Category: Scotties Rants / Blog Information

My horrible summer in Canada

I have been distracted and unable to really function online the past week or more of days.  I have unfortunately been thinking / remembering / dwelling / reliving the summer of abuse I had when I was shipped off to Canada.  I guess the goal was to “make a man of me”.   I had a song I had recently learned and sang it to my self constantly along with “Lean on me”, “Bridge over troubled waters”, and a few others.  Songs about helping hands or someone willing to help.  But the song “Day is done” held a special meaning I created in my head as a small and tiny 12 year old boy desperate for help.  

I sent a request to Jill asking her to play the song without mentioning why.  She was kind enough to do so.  I had hoped the song being given Jill’s loving treatment of songs when she posts them would stop the intrusion of the memories of that summer from invading my life.  It did not.  So I wrote to Jill and explained why the song meant so much to me.  She was very gracious and we had conversations about it.   Again I hoped it would stop the memories.  It has not.  They are interfering with my interactions on the computer, I can not focus on stuff.  I get lost in my memories and emotions.  I want to hide in videos but I can’t even remember what I am seeing / hearing. 

I had mentioned to Jill that before on my other blog I use to talk a lot about my abuse when I felt the need to and that it helped me deal with it.   I also mentioned that I got attacked there for sharing my abuse on my blog because a couple of complainers felt it was upsetting, disturbing, and they got too upset reading it.  They complained it was turning off my readers but only a coubple said anything to me about not making the posts.   I think someone on this blog commented almost something similar when I wrote about the angry hurt rape I experienced by my teenage hell spawn sibling.  I asked Jill if I could share parts of the letter I wrote her detailing some of that summer.  She agreed and offered me comfort but also warned me of what I had told her of the complainters.  I think she did not want that to happen and upset me further.  

I took her advice and gave it a lot of thought.  Jill is a very smart compassionate woman who I admire.  But the memories won’t stop.  I even mentioned some of it to Ron in hopes that expressing that small amount would make the memories stop.  I try not to tell Ron too much of my abuse.  He is a wonderful loving man who knows I was abused physically, sexually, and emotionally, and he tries hard to comfort me when I have the nightmares and am in distress at night, when I thrash about, or wake screaming.  But again it is something I had never planned to share with him.  But when on a trip in 2007 I shared some of my childhood he had already had figured out I was abused, he just did not know how bad it was.

So in hopes it will help as my prior therapists have said it will, I will post what I shared with Jill, but I will edit it as needed.  ***Warning below is the story of the physical and sexual abuse I endured the summer I spent in Canada as a child. ***   If you do not want to know what I suffered, please skip the rest of this post.    Hugs  

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scottie-at-11 to 12

This is a picture of me that summer.  The picture was labeled 11 or 12.  But it was the summer after my 6th grade so I must have been 12 years old.  My birthday is in March.  I told Jill I was not sure if I was 12 or 13 but I must have been 12.  The dog is three-legged, named Prince, and was one of my only other comforts of that summer.  The woman watching me is the mother of my adoptive father.  I was always watched I guess to see if I broke a rule so I could be further punished.  To me the picture shows me still standing and being a normal boy despite what they were doing to me.  Hugs

As best I can figure out, I was adopted around the age three.  I don’t know if I had just turned three or how long I had been three but that is when the papers I found say I was, 3 years old when I was taken from the state of NY by bus to Vermont.  I have very vague memories of the trip.  The story about the song begins below.

I was 12 years old.  I was about to move into the Junior high school from our local small town school where the elementary school principal knew something was wrong and did what he could to protect me, to the joint JR / SR high school for the area in a nearby large town.  That summer my adoptive parents decided I should go live in Canada all summer from the end of school until start of the next, living with the adoptive father’s mother and her second husband.

The adoptive father was the oldest of 9 children.  His father was an abusive drunk who died when the adoptive father was starting the 8th grade.  He quit school to provide for his 8 siblings and mother.  He became an extremely well-muscled arrogant bruiser who loved bar fights and was well feared.  He hated the world and was very jealous of those that had an education and faired better than he did in life. It was that kind of anger at learning that caused him to ban me from having books including schoolbooks in the house for years because he felt I was not manly enough. But unlike his hell spawn boys he never showed me the secrets of the skills he did have, he was a master wood worker / carpenter with the certifications to prove it, a millwright, a skilled wielder, and other building construction related fields.  He was very talented with what he did, but his arrogant angry willing to fight attitude combined with his inability to understand math (other than tape measure measurements and basic addition / subtraction) kept him from ever advancing to the place in society he felt he deserved.  He also did not read very well and talked in an uneducated manner. He would be a proud maga today. He got the adoptive mother pregnant when she was 14 and, while she had very good intelligence something the adoptive father lacked, her schooling ended at that point.

