Saying Goodbye to Pastor Jeannie Part I

21 of January, 2007 was Pastor Jeannie Martz's last Sunday at St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Palm Beach Gardens, FL. I took my camera to church, but had a lot of difficulty taking pictures because my hand wasn't very steady and they were looking pretty blurred through the view finder. Rev. Jeannie's last words in her sermon were "a time to reap, a time to sow and a time to go," at which point I was trying to get the pictures through a sea of tears. Immediately when Jeannie said those words the congregation lept to their feet and applauded. Their wasn't a dry eye in the church.

It was also a time of healing, of coming together and having to accept the fact that it's been 3 years since we've had a full time Rector. Jannie had been Associate Rector at St. Mark's for 13 years. And the rules of TEC say that the Associate cannot become full time Rector in the same church as Associate. It was a hard pill to swallow for many of us. Father Cook comes to us from Minnesota in mid-February and we look forward to his arrival and wish Rev. Jeannie the best.

Later in the day, we had Rev. Jeannie's farewell party, "Come to the Islands, Mon" was the theme of the party. It was the best party in the 10 years I've been a member of St. Mark's. Rev. Jeannie left with some wonderful gifts including our cash gift of $13, 500. Yeah you get the point. We love her and everybody wanted to contribute something.

More St. Mark's Holiday and Misc. Pics

Here are more pictures of St. Mark's, Palm Beach Gardens. The pretty blonde lady is Pastor Jeannie Martz, Priest-in-chage.

St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Palm Beach Gardens, FL: Holiday Pics

Here are a variety of picture's from St. Mark's. You'll notice that the architecture of St. Andrew's and St. Mark's are totally different. St. Mark's is absolutely beautiful modern architecture. St. Andrew's is traditional, but beautiful gothic. St. Mark's stained glass windows are contemporary, St. Andrew's traditional. St. Mark's is laid out funny making weddings and certain other events challenging at times. Yet Both churches are wonderful with great folks in both.

St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, Lake Worth, FL: Holiday Pics

Larry was the king in the St. Andrew's Christmas pageant. A picture of King Larry is posted on the previous post. Here are more pictures of the Christmas season at St. Andrew's.

Gordon's Birthday & Ringing in the New Year

Dec. 27th is my birthday. I came back from lunch and Carla, one of my co-workers told me to look on my desk. I went in my office and found a bouquet of a dozen red roses and teddy bear in the arrangement. Larry had never sent me flowers to work before. It was neat. We went to Beefeaters for dinner that night. It was a lovely day. New Year's Eve was totally fun and took place in Lake Worth. It started at Ann's House for dinner. New Year's Eve is also Ann's birthday and we were celebrating her 80th with her. Then at 10:30, the merry making party goers moved over to Margo's house. Margo is the artsy type, extremely talented in music, the theater and culinary delights. She and her husband Michael have a theater troupe called the Core Ensemble. If you google Core Ensemble you will find that they have several sections to the troupe and travel all over the world. Margo's house and yard is something else. Walking up the walk to the house reminds me of the San Francisco house in Tales of the City. It was a warm and lovely evening and we spent it looking at the planets through a huge telescope. I spent a lot of time in the flower covered swing and consumed a lot of chocolate! We sang Ald Lang Syne at midnight, made our toasts and I pleaded being very tired and we went home and I was asleep in 10 minutes. This brought to a close the busiest but most fun holiday season in my adult life. There are many stories I didn't tell which I'll attempt to do in the form of some of the many pictures taken in November and December. 2006 has come to a close. But in spite of bad news when it comes to health, it was a wonderful year of closeness, love and appreciation to church friends, work friends, alzheimer's friends and spiritual growth of realizing the interconnectedness of people, making new friendships and drawing closer to those who are important to me. It was a year of having to make tough medical decisions and putting a different medical team in place. I have three wonderful doctors who work together as a team. Dr. Briskin, my PC team let me know in no uncertain terms, that my health care is a team approach. He's the team leader, he's the boss and I finally have some cohesive health care rather than fragmented where one doctor doesn't know what the other one is doing. I look forward to what's in store in 2007. My hope for the new year is that America will continue to move forward in what's right for the American people and that our newly elected leaders will continue to vote for legislation which makes life a little easier for average middle class Americans and the poor like they've been doing for the past two weeks. It's time for the United States to turn it's back on evil, to stand up and say "No to Halliburton as they amass billions of dollars while serving our troops expired food and water laughing all the way to the bank, "no" to cutting the taxes on the richest one percent of America, "no" to abolishing estate taxes for multi millionaires and leaving. It's time to say "no" in memory of the people who died as a result of cuts in Medicare and Medicaid, who died in Tennessee when the Medicare was cut. It's time to stop the lies, the deceit, the death and destruction of our country. I'm hopeful for a New Year where love and caring for people ushers in an era of morality and closes the door on the stench of evil and corruption of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Gonzales and their ilk. Hopefully we might even have elected officials who won't allow the Evil One in the White House to send our Border Patrol sent to prison for going after drug smugglers. Maybe we'll even get our borders and ports protected. God Bless America. Better days are ahead.

