name.

The prayer I have been reciting all week is the Serenity Prayer.  "Lord help me to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

A silent word to myself for my mother, you may not have wanted any daughters but God knew you needed to have me.  To God be the Glory because he will right every story.  Amen!

The Pathetic Plight of the Poor and Disenfranchised

One thing I think wealthy people have figured out is that there is a lot of money to be made off of poor people.  The sad thing is a lot of the funds they make off the poor is based on the inescapable fact that the poor are poor to begin with.

We are fast approaching the season where the people stimulate the economy like a fat cat.  The time of the year when a whole lot of spending gets done to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.  I often why they never have a kickoff or celebration.  This lengthwise is probably one of the biggest spending and paying bill seasons of all times.  A whole lot of people are waiting for income tax check refunds.  Once those refunds are received it is spend, spend, spend season.  Maybe that would be a good phrase to coin to the time from the first week in January until the end of the month of February when the poor spend, spend, spend, and then afterwards on credit spend some more.

The rich should throw a feast.  Anxiously awaiting to see what their sales figures are going to be while the poor and disenfranchised are trying to decide what are they going to spend all this new found money on.

Some even give away a whole lot of cash before they even ever see it.  They go to the tax preparation places, get a loan with an interest rate they don't even pay any attention to so they can start the shopping or pay off bills even earlier.

I would imagine the lowest these gotta have it now folks pay would be at minimum $85 and more likely around $135 just for signing their name.  By the time the loan fees are withdrawn before they receive the balance of what would have been a full check had they waited a little while longer they are easily out of hundreds in a lot of cases.

Why do the poor and disenfranchised keep giving away their money like this year after year.  The "I need" season in full swing.  I need a new car, I need new furniture, I need new clothes, I need everything that is going to depreciate in value at least 50% off the money I have already depleted by around 35% by having to have it so soon.  

Then here comes buyers remorse.  Remorseful that I spent so much with so little left.  Heck I might even have to call and borrow money for gas to get to work in the car purchased if it is still running.  Where is some real financial advice when you need it.  That car doesn't seem so new no more, those clothes don't seem so new no more, that furniture is not as comfortable as it seemed at first.  Now here comes the inevitable, call that supervisor from that minimum wage job I quit because the money from the tax return check was a clear indication of how much that job sucked now it is time to go back and suck up to get it back.  The supervisor is mad because they did not have enough employees to cover this high demand season.  The lines are super long everywhere when it is income tax refund time.  The employees who were there for the long haul are gone because they couldn't deal with the folks who have money who used to works jobs that sucked.  They are on the consumer side acting worse than the customers who came in to the job they had that sucked.

The cycle is vicious but the thirst and greed is real.

Who is really reaping the benefits of everyone else's dilemmas and struggles?  Who work hard and really don't have the money to play harder unless they are fronting during income tax season?  Why is our America like this.  Is this really representative of for the people by the people type culture?

The poor work all year long barely making ends meet.  Then when income tax time payout times come around it seems to me they rip the shreds off the ends that do not already meet themselves.

I could say it is the rich people fault.  However, when it comes to leading by example, they don't do this.  They have tax advisers, they have attorneys, they have colleagues, they have sorority sisters and fraternity brothers, they have resources.  They don't do this.  They make sure they have enough secured financially prior to them spending haphazardly.

When are we as a society going to make mainstream ways in educating and showing the poor and disenfranchised a better way.  I know from personal experience finances are not taught in every home.  During my years in school as a student finances were not even taught in most schools or colleges.  Just think of the logic in working hard to get a quality education and then not living a quality lifestyle because you never learned at home or anywhere else.

Imagine all those people who learned to sacrifice so life could be nice.  Sacrifice and save when you can so you will have something when you can't.

Just wait and see even though gas prices have gone down considerably in recent weeks the price of everything else will definitely not see a decline until after the first week or so of March 2015 based on my prediction.  I don't really predict things I just reminisce over how things have transpired in the past and associate that to what the likelihood of future performance will be.

The powers that be and money is definitely power know that once the income tax checks roll in the less fortunate are going to be so elated they have money they are going on a shopping spree.  I see things on the horizon, all logic is out the window.

All those account receivables with late fees on all types of accounts are about to be brought current.  The late fees which are fees added on because you're too poor to pay the bill will be paid.  Late fees are not for services rendered they are normally for services that cannot be rendered any longer until you pay the bill.  The disconnect charges, the reconnect charges, and other miscellaneous I am going to stick it to those poor souls any way I can fees are totally legal.  I think they are highway robbery.

With technology as advanced as it is now it cannot possibly cost businesses as much to disconnect and reconnect a person's account.  I am sure it is automated to the point where it happens automatically.  The more you owe the more you pay in penalty, late charges, and interest.  The problem I have with this is because basic utilities people do not have out of convenience they should be considered items of necessity.  People need to stay warm, they need to have electricity, people need to be able to cook, wash, bathe, eat, they need to be able to live like human beings.  It is so ironic the cost and rates on utilities goes up and those services have much higher balances just in time for the tax season rescue.  Yes those refund checks are for spending when the stuff that has to be rescued have been paid.

I wish someone would go on a campaign and encourage the poor to use their buying power to increase their power.  If the poor and disenfranchised had a leader they would have power to lead.  A lot of people feel the biggest spenders are the ones who have the least.  We need a leader who will say you need to step back, look at your whole situation.  Look at the consequences of doing over doing that.  Don't spend up your money during this time of the year.  Wait until the mad rush is over if you really have to have certain items like a new television, new pocket, the latest wardrobe, new video games, etc.  The prices will be higher as the W-2's from 2014 start rolling out.

Just one year could the poor people irregardless of everything culturally, socially, or economically band together and maybe even start a slush fund or some type of consolidated fund and vow no more, no way, no how.  We are going to use this money to build us back up.  We want our children to have schools they can be proud to attend once again.  We want our streets to be safe.  We want our children to have a future.  We want the thugs and drugs replaced with hugs.  We want to be able to hug our children versus looking at them from behind a glass wall with a speaker. We want to see our kin folk clean and sober.  Laugh, talk, and play games, have cook-outs, and outings, be able sit around and enjoy the fruits of their labor with family and friends and not have to worry about any criminal elements.

The poor and disenfranchised are throwing away their power.  We need strong leadership to lead and guide the masses on taking a chance on us.  We need to lead people to the 1% population that will pay it forward.  We don't need to keep relying on hand outs and focus our agenda on a hand up.

I wish I could get a figure and I know it would staggering.  What is the dollar amount of all tax refunds to the poor and disenfranchised and what the economic impact would be if it could be used to benefit us instead of enslave us to the same guiding principles and ideologies which has always enslaved us.