Back to the summer I was sent off to Canada because the adoptive father did not want me around.  Please remember he had taken his anger and frustrations on me all my life to this point.  To say I was mistreated would be a huge understatement.  I was physically and sexually assaulted not only by him, but he made it clear to his hell spawn of two girls and two boys, all older than me by at least five years, they were free to use me or do to what they wished to me.  I knew not to complain.  But when I was in 1st grade as a very bruised slight boy in torn clothes who would put his head down on my desk and get some much needed sleep, the school investigated and the adoptive parents were accused of child abuse.  A story I will tell you if you wish, but not important to the song.  It caused the adoptive parents to move us three times in less than half a year to another state, back then to the same state, then again but a much smaller town.  The moved caused the charges to never be followed up on.  After that the beatings grew less and less severe, but the sexual abuse got much worse.

So at first I looked at the trip as an escape, not realizing what was instore for me.  The adoptive fathers mother married a man with a farm, it was a good farm but not great.  He had a married son that will become central to this.  After the adoptive parents left, I was sat down and explained the rules. I was to do as I was told, no argument or back talk, speak only to ask a question or when addressed, but otherwise keep my mouth shut, I would work as long as told, I would rest when given permission, I would obey all the time.  They explained that they were going to make a man of me.  I can only think that was the adoptive father’s directions, as it would happen outside the US so I would not have any help.   At first I thought it would be ok, I was used to mistreatment.  I figured I just needed to be good and work hard and it would be OK.  After all this was only for the summer. It got farther than I imagined very fast.

I will fast forward through most of the daily routine, the early morning being pulled out of bed, the working until I couldn’t stand up in the evening.  But here comes the point of this email and the song.  Sorry but to understand why it is so important to me I had to give you the background.

*** trigger warnings the worst of the abuse there ***

Almost every afternoon I would be ordered to the barn.  The worst part may have been I knew why and what was coming.  The son and wife of the adoptive fathers mother’s second husband would have canes. Sometimes to be extra cruel they would make me pick them up and hand them to them.  Remember these people controlled my life so there was no way not to go or to disobey.  The barn doors were closed and locked as I stood there shaking.  I was positioned facing a wall only inches from it.  Then when they were ready and positioned, I was told to “Run you little fucking bastard”!  As I turned and tried to run to find safety, they started to hit me with the wooden canes they used on the cattle. (one reason I refuse to use or have simple wooden crooked handle canes) They would chase me around until they had little slight tiny me cornered and beat me until I was on the ground.  I was ordered to my knees, ordered to undo Carl’s pants.  Open his belt, undo his pants button, pull the zipper down, and pull down his pants and underwear.  Then I was ordered to either lick his balls or take his penis into my mouth.  He was almost always hard by now but sometimes not.  I would suck him, give him oral sex, occasionally being directed by him or his watching wife to stop and suck or lick his balls, then return to giving him oral sex until he finished in my mouth.  When he came, I was to swallow and keep sucking his cock so that I got every drop.  If any drippled out of my mouth I would be beaten more with the canes, if I stopped before told I could, I would be hit with the canes.  During all the sex act part if they felt I was not trying hard enough to please him or for any reason she, the wife, would hit me with her cane.  During all this sex act time they both would be insulting me, calling me degrading names, threatening me with more beatings if I did not do better.  The worst was the times when after I had made him finish in my mouth and swallowed as commanded, pulled back up his underwear and pants, closed them up, sometimes I would be ordered to remain on my knees and not move.  By then my knees hurt so bad from kneeling on the concrete floor of the barn.  They would leave or move around the barn doing stuff, sometimes they would order me to follow them which was better for me as I could get off my knees.  Soon they would return or order me to get back on my knees, always with the threat of cane hits.  After the first couple times I knew what was to follow and I hated it more than all the rest. I would be ordered to unzip Carl and take out his penis.  Then put it in my mouth.  Then he would pee.  He would piss in my mouth.  I would be ordered repeatedly to swallow more, do it more quickly as it swelled out of my mouth as I franticly gulped down his pee.  If I did not drink as much as they thought I should I after I again put his cock back in his pants and zipped him up I would be beaten with the canes.  During all this time I would be told that I was a cum swallowing piss drinking worthless bastard and so much worse.  After they had their fun I was given free time until it was evening milking time when I was required to work again. I often begged just to give him a blow job to avoid the beatings and the pissing but that would have denied them a lot of their fun I guess.  Sorry to put you through this but most people have no idea of what my damned childhood was like.  Ron says it is an incredible miracle I am as sane or mentally, emotionally, physically stable as I am. And he doesn’t know this fuller account of that summer nor a lot of my childhood abuse, I cannot bring myself to tell him.  It is enough he must hear me screaming in pain or fear at night and try to help me, without burdening him with this knowledge.  And I struggle every day, and at night the nightmares come.