Elections,Thanksgiving,Christmas & Other Stuff Part II

Every year my union's local (AFGE/American Federation of Government Employees) has a holiday party. This year I was chairman. I must have been NUTS when I agreed to do this at one of our union meetings back during the summer. I was also the emcee. But everybody seemed to have a good time and nothing disastrous happened. Also during December was the Palm Beach Chapter of The Daughter's of the British Empire Holiday Tea. This is something I've supported for years. The proceeds from the tea support a nursing home operated by this organization in Houston. The Daughter's of the British Empire started in America over a hundred years ago. Many sociality wealthy Americans wanted English girls as their maids. It was a social status thing. These young women would come to the U.S. from the U.K., work hard for low pay and no medical care or families in America to take care of them when they got too old to work. This wonderful organization has chapters all over the world. Anyway, I have a HUGE poster of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip which the Daughters borrow every year to use at the tea. I think there are a couple of pictures of it on earlier posts. At this year's tea, wonderful homemade scones,cucumber sandwiches and great tea and my favorite, little cream puffs were enjoyed by all. A few days before Christmas, Carey arrived from Fort Worth, actually Euless, a suburb of Fort Worth. Carey is past retirement age but continues to work as a hospice nurse, is a volunteer at DFW Airport and sings in his local Episcopal Church choir. We've be friends for many years. Carey is a very outgoing guy who is a lot of fun. But to be truthful, the Christmas weekend was exhausting as well as fun and spiritually enriching to all three of us. Christmas weekend was tiring this year not only for Episcopalians, but all of those Christians who worship in the higher liturgical denominations whose worship has followed the liturgy of the Christian Calendar for about 2000 years. And this year Christmas Eve fell on a Sunday. The poor clergy at my church, St. Mark's had 5 services that day, and Larry's church, St. Andrew's had four. So Christmas Eve morning we went to Lake Worth to worship at St. Andrew's and then to downtown Lake Worth with friends from church. Then, knowing that there was NO WAY I was going to be able to stay awake for us to drive to my church, St. Mark's in Palm Beach Gardens for midnight service, we went to 8 PM service instead and then skipped church totally on Christmas Day. The Orchestra, choir and candles and worshipping with folks close to me was wonderful. Christmas Day we went to Bohemian Gardens for Christmas dinner, a wonderful family owned, home cooked meal kind of place which has been operating in western Lake Worth for more than 50 years in the same location. Carey flew home the day after Christmas. But the holiday's weren't over yet. There was still my birthday and New Years to come. TO BE CONTINUED

