Good start, warm day

5/9/06 Tuesday
Not a bad start for the morning. Running about a six on the Bob scale when I woke up but that has moved up to an 8. I got an E mail from Linda, a fellow survivor of Traumatic Brain Injury. She is going through some difficulties and her brain injury makes it harder to deal with. Depression is a common problem we have to fight. I wrote her back with the hope of encouraging her. One of her issues is having to fight the insurance company for coverage of her care. I don’t know the details but I know insurance companies. They usually have some bureaucratic dweeb who’s job is to try to save his company money. Unfortunately that often involves screwing the person who needs what they paid insurance premiums for. This is one of the reasons my Congresswoman, Marcy Kaptur, sponsored a bill recognizing TBI as a disability under the ADA (American Disability Act ?)

This morning Fred wants to go to Ed Schmidt to see if the key for his car came in and to make sure his plates were properly transferred. I told him he had signed a form authorizing them to do it for him but he didn’t get it. No problem.

I will cook dinner again tonight. I am always glad when Cherie asks me to do things and she is getting better at doing that. I fixed an egg McMuffin this morning so at least I ate. Hope McDonalds doesn’t sue me for using the McMuffin name but it pretty much describes what I cooked. That and a couple cups of coffee and I am good to go.

I E mailed the Love Story to Cherie at work so she can fix the errors I made in it. That is a problem with losing your memory is what you can recall is sometimes not quite accurate. That is one of the reasons I interview people who knew me to get the right story or in some cases just to learn what I can’t remember at all. I will probably always be doing that.

I will be leaving with Fred soon so will go ahead and post this. Stay tuned because I will add to this post as the day goes by, providing of course that I am still doing good.

OK maybe not. The server for my blogs seems to be down. I’ll have to wait till it comes up again.

12:00 – Just got back with Fred. He is acting his age today. Blogger seems to be having difficulties. At least it doesn’t say the server is not available but it is loading pretty slow.

Fred was having a hard time understanding things at Ed Schmidt. JD the salesman wasn’t in so we talked to Greg the manager. He took us to the financial manager because Fred was upset his payment book hadn’t come yet. It has only been ten days since he bought the car. Fred went on about how this would mess up his checking account because he always gets his checks out on the first of the month. His first payment isn’t due till the 29th, which is twenty days away. We both tried to explain that he had plenty of time but it didn’t seem to sink in. Then he was assured he would not have to pay a late charge so that settled him down.

We checked to see if the key and remote for the car had come in and it seems there is no order for it at wherever they make them. “I’m tired of this shit. I’m going to talk to Greg” Fred let everyone know. I sheepishly shrugged my shoulders from behind Fred to let the service manager know I sympathized with him. Then I took Fred back to see Greg. Greg got right on it and we both had to settle Fred down and assure him it would be taken care of. “Don’t worry Fred. I will come down here tomorrow and make sure it is done” I told him. We both shook Greg’s hand and left.

Alright!! Now it’s phase two of the Fred chronicles. He had mentioned he wanted to go to Kasmiers grocery but when I asked “You ready to go to Kasmiers?” Fred got confused. “You said you have to get gas” he told me so I let him know I can do that anytime. So off to the grocery store we went.

This was a nothing is good enough or cheap enough shopping trip. Fred wanted to peer at everything no matter what. I patiently explained what he was looking at but he would spend his time peering at things he doesn’t need or want. This includes the tampax isle. “Fred that’s all women’s stuff. You don’t want anything here” I would tell him and he would promptly pick up a box of Tampons and say “What is this?”.

He got tired to my relief so I got him through the check out and home. Glad it’s done. I think I will go visit Allen now
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Here is a picture of one of the reasons Allen is in so much pain. He is a member of the Pyrotechnics Guild, which is for those who build professional level fireworks. One of the ten inch shells accidently went off flingin Allen over a pick up truck which was also moved sideways four feet from the blast. His body was peppered with rocks and debris.

Allen was much better this time, at least from the standpoint of being more settled down. He was however in pain, holding his stomach as his face knotted up. “I’ll be glad when we get you approved for Medicaid so a doctor can look at that” I told him. He sat there smoking cigarette after cigarette most of the time I was there. I helped him get some stuff done that required bending over waist high. That hurt me a lot. I’ve broke my neck three times and my back once so the pain level can be high. Getting that done we watched The Hunt For Red October on his satellite. We didn’t talk much so I went ahead and left when the movie was over.

Now what do I fix for dinner? First I look in the fridge to take stock of what we have. We have tortillas, some fajita stuff from a restaurant we ate at, cheese, and the two chicken thighs left over from last night. What else is there? Oh! Here’s some of that Thai fish sauce and curry paste. OK Houston! We are having Mexican Lasagna. I got the casserole dish out and cut up onion and red pepper, mixing it with the chicken I had deboned and cut up. Pouring some olive oil and fish sauce in a wok I stir fried all of this. Then I layered this mix with tortilla shells, cheese, and some salsa. Into the oven it goes for forty five minutes at 350. We must wait till it comes out to see if it is edible.

Then I mixed up some guacamole with the two avocados that were going bad in the fridge. Not bad, I better call Cherie and have her pick up some chips on the way home. What else do we need to use up? Here’s some broccoli and carrots along with veggie dip. Cool, now we have a four course appetizer.

Dinner was great and we finished with the last of the strawberry cream pie I bought yesterday. No wonder I’m getting fat.

Right now my back pain is too much to remain at this computer. I will have to lay down. This brings concern about what I will be able to do in Texas.