*** abuse part over ****

Now to the part about, the song.  Why it is an important part of my childhood and especially during what I just revealed to you.  See my adoptive mother revealed to me just before I left (as she laid on top of me … another story you might not want to know …) that my real father was alive and in NY state.  She described him or what she claimed he looked like and gave me a few small tantalizing things I was desperate for.  She gave me very little more than that but promised if I was a good boy while gone and pleased her more when I got home, she would tell me who he was.  I so badly wanted to know more, but she told me I had to earn that information.  I knew what that meant.  But if … the hope …!  I had recently learned the Day is Done song lyrics and music.  I could sing it from memory.  Every line seemed to be my unknown dad talking to me.  As I cried in the barn, in my bed, and all the time I was in Canada I dreamed of my unknown dad.  I knew if I thought of him hard enough he would know I was being hurt, that I needed him, and he would come to rescue me.  In my head I created so many dreams of him showing up, defeating everyone hurting me, saving me and taking me to a wonderful new life with him, my dad.  Every day many times a day, especially after the afternoon abuse, I sang that song to myself and dreamed of my savior dad coming to get me.

Sadly as an abused kid, I did not stop to think why I was up for adoption in the first place.  It did not occur to me that my dad simply gave me up because he was a man who couldn’t stop fucking every woman he met and already had a bunch of kids at home and more elsewhere. From what I have found out much later he may have been paid to do so by the adoptive mother’s father for some reason, at least the adoptive mother’s father paid for the adoption costs.  The adoptive parents never came clean with me and as you can imagine I long ago stopped believing anything they told me. 

So that is the story of why the song is so important to me.  During that summer of abuse it was the lifeline I clung to thinking it was something my dad was asking me, thinking if I believed hard enough my real dad would save me.  Like all such beliefs without facts to back them up, it was a lie and false hope.  No one showed up to save me.  At one point I was allowed to call my adoptive parents while the adoptive grandparents sat there and listened, and I begged to be allowed to come back home.  I promised to be a good boy, promised to everything asked of me, promised to never complain … but they already knew what was happening to me and felt it was good for me I guess, would make me more compliant as a teenager in their home. 

During the email conversations with Jill, I shared some more of the physical abuse I suffered.  Below is some of that, again edited.  Hugs

As a 4 or 5 year old I was taken to have my leg bone put back in the hip socket due to being “tossed to see how far I could fly” down the stairs for an afternoon. The doctors think that one of the reasons I have hip and spine damage so bad relates to those … fun times by the hell spawn siblings.  I remember my adoptive mother once laughing with friends as she described how my hell spawn sisters were holding me by the arms and legs throwing me into the air to let me land … sometimes on their bed.  But they suddenly went out to play and after a while she went to their room where she found me unconscious crumpled up on the floor and couldn’t wake me up.  Seems the hell spawn had thrown me into a closed closet door.   But no, I was not taken to any medical place to be examined and no the hell spawn did not get into trouble.  When you described me as something they could take out and play with and throw me into a closet when they were done you were more correct than you could know. For the first nearly 7 years I slept in a hallway as they did not feel the need to provide me with a bed or even a room.  When my older hell spawn siblings would take me into their beds I would enjoy the comfort, after paying the price for it.

If dear readers you made it this I thank you, and you have a far better understanding of me and my childhood than you did before.  Now friends I must, I really have to go do something, watch something, a funny video or a m ovie I can totally immerse myself in.    I so desperatly need to get the things in this letter out of my mind.   Hugs

My afternoon

Hey all I am beat, wiped out, muscles spasming, shoulders screaming, and so tired.  I had my allergy shots this morning.  Yesterday the new TV arm came in and this afternoon after Ron had his nap he decided that we should put up the arm.  I had a nice rolling stand for the TV that held my Xbox stuff.  But Ron did not like it for my new office and … well my eyesight has deteriorated again and to play Halo even on the 4K 55-inch screen I need it close to me to see the important icon info at the bottom of the screen.  Just like I have my monitors at 250 scale.  So Ron and I sat down and investigated TV arms with really long extension that were rated for twice what we thought my TV weighted.  This one goes out 43 inched and is rated for 110 pounds, which my TV is like a third of that.  And by my dogs that love gravy the bracket is really heavy and seriously built.  Ron and I had a few missteps installing it, and tomorrow he will adjust it.  We need to raise the TV by 2 to 3 inches, or near to the shelf bracket above the TV.  That can be done by changing the rails that hook the bracket to the TV.   Plus Ron wants to shift the bracket over as much as the sliding space for the screws will allow.   But we got it put up.  But after trying to hold the bracket to the wall and carrying the TV a bunch of times, and then putting the TV on the bracket my damaged shoulders are screaming in pain and losing all strength, my back was spasming horribly and I am losing the ability to walk.  Ron did not want to continue with me this hurting.  Here are the pictures I took as we were doing the work.  Hugs

IMG_0501IMG_0503IMG_0504IMG_0505IMG_0507IMG_0508

What happened to me in the early part of the year that damaged my ablity to do anything or blog

I recently wrote a letter to Jill about what had happened to me health wise, as best as I know.   She gave me permission to use it here for everyone so I don’t have to retype it all.  As you will see at the end of the email typing can be a problem for me some days.  Some days are much better than others, but I have terrible neuropathy, muscle spasms, and arthritis.   I did edit for clarity, spelling mistakes, and to remove stuff that was for Jill alone.   Hugs

In January my primary care doctor took me off my heart medication controlling my heart rate so I could have my needed allergy shots.  I shouldn’t have been on it even though I needed it because I have life-threatening allergies that require me to have / use an EpiPen and the heart rate drug interferes with that working when needed. 