Elections,Thanksgiving,Christmas & Other Stuff Part I

It's been several months since I've posted. I just didn't feel like it. This morning I woke up at 4:30 feeling extremely anxious, I had butterflies in my stomach and felt ready to throw up. I put the decaf coffee on and tried to watch TV. The nausea got worse and then I threw up. I attribute this to medication side effects as my meds have been changed around in the past couple of weeks. In addition, I've been having dizzy spells 5 or 6 times a day for a week now. I've walked into things a few times over the course of a year. But this week I've been walking into walls, the patio sliding glass door, the TV set, just about everything. What is going on? Who knows. If I'm still like this Monday, I'll call my Primary Care or Neurologist. But for now, I'm going to try a diversion and write in my blog. The Elections I donned my red, white and blue Dr. Seuss hat and hit the streets. It was obvious to most Americans that the Bush administration and the GOP House and Senate were not listening to the American people. While corporate America was doing well economically and the Bush administration created more jobs in history (the jobs are in China, but Bush forgot to mention that part), Ameicans were suffering. The largest number of uninsured Americans in history, employers paying less insurance coverage, the stealing of millions of dollars from FEMA during the Hurricane Katrina disaster, the huge property taxes and home owner's insurance rates left thousand of Floridians in foreclosure and for the first time in our historoy, more people leaving Florida than moving in simply because it's too expensive to live here. The working class were being squeezed as Wal Mart laughed all the way to the bank. The fact that most of their employees depend on public aide and food stamps to survive is besides the point to Bushies. Bush kept telling America that the war is going great, that democracy has come to Iraq. But he forgot to mention that the democracy is hidden behind a very secure wall called the Green Zone. They've even got running water and electricy in there. In Florida, the sleaziest of the sleaze of corporate cheerleaders was Rep. Clay Shaw who was very vocal about opposing worker's rights and unions. Thankfully, we were able to remove him from office. But make no mistake. This election was about the war. Americans were being lied to on a daily basis by Bush who remained strong in his stubborness and arrogance. His GOP cheerleaders continued the mantra that the war is going great and that democracy is on the march. They totally ignored reality. What Americans saw was a bloody civil war with our troops as the targets caught in the middle of this Bush dream of buidling a strong American presence in the middle east, dreams of military bases in Iraq and control of all that oil. But Americans were asking, "Is it worth it? This isn't what we went to war for." Anyway, the elections are over and everybody has their fingers crossed that the bloodshed to Americans will be at a minimum and a solution to a graceful way out of Bush's War will be obtained. Speaking of Bush's War, last Friday at the "No More Troops" rally in downtown Lake Worth, a reporter from the Sun Sentinel interviewed me. Here is a link to the article: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/palmbeach/sfl-pantiwar13jan13,0,6759841,print.story?coll=sfla-news-palm THANKSGIVING This holiday season was a lot of fun. Cousin Kevin came from Dallas to spend Thanksgiving with us. We did some sight seeing, ate out and stayed up late at night. There was a lot of burning CD's and transferring of music to Ipods and MP3 players. We had a great Thanksgiving Day at the Duke's house: A lot of food, great conversation and fun.

Florida Creatures in our Backyard

The large green lizard was in the grass a few feet from our patio door this morning. The geese are in our backyard daily. Last weekend, I was sitting on the patio with my back turned to the door watching TV through the sliding glass door. I saw the reflection of the geese as they walked up the hill from the lake and to the patio door. The lead goose led them all the way to the door and started pecking at the door. They really like me to play with them. One goose in particular likes denim and one of his favorite things to do is come up to me in the backyard and pull on the hem of my jeans with his peak. He'll just started pulling and squawk loudly when I shake him off and come over for more. It's as though he's playing with me. None of the geese have ever attacked me or played rough. The unusal lizards seemed to have appeared after hurricane Frances and then more varieties arrived last fall after Hurricane Wilma. They are pretty, can run fast and like to hang out in the backyard or come up near the patio and look us over good. We like wildlife and animals and enjoy their presence. In the darkness of the morning, it's not unusual to see an armadillo or racoon in the backyard. One morning last week there were two racoons and sometimes I've observed a racoon and cat have a spat and one or the other usually get chased up the tree. It's been seven or eight years since we've had an alligator in the lake...I can do without those but it sure brought some excitement to the neighborhood. Well, time to get ready and get to church. Signing off, Gordon

Hurricane Shutters In!