 So I was taken off the med and my heart rate soared far more than it was thought it would and stayed there.  I was in the 130s and 140s bpm, with spikes much higher.  Before the med it was high but not so high.  The high heart rate caused me not to be able to breathe.  I struggled to get air in and after three or four weeks as things got worse I suffered what my doctors now think was a TIA or mini stroke.  I suddenly struggled to speak, I could hear words but when I went to respond the words in my mind wouldn’t come out or I couldn’t find the word I wanted to use.  What came out of my mouth was mangled or totally a different word.  Now I normally mispronounce some words to be funny.  Like saying elephants as efahlants or some other word to be funny.  But this was seriously differently.  I couldn’t pronounce words.  Plus, my mind was full of fuzz, I struggled to think.  I couldn’t read stuff on the screens of my computers and couldn’t respond at all.  If I tried to reply, what I typed was like a third grader and sometimes made no sense to me at all.   Ron was desperately trying to help me but everything was wrong, I couldn’t talk to him to explain what was going on with me and I would get so upset, but Ron has over 16 years in various ICUs and realized what was wrong was some kind of stroke caused by a nearly constant heart rate over 135 and most of the time over 140 and struggling to breath.

 But in the land of medical treatment for profit, I couldn’t get even a call back from my former heart doctor’s office.  Side note, they called me back in late May after I have seen a heart doctor from a different group and then in June to ask me to schedule my appointment.  So by mid-March Ron had had enough and raised hell with my primary and they got me an appointment with a heart doctor taking patients.  That doctor looked at the heart rate and blood pressure readings telling me this was serious.  Remember, I was still struggling to talk.  As I already was unsteady on my feet and walked with a cane or walker, no one even took that into account. 

 So that doctor had me go through a nuclear heart scan that allowed them to do a stress test without me being on a treadmill.  They also did echo scans of my heart. During the test my sugar crashed, and also when they put the medication in to raise the heart rate I suddenly had trouble breathing.  My blood pressure readings were so far off the scale the nurse disregarded them and put in her own idea of what they might be by manually taking my vitals, but her monitor on the cuff was not working to her satisfaction so she put in numbers she felt were more appropriate.  They were made up as she recorded my diastolic as 40.  That is seriously out of acceptable range.  

 The determination was my heart was OK, good looking even with some recent damage and the doctor tried several drugs and got my blood pressure and heart rate down to an acceptable range.   The determination was that in his opinion after what every happen to me my continued breathing problems were making my heart react.  Basically, he passed the buck.

 So back to the allergist that started this so I could have my treatments.  He started them and I started to feel better almost right a way within a few weeks on that side, but he did a breathing test, and my breathing was very bad.  He had me do an x-ray and ordered a pulmonary test also gave me a referral to a pulmonologist in the hospital system he worked for.  But before I called to set up a new patient appointment, the hospital called me to tell me the test would cost me over $300 dollars for a half hours test.  I can not afford that.  They told me it was so expensive because it was being done in a hospital.  So I did not call the pulmonologist and I am waiting to see the allergist again to ask what to do.  I still have breathing problems, but they are not as bad as they were but if I get excited and try to talk I struggle to breath and when I come back to bed from the many times I have to pee at night when I first lay down I struggle to draw in air. 

 But the important thing is the fog in my brain is clearing up.  I still sometimes struggle but when this happened I simply had a head full of cotton, full of fog.  I couldn’t understand what I was trying to read, and there was simply no way to comment.  I would get so frustrated and angry.  But months passed before I could visit other blogs or even deal with any comments.  That let some haters who did not understand my repeated pleas to give me space to write horrible stuff in the comments.  I could hardly post videos I was trying to watch and laying in bed posting email links to stories from my devices. 

  I am not fully recovered, and my doctors think the way I am is as good as it is going to get for me.  I still get so frustrated, when tired I still struggle to understand and respond to things.  Sometimes I struggle to find words I want to speak and other words come out like before, mangled.  While Ron understands it is horrible when on the phone.    When I type sometimes, I read it afterward and it is gibberish.  Yet I must accept this and move on.  But it still is frustrating.  

  My muscles spasms are so bad that as I was typing this email I was jerking and hitting random keys.  

I am so unfocused and unable to think well enough to get anything done

What a day this has been.  I have been up late the last few nights, 9:30 and 10:00 PM, yet still getting up between 4:30 and 5 AM.  Which as led to the fact today I can not concentrate and can not focus on stuff, can not seem to get anything done.   I was able to do the dishes.  But every time I sit at the computer to try to read the saved stuff that spans the last few days of saved tabs of websites and comments, I can not get more than one done before getting up and leaving the room to do something else.  I have been helping Ron a lot, but again it was not mandatory, but just what came next. 

This morning after starting the computers and bringing up the old saved tabs, I opened all the newer tabs of comments and new posts.  But all day I can not sit and deal with them.  I want to, I really do.  But not only can my body not settle (all night I was plagued by cramps in my legs and feet.) Now my shoulders are screaming in pain, not wanting to deal with typing or the mouse.  Shit, I am not sure what to do.  I desperately want to get these things, these tabs, others posts, and get comments answered and read.  But I again can not focus.  I think Jill has described this better than I can.  When it has happened to me in the past, I was not dealing with a backlog and did not really care if there was a backlog, but now I am frustrated as all get out.  As frustrated as a rooster in an empty hen house.  OK bad joke sorry.  My other computer screen has movies ready to play on it, yet that doesn’t seem to bother me to ignore. 

OK.  Everyone, I am going to give in and just watch a few movies.  Then I will reassess the situation.  Right now I am in and out and feel like I am in Quantum Leap shifting between times, bodies, and situations.  Great show by the way.   OK, this is going nowhere, and I am still unable to “think”.   Good night.  Hugs

Stupid, stupid, idiot, I wish I could still get angry at my own stupidity.

I screwed up!  Yes, let me say it again louder, I screwed up!   What is worse I started this post late last night not having done all the crap I got early this morning and have been working all day with only a few minutes ago finding and fixing the problem that started this that had I had half the brain I had decades ago or even the eyesight I use to have I might have spotted it right away.  

Please indulge me this might get really long as it started yesterday at about 4 or 5 PM.  Also as Nan can loudly attest I am never short of words but use as many as possible to say what I want.  The saga started at with Ron being unable to sit and watch his TV shows including his apple box, Netflix, HBO Max, Amazon Prime, and a subscription to an oriental video channel he loves.  But he gets like that … often.  So he decided we had to get out the two new monitor arms we bought for when we moved me into the new room … hold on don’t get ahead of me I got a lot of stupids to go through first.  He wanted to set one up and that went to wanting to try them on a monitor.   

Well the instructions, which I had a real issue with Ron even bothering to look at as he is sure he understands these things, said first we had to put together the base and then to attach it to the desk, forward from there including putting a monitor on the arm which was what Ron really wanted to do.  Well I could see where this was going so … I started shutting things down and getting read to unhook everything.  

So Ron was all excited, and he thought it was a great time to clean off the desk and move it into the new office, even though he was not finished working in there.   So why fight the inevitable that will happen?  I agreed.

So after I unhooked everything Ron helped me remove everything from heavy from the desk and I removed the papers and other small stuff scattered all over the desk.  The Ron cleaned and washed the desk of all the dust, dirt, food, and cat food pieces that gather on a place where I let cats stay and so much daily work is done.  

One thing, I have said and will say many more times that “Ron cleaned …” . And that is because Ron doesn’t mind cleaning stuff, doing the detailed work of getting cat fur and other debris off stuff.  I hate it, and Ron understands this.  I will wash dishes now that we don’t have the dishwasher, I will clean toilets and showers, I will do the floors until my torn up dying shoulders give out.  But detailed cat hair / fur removal and other stuff like that I hate including cleaning, dusting, and wiping stuff down.   I have not done it so far in my 60 years except a few years in the military, and if I can keep my wonderful hubby happy I won’t have to.   

So I guess now I have to explain what my desk is.  In 1998 we bought another new home because Ron insisted for the many times again we move … I now understand why, but then we did not have a diagnosis of his anxiety issues.    That would come many decades and a lot of lost money later.   The prior owner was selling everything in the house including a wooden table with the ability to expand to about 84 inches and was 31 1/2 wide.   I loved it.  The owner wanted 100 dollars for it and we paid that.   There is a further story about the table, but everything worked out for us after my adoptive father tried to screw me, again. 

Long story short, after all the damage to the home and my office from hurricane Ian my desk in my office was destroyed and to get my computer system up online the guys took the eating table we had so they could quickly get me set up.  But after using it for a while and having very … large Odie sprawled on it, we realized it was so much better for that than my other desks.  It was decided not to buy another desk but I would keep this table as my desk.  Fast forward to last night … again.

Last night we cleaned off the desk, removed the middle top, took it into the room and expanded it and put the top back in.  Remember this was a sudden decision due to Ron not being able to settle down and wanting to see how the new monitor arms worked, Then we added the arms that we put together haltingly and without any missteps.   Added the monitors and adjusted the arms so I could move them.  Ron still needs to loosen then some more so it is easier for me to move, right now I have to get up and use a lot of effort to move them.  When I told him he was agreeable but said he was only trying to keep the monitors from falling, but remember the arms we bought are for monitors larger and heavy than mine as Ron thinks I might want / need bigger ones in the future.  My eyes are still getting worse.

Then after the monitors it was time to put the computers he wiped off and cleaned but that also became a small issue.  When I was in this room as my office originally I had each computer up off the floor which keeps them much cleaner and healthier.  In the old large front room office Ron was always going to build something to get them off the floor but never did find time to do it, and in that room and the living room my computers sat on the floor.  One on each side of the desk, on the side of their monitor.  This important as you will see later.  The important thing to know is the side of each monitor changed.  They are reversed.