This morning's ipod playlist: St. Matthew's Episcopal Church Choir, Goffstown,N.H. At 7:15 yesterday morning, the hurricane installation company arrived. We FINALLY have hurricane shutters. This week I've had my good days and my bad days. The Aricept can really do a number on how I feel which is often a feeling of being worn out,exhausted and not enough energy to do much of anything. I designed a couple of tee shirts this week and made some buttons. Work was exhausting this week. Besides being hectice, it's stressful writing everything down I need to remember, losing what I wrote the reminder's down on and trying to keep track of everything. And if I could just leave for work without having to come back to get something I've left behind, that would be great. Yeah, yeah...I know about the importance of keeping things in the same place so I won't lose them. Problem is, between the time I pick the item up and go out the door, I've put it back down again. Now, where did I put those keys? I know I put my beepr on, but what did I do with it? Maddening. Signing off for now. Gordon

My Trip To the Alzheimer's Research Center Today

Today's Ipod Music: Blackwood Brothers: Until Then, Gaithers: Live from Toronto Sir Elton John: Candle in the Wind Well today was the long awaited day to visit the research center in Delray. It was a great visit. The doctor re-confirmed my early onset Alzheimers Disease diagnosis. He was direct when describing the prognosis of the disease: no cure, progressive, gradual, no medication yet available to stop it, just things to try to slow it down. The vaccine trial: I was informed that Phase One study is full; not accepting further subjects even though I meet the criteria. However, if all goes well with Phase One,Phase Two will begin in 10 months and I am a good candidate. Other trials: Three good studies are starting in September including Phase 3 (I think that's what the doctor said) of a French Drug companies trials. Anyway, the bottom line in that I will be in a drug study starting in September and quite possible the vaccine trial next Spring. I feel good and remain upbeat and positive. I enjoyed church yesterday and enjoyed watching our Netflix selection, "In Cold Blood" last night on the heels of "Capote" a few nights before. Knowing what I know now about time frames of the research, I feel free to make the plans I want to make which hopefully includes a trip to Washington, DC to see the installation of our new lady Presiding Bishop in November and I still want to get back over to England. Speaking of lady bishops, making buttons, T-shirts and other stuff for our Episcopalia Cafe Press site has been a lot of fun. I've been making buttons on our machine at home at well. It's my opinion that working with templates and designing things is every bit as therapeutic as doing the cross word puzzles. If anybody hasn't visited Episcopalia, check it out: http://www.cafepress.com/fartotheleft/1363767 And that's all I have to report today. I love you all! Regards, Gordon

21 June, 2006 The Episcopal Church General Conference is Over

General Conference of The Episcopal Church (TEC), formerly commonly known as Episcopal Church (ECUSA) has finally ended and weary clergy, deputies and convention goers wind their way home grumpily to get to bed and get some much needed rest. They're grumpy only because they're tired. I want to express my appreciation to the great leaders of Integrity and those involved in social justice and helping to support TEC on it's path to being embracing, loving and respecting all Episcopalian Christians, not just the ones like them. Five attempts were made to post pictures of my hero's in The Episcopal Church: The Rev. Elizabeth Kaeton, The Rev. Susan Russell, Our Beloved Bishop Gene Robinson and Louie Crew. But alas, Blogspot is so overwhelmed the pictures never would upload. Much was accomplished during this convention. The legislation to be tackled was the one our Presiding Bishop called a Joint Session for this morning. It was designed to appease the Anglican Communion and with a purpose to of keeping TEC from getting thrown out of the Anglican Communion by promising not to consecrate any gay or lesbian bishops. But....this is funny....they ended with some cow pucky as follows: "Resolved, that this Convention therefore call upon Standing Committees and bishops with jurisdiction to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion." I'm not sure if this piece of baloney is saying alcoholics, divorced folks, left handed people or those outrageously straight religious conservative types with a girlfriend on both coasts and a hooker in Chicago are eligible or not eligible for consecration as a bishop. Or maybe they are only referring to those clergy under investigation in the Jack Abramoff trial. Reading it one has to scratch his head to decide which sins the Anglican Communion find especially repulsive. Due to the fact that so many American clergy present a challenge to the wider church due to a challenging manner of life it could mean anything. But it looks like gay folk are off the hook for now. Praise Jesus! Everybody's excited about our Presiding Bishop Elect. She's A Girl! Seriously, I am happy to have a lady Presiding Bishop. I wonder if the men of the Anglican Communion will be nice. I doubt it. They're already judging her, throwing temper tantrums and acting like a bunch of bigots. The proper thing to do would be give Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori a chance; to talk to her and get to know her before passing judgment. The conservative male clergy of TEC and those in the Anglican Communion are being extremely harsh and prejudicial. Their blogs are totally disgusting, full of sarcasm and unchristian comments(I refer my readers to StandFirm,Titusonline, Virtueonline). Please remember these men in your prayers. I think they have serious penile size and vagina issues. Signing off for now, Gordon www.cafepress.com/fartotheleft