With the Logitech program and devices I have I can switch computers with just moving the mouse to the edge of the computer screen and it switches to the other computers.  So blogging computer is always computer one and video computer is always computer two with any laptop or other thing I am working on being number three.  On the keyboard I use number three for my phone so I can text easier.  I never had an issue with changing my set-up before.   What I did not realize is they changed the program so simply resetting the flow settings did not change the computer arrangement to match the current set up.  That is important as you will see and how I totally became stupid and caused my self two days of extra work.  

So we set up monitors, computers on the desk moving their position to better salve my OCD about size and placements, we put the battery backups on the floor, ran the new power cables and plugged stuff in, and started to hook the other stuff up.  Then came the last part, the ethernet cables.  We had not moved the modem or router so the cat cables I was using before were too short.  I dug boxes out of my closet of older cables and stuff.  I found a few that are more than long enough and ran them along the walls and into the room to the computers.  But they are not cat 6 such as the ones I was using, so when everything gets put into the room I will take the measurements of the lengths I need and order them at that time.  

I should mention that somewhere at this point Friday night I still did not know what was keeping my mouse and keyboard from switching / working properly as I had written about so much of this much of this post.  I closed it down to go to bed at like 9:15 PM which is very late for me only to find that this morning I had lost the entire post.  I had not yet dumped either computer which I was planning to do and then reinstall all the programs hoping that cleaned up what every was keeping the issue.  Remember the point is to move the mouse to the edge of the monitor and the cursor jumps to the next monitor.   To be continued tomorrow morning.   

Writting this on Sunday morning!

So Saturday morning I got up early and wanted to dump the computers because I was still sure the problem was a registry issue.  So instead of just running the registry cleaners I thought to dump them, that way cleaning them up really well.  But I had a major problem.  I still had 61 open tabs saved for comments and websites I want to get to.  If I dumped both computers I would forever lose them.  So I was stuck doing them one at a time dragging the process out and maybe keeping the same issue with the mouse / keyboard program switching monitors / computers.  I decided to do the video computer first.  

I had done all the prep work yesterday so all I had to do Saturday morning was to run the recovery program telling the computer to clean all the drives and redownload and install the Windows 10 OS.  Then after about 20 minutes or less I started the tedious work of going through and adjusting all the settings, renaming the computers, setting things up to give me the max privacy and performance mix.  That takes far longer than doing the recovery.   Then I started with the programs reinstall.  I do Chrome first, then Nortons security and utilities, then NordVPN, and lastly I install Ashampoo Winoptimizer 26.  I set all of them to give the max security and max privacy.  Also Both NordVPN and Adblock Plus in Chrome stops any advertisements except those I allow.  Plus NordVPN and Nortons both work to prevent malware and scan for viruses.  Then I add in the sound programs, camera programs and other odds and ends programs I use.  That takes hours, but I can still use the computer while doing it.  

Next I used the history of devices on Chrome to open all 61 of the saved open tabs that my blogging computer had open.  I then did all the recovery steps on the blogging computer that I had just done on the video computer.  During this Ron got up so I started up his computer and used it to also load the 61 open tabs so I would be sure not to lose them.

During this time I was checking to see if the newly installed Logi Options+ to see if it seen the computers in the right order and would work by moving the mouse to the left edge of the right screen moving the mouse cursor to the left screen and to go back to the right screen I would move the mouse cursor to the right edge of the left monitor.  It wouldn’t switch, still not working.  But in frustration I moved the cursor all the way to the right edge of the right monitor and suddenly the cursor showed up on the left monitor.  Wait how did that happen.  I did a few more times, and it worked like it should.  Except to the program the monitors were in the possitions they were before the move.  I did not make sence to me.  I open the program on both computers and reset the flow part of the program.  Same thing.  I was getting so frustrated!  Then know I needed a break I left my mouse cursor on one of the monitors in the open flow part of the program and went to get a soda.  

When I returned I noticed a tip message I never seen or had appear before because I never left the cursor on one of the monitors on the program that names the monitor / computer for each ones connect with the program.  

The message said “Drag to rearrange”.   WTF 

By my dogs that love gravy could it really be that easy?  Could it be the solution was to simply move the monitors in the program.  Then I looked at the names on the monitors displayed in the program.  I had not bothered because I knew both of mine were there so why take the effort to really look closely at the names on the monitors displayed.   Son of a deer tick, on the screen the monitors were PlayBlogger on the left and PlayVideo on the right.  But I had switched the order in the move.  Now the monitor for the PlayBogger was on the right and Play Video on the left.  I dragged the displayed monitors in the program to show the current positions of the monitors.  Then I moved the cursor to the left edge of the right monitor and it jumped to the left monitor.  It worked!  Just the way it is supposed to.  All that work, and two days lost from blogging and read blogs / news.  All because I did not know that I could change the monitors on the screen and I DID NOT LOOK AT WHAT THE DISPLAY SAID THE MONITOR ORDER WAS.   