Episcopal Church U.S.A. Elects New Presiding Bishop

The Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori I'm proud of my church and quite happy and proud to have a woman Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church U.S.A. Bright, talented, loving and caring. Those are the words I've read to describe her. I'm praying hard that our church will stay united. But if the conservatives walk, they walk. Yes, it will hurt, but then again the Episcopal Church will never be a huge denomination where thousands gather in a church on Sunday mornings. I'd rather belong to a smaller denomination where we're not required to check our brains in at the door! In Christ, Gordon

Impressions of Alzheimer's Conference West Palm Beach FL, June 8 & 9, 2006

Malcolm Leissring, Ph.D Lead Alzheimer's Researcher Scripps Florida This Morning's IPOD Playlist: Music from Grace Cathedral, San Francisco and Westminster Abbey, London I went away from the first day of the conference feeling nervous and unsettled. I began to get choked up and cry listening to the panel of caregivers and patients on the stage. There were six families. For privacy reasons I want to change the name of the gentleman and his family who my heart. I'll call him Lawrence. When the moderator of the panel introduced Lawrence and his family she included in Lawrence's autobiographical information that Lawrence was born in 1951. Hmm, I thought to myself. Lawrence is the first person I've met in the four months since being diagnosed with this disease who is the same age as me: 54. Lawrence's wife and two teenage sons were on the stage with Lawrence. His wife told the crowd of 500-600 people that Lawrence's memory had become worse in the past year since the last conference. His son's spoke of their love for their dad and their sadness that Lawrence's memory continues to fade and that he will not be able to rejoice with them in their graduations, their marriages or the births of their children. They take their dad to the beach and enjoy doing things with them. They taught their friends that their dad is important to them and in spite of his illness, he is their dad and a part of the package of friendship. Lawrence cried on and off during the panel discussion and shared how much he loves his family. Lawrence no longer can drive and he shared with me afterward that the medications were ineffective. We shook hands and he introduced me to his wife. When I got in my car I was shaking and cried for 10 minutes. I cried for Lawrence, his family and all the human suffering this terrible disease has caused. And I cried because the path that the disease has taken in Lawrence is similar to mine. I wondered if I would still be driving and going to work everyday a year from now. Will I be in a nursing home? Will I remember Larry? My brothers? My pastor? My friends? Will I remember my travels to England? Will I remember anything I accomplished in this life? Will I remember the hours I spent on street corners or walking the halls of congress trying to help make this world a better place for working families, the poor, the disenfranchised, for union members, for gay and lesbian American Citizens? Will I remember any of these things? I took some deep breaths. I prayed and took deeper breaths. Jesus is with me, I said to myself. I kept reminding myself over and over what I told myself when I looked at the PET Scan results that day in February and knew what the neurologist was going to tell me: Early Onset Alzheimer's Disease. What I told myself is that this disease is a spiritual journey. I have things to do and a life to live and I'm going to keep on being positive and enjoy my walk with Jesus and learn all I can from this experience. During Friday's session, I took the Hurricane Preparedness/Special Needs course in the breakaway session. Another class I took was Creating a Legacy, learning how to record my values and beliefs of life to leave when I'm gone. But the greatest part of the conference was the Alzheimer's Research Update with Dr. Malcolm Leissring, lead Alzheimer's scientist for Scripps Research Institute Florida. The presentation of the robot system shows the high tech capabilities of research which wasn't available just a few years ago. Dr. Malcolm also explained how the new experimental Alzheimer's vaccine works on the plaques around the cells in the brain. Hopefully this will be a successful study. By the way, I am being considered for this study and my app't with the the doctor is in a week or two. You can learn more about Dr. Leissring and his research at http://www.scripps.edu/florida/ I met a real neat lady. Her name is Patty. She sat next to me during Dr. Leissring's presentation. Her dad passed away in January. Please see Patty's web site which has some pictures of her dad and beautiful family. It is also a way to contribute directly to Alzheimer's Research Scripps Florida: http://www.theunforgettablefund.com/ Meanwhile, I'm going to keep on going to work every day, working my crosswords and downloading my pictures and music to my Ipod. In fact, I read last night that Bishop Robinson's message at the Integrity Eucharist at the Episcopal Church General Convention. Love ya, Gordon

Hurricane Season, IPOD and Other Thoughts

Today's CD: NONE! I've finally got an IPOD and listened to a variety of gospel, jazz and blues this morning. Hurricane Season Well today begins Hurricane Season. Two weeks ago we were blessed to be actually graced with the presence of a hurricane shutter company which took the measurements. They claim that they will be installed by June 15th. Hurricane Season always creates a sense of anxiety within me. This is not unusual amongst Floridians and others who live in Hurricane Alley. Our thoughts and prayers remain with the folks of New Orleans, Mississippi and the entire gulf coast who suffered so terribly during Hurricane Katrina. Let's pray that the levy in New Orleans holds! IPOD Past attempts to figure out how to actually get music from my computer to an MP 3 Player ended in failure and I couldn't hear on them. Then about a month ago, a manager at Best Buy came to my rescue when the salesman got frustrated with me. Manager Juan had me try a variety of different IPOD's with various headphones. He assured me that the IPOD software (ITunes)is easy to use. So I purchased the IPOD Photo unit and fell in love with it. In fact, I had the software installed and music transferred onto it when Larry wasn't even home. He was impressed. Then I loaded pictures onto it. It's easy! And the sound is great. Then I went to the IPOD website and got the In Motion speaker base unit. This allowed me to take my IPOD with me on my Memorial Day weekend trip to Fort Lauderdale and put my IPOD in the base and have my music in my room, or eject the IPOD and use my headphones at the pool. I LOVE MY IPOD! GUESTS Cynthia and hubby Michael came from Kerrville, TX to visit Cynthia's brother John over in Clearwater. So they came to visit us in West Palm Beach and we went to dinner on the water, spent hours talking and catching up on things from 20 years ago. We took them to Palm Beach and wandered down Worth Ave and Cynthia took pictures of the geese and extremely large and colorful lizards who claim our backyard as their own. We had a great time. Health Issues I still do cross word puzzles daily, but I think figuring out new things like my IPOD is also effective at keeping my brain sharp. The GI side effects have come back. For awhile I thought it went away. Then it was every two weeks or so and now it's every few days. But I will not stop taking the Aricept and for a very good reason. At the end of June I go to see a doctor who is only one of five in the U.S. granted permission to use the new Alzheimer's vaccine in a trail study. Being on Alzheimer's medication for four months is a requirement so I don't want my medication to mess it up. I'll let the doctor decide if it needs to be changed to another med or just the dose adjusted when I go for the appointment. A friend Bruce who lives in the Texas Hill Country stresses to me the importance of living in the "here and now" and enjoying each day which I am doing. I enjoyed myself in Fort Lauderdale and enjoy my friends from church and my co-workers. I laugh, enjoy life and don't spend time worrying about the future. There is one possible exception and that's the fact that I won't go back to beloved England until the GI problems resolve. There is no way I could handle airline travel right now so I hope that the problem resolves soon so I can hop on my favorite airline, British Airways and get to my favorite city in the whole world: London. Sometimes I actually miss England so bad I get weepy then have to remember that England's been around for many years and it will be ready and waiting for me when I feel good enough to enjoy it. And that's all for now. Hopefully, I won't wait so long to post next time. Regards, Gordon