But by the time I figured it out it was far too late in the day and I was very tired.  I decided to get a shower and go to bed.  Ron had acid reflux again in the early part of the night and was up most of the night.  I couldn’t sleep either so we got up about 3:30 AM and while having coffee I am finishing writing this post.  Before the morning news shows I have to move my rolling TV entertainment stand into the new office so I can watch the Sunday news shows that are on broadcast.   And I have to now go open and save all the last few days of comments and blogs I missed.  Hugs

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A post I was going to make that took a horrible side step.

Please forgive me, This is not how I wanted to start this post.  Earlier I had a great plan and took pictures, and was so happy I was kind of humming to my self.  Then as I sat down to do this post when on the other computer screen came a video I shouldn’t have watched, I should have shut down.  It was a news station report on two young boys fostered (me adopted) and the physical abuse they suffered.  They suffered no sexual abuse, but the descriptions of the physical abuse sent all my former great happy thoughts fleeing as I totally understood their thoughts they might die and their struggles with the pain inflicted on them, I started to cry and shake and then damn it the vortex came.  It howled and tried to consume me, I floundered looking for something some handle, anything in my mind to grab so it wouldn’t take me and I could with stand it.  Fight it off.  

I put music on the other computer, wiping off the abuse video, I have no idea the songs I can not think on them.  The screen says the best soft rock of the 70s,80s,90s.  But I am calming down, remembering what I wanted to post, the great idea I have.   I must stop sobbing, Ron must not come out and see me like this.  Such a great day, great week, and yet … 

By my dogs that love gravy I wonder how my heart, my body can take these sudden panics, the mental sounds of the vortex coming for me, my body’s desperate attempt to flee or just to curl up in a ball and let it happen.  My heart rate is again down to 76.  According to my Apple Watch that monitors it, my heart rate went to 158.  Anyway.   I am calm enough to do the post I wanted to do.  But damn, I need to be more careful on the news I see coming across the many web feeds.  But I did not select the video, I was watching a new channel on the fires in Hawaii.

I want to just add that I was one step from activating the emergency Scottie needs help signal.  That is to Randy.   For those that never followed my old blog I had a breakdown in 2014.  I started self harming again and was trapped in my head by the vortex, reliving my childhood abuse.  I won’t and sorry can not describe it, but Randy who was working long night shifts keep his phone on all the time, called me repeatedly if he did not hear from me, texted me, and took hours long phone calls from me desperately trying to stop the nightmares in my head from the memories.  He went without sleep so many days just to be there for me.  When I say Randy is the best brother ever, I mean it, and that is part of the reason why.  It is not an exaggeration to say that after drawing a sharp knife or razor blade across my skin drawing blood instead of doing it again I would reach out to Randy instead.  It got to where instead of the blades, I reached for him.  Anyway those days are past now.  For good I hope.  Yet it still gets scary sometimes.    

Ok Ron got up, kept asking me what was wrong, I denied anything was wrong and told him my allergies were acting up.  He seemed like he was going to pursue it but then dropped it, and I am glad.   I just don’t want to deal with all that now at this time.   I am trying hard to let the past sink back in to the deep depths of the deepest part of the ocean in a chest wrapped in many layers of big chains, weighted down by as many happier thoughts as I can push against it.  

Ok my head is clearing and I want to do the happy bread post I started to do.   Hugs to all who want them.   Scottie

And this is what we are thinking for supper

Today for the second day I had another doctor’s appointments.  Yesterday I got my allergy shots, today I saw my endocrinologist.  He was thrilled with my labs, he also was thrilled with my weight loss from a little over 200 to now 185.  It may not seem like a lot but it has made a big difference for me, as I recently said my A1C is down to 6.2.   He also was shocked when I told him my Janumet medication went from $122 for three months to $431 for one month.  He changed that to Metformin which the pharmacy informed me right after the visit would cost me … Wait for it … $1.30 for three months.

Ron and I came up with an idea for supper that we think is neat and cool.   Ron had bought yesterday a French bread baguette and some garlic spread we like.  So we got out a large electric grill out we have, sliced the bread on an angle about a little less than one 1 inch thick, Ron sliced the big ham we had the other day into small slices, and we have trimmed cheese slices to use.  I prefer Munster and Ron likes Swiss.          

I opened two cans of Campbell’s tomato soup and got out crackers.  I got out paper plates but real bowls.  Yes I do not like paper bowls for soup.  Ron has called me over  several times to see if I thought something done this way or that would be OK.  I love it, no matter how this turns out we have had fun experimenting, we will enjoy eating it, and we will have the memory of doing it together.   Hugs.

Oh one of the windows I have been carrying forward the last few days is 78 tabs large.  I have finally managed to get all the other tabs handled, but this one is one of the largest, and it may take me the weekend to deal with.  My plan now is to get up in the middle of the night and try to respond to them all.   Hugs and loves to all, if you have not gotten a reply to your comment and you really think I should, please send it in again, write a new one.   Sometimes older comments go away before I can get to them.  Best to all.  Scottie

Yes I did this

OK Ron has said if I don’t tell everyone I did this he will.  He is still cackling nearly an hour later.  In my defense, I was really trying to be nice and not complain as we are trying to keep the grocery budget down.  Just not to this amount.