Easter Week

This morning's CD: Zen Garden Picture: Altar Window, St. Mark's Episcopal Church Easter Sunday consisted of rising early, grabbing a Krispy Kreme (I totally forgot to pick up the hot cross buns in Publix), jumping in the shower and being out the door by 8AM to get to church. The Christmas and Easter folk think it's not cool to show up in church more than twice a year. We had to leave early to get a parking space and seats. After church we had a great day with a large gathering of friends. I didn't get to bed until midnight and barely made it to work on time Monday morning. That is unusual for me. I'm always a half an hour early. I was dragging all day at work Monday and went to bed early. But heck, it was worth being tired because we had a great Easter celebration. It's been an okay week so far. Signing off for now. Gordon Don't let your worries get the best of you; remember, Moses started out as a basket case.

Taxes Done! Easter Weekend of Fun

This morning's CD: The Church Triumphant. The Choir of Coventry cathedral, England. Pictures: Rev. Jeannie Martz, Priest-in-Charge & St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Palm Beach Gardens, FL Well, my taxes are done! What a relief! Another accomplishment is the installation of the XM Satellite radio for my car a co-worker gave me at Christmastime. We spent yesterday during lunch finally getting it in the car and it works great. I now have access to Air America and the BBC. This morning I'm going to get my car washed and maybe eat a couple more Krispy Creams! I've had a great week and continue to feel well. I do my crossword puzzles daily and write things down of importance. I haven't had to refer to it. I hope everybody has a great Easter or Passover weekend. Gordon It's easier to preach ten sermons than it is to live one.

Week in Review & Family Visit

This Morning's CD: The Music of Charles Dickens Picture: Brothers Don and Ted,standing, yours truly seated. Well, things have gotten MUCH better for me in the past week. Last Friday, 3/31, Super CVS Pharmacist, Freddy, played telephone jockey between the neurologist's office and the world's worst insurance company, also known as Blue Cross/Blue Shield and my medication was approved. CVS had given me 3 freebies so no harm was done. In addition, the side effects have resolved and I've felt great this week. It just took some time for my body to get adjusted. This is week #7 on Aricept. My two brothers, Don from Maryland and wife Sarah and Ted and wife Relinda from Punta Gorda spent the evening with us and the Dukes came over. We had a great time, chatting about old times and sharing a lot of laughs and memories and went out to eat at Bohemian Gardens. I went to bed at midnight. That's late for me! Between working and sleeping, we've been designing and punching out buttons for folks and sometimes explaining at least in one case that "unfortunately no, it's not possible to get them made and delivered to you in an hour!" We have performed miracles like that a time or two but it's been on a weekend we weren't tied up which isn't very often. Anyway, we like making our buttons and we've never had an unhappy customer. That's all for now. Gordon

Hurricane Repair: Andy, Robert and the Geese

This Morning's CD: Mahalia Jackson's Greatest Gospel Boxed Set Collectors Edition We didn't get to church this morning. You see, the patio's been leaking ever since Hurricane Frances. Then when Hurricane Wilma came the sliding glass door was shaking so hard I moved to the other side of the living room. Hurricane Wilma was our first daytime hurricane landfall since we've been in Florida which made it even more scary. Anyway, the patio shook so hard some of the bolts fell out but it didn't blow away. Our favorite neighbors moved a few miles away last fall. Andy, 16 now has developed the great craftsmanship learned from his dad, Robert. Andy came this morning and repaired the patio, sealed it good, cleaned out the gutters, blew out the drain and trimmed the oak tree over the patio roof. Robert came to help and even repaired some of the facia over the roof which halfway blew out during Frances or Wilma. Andy's little brother Jean Pierre didn't get to come and probably would have had a good time. The geese were waiting for Andy to come down the ladder and immediately started chasing him and we all had a good laugh. We miss Robert, Jackie, Andy and Jean Pierre, but their new house is beautiful and Robert does what he does best with a new house...got the sludge hammer, tore it up real good and probably has the prettiest house in Palm Beach County. Now I need to sign off as I have family coming tomorrow and we need to tidy the house. Gordon