So we decided to have burgers for supper.  Ron normally has some frozen for when we want them but don’t want to go out to the store to get hamburger.  But Ron had gone shopping today filling the cupboards and cabinets with food stuffs.  He bought two packages of new hamburger as that seems to be are new meat of choice in hard times.

So as supper neared, we talked about what to have, and we both agreed on hamburgers and salad.  We used to have french fries with meals such as this, but both of us have lost the taste for such heavy meals and we are both diabetics.  As Ron got the meat ready I got all the salad stuff and burger fixings out.  I take great pride in how I build a hamburger.  

For me I take the thinnest part of the bun, and set it aside.  I take the thickest part and add a bit of mustard to it.  It might be brown mustard or yellow depending on mood.  Then I add several large pickle slices, normally I trim them to just beyond the shape of the bun.  Then I add a few lettuce leaves, torn to fit but not shredded.  I always like a lot of lettuce so a use a few instead of one.  

Then I add the meat and season to taste, closing the bun and enjoying a well-built tasty burger.  However I missed a step this time that caused Ron no amount of amusement and me a bunch of red-faced oh crap.  

In my defense I was trying to listen to a podcast on the current political situation and was not really paying attention to what I was doing, but Ron is correct, it was hilarious what happened next.  Just don’t tell him I agree, I am trying to maintain my innocence with subterfuge and obstruction, you know the republican way.

As I was eating the first burger and enjoying my bowl of salad I noticed the burger was lacking a burger taste.  I looked at it and thought “Wow Ron really made these burgers thin”.  But I figured that was all he had in the package and as we are on a budget I thought why complain when he is doing the best he can.  After all the bun and stuff tasted great, just less than burgerish. 

 I got to the last three bits when I took a look at the bun in my hand.  I thought the burger was really skimpy, in fact I couldn’t see it.  I went over to Ron and mentioned I knew we were on a budget but why make burgers so skimpy as to hardly taste them.

As we were talking and he seemed confused, I looked over at the counter … and there were my two hamburgers sitting on the plate Ron had brought them in from the grill on.  Oh shit!  Talk about foot in mouth eating crow!  I had made two perfect burgers with no hamburgers in them, and ate most all of the one without stopping to investigate or complain why it seemed burger less tasting.  

Ron is still laughing and I know he will not let this go, he will use this against me for the next dozen times I point out something I think he may have been mistaken on.  He is still gloating even though I gave him my second well dressed bun, this time with a hamburger in it hoping that would sooth his need to take glee at my discomfort and small unfortunate once in a long time misstep.  Sadly that is not to be, he informed me that if I did not write this for all my viewers to see how utterly clueless and goofy I can be, he would.  I prefer my version to his so I am taking my lumps with grace and going off to bed.   Hugs

I am so sorry

I got up this morning a bit late, on purpose.  I wanted to get my blood drawn for my endocrinologist doctor’s appointment this week.  So that is what I did.  But, when I got home, I tried to get back to blogging.  Everything sort of fell apart.  Good news is my labs all came back great, but …  Oh all labs are great and my A1C is down to 6.2

I started doing dishes and other housework.  I got terrible shivers and shakes.  I almost needed to go to bed I felt so bad.  Ron continued to work on my new office room, he is painting everything the two pink colors I chose so there won’t be any white.  Even the formerly white shelf boards he is painting the camo rose, which is so close to the wall pink Chablis I can not tell the difference. I have not even asked Ron to do all this, but he painted the new white outlets, switch covers, and also the brackets for the shelves.  He understands how important this is for me not to have glaring white in my soft pink new office, he is just going to the max on it himself.  He asked me yesterday to look on Amazon for the pink Venetian blinds, and he was OK with ordering them, even though they were more expensive than white ones in places like Walmart.  

So the point is here at nearly 4 PM in the afternoon Ron is still working on the new room, Tupac is sleeping on our bed after being out all night scaring Ron half to death, and I am just starting to get to answering comments because I have felt so crappy.   Hugs and loves.  

It happened again

Hello wonderful people.  I have to admit, it all got away from me again.  Due to doctor’s appointments, health issues, and other things I was unable to get to the comments at the beginning of the week.  Now the way I normally access both posts and comments is again blocked by WordPress.  This morning I could use the bell and go back only three days, yet this afternoon I can only go back a day and half.  I am trying to open and save every comment page, so I can reply to all the wonderful comments.   Here is what I need to ask of you wonderful people.  If you added your thoughts to a post and I did not reply in a reasonable amount of time, please, please alert me by adding a reminder on the post or linking to your comment on a newer post.   I do want to reply to you, I love it and think it is important.   But for a while I simply was not able due to my health.  They still think I had a tia or other brain hiccup along with the other breathing / heart issues. It was scary for a while, my head was so cloudy and I struggled so to function.   But I feel so much better now with the treatments from the heart doctor and the allergist.  Anyway please if you did not get a reply to your comment and you would like one try to let me know.   Thank you.  Hugs