Petunia rambles on and on….

… Cold.

… Snowy.

… A time to get things done, but then stuff that I wanted to get done got put aside because of taxes, and Husband kept saying, “Don’t file them yet ‘cause I think there’s something I we forgot” but he couldn’t remember what it was, and after a statement like that, hell, I waited. Turns out that after a week of thinking about it, his light bulb finally lit up and he remembered that, unbeknownst to me, he had cashed out an IRA – which of course has tax consequences. It punched a good-sized hole in our expected refund, but still getting some back. And from State, too.

… The month I did my blog in RED because of the Awareness Month for heart disease, particularly heart disease in women. I really had some great plans for that in my head and several themes that I wanted to bring up. Heart disease has really hit my family hard with early and severe heart attacks. My father died way too young at a time when medical science couldn’t do much. Today, we’ve all found out that something in our genes produces cholesterol. It’s shown up in all of us by middle age, and in some of us, way, way younger. (Did you ever hear of a 10-year-old with a cholesterol count of 278?) Clearly, the topic hits close to home.

…Women seem to have a lower rate of diagnosis, for several reasons.

Our symptoms are often different than those exhibited by men. While we do get the classic chest pain/elephant on my chest, we don’t ALWAYS get them. Our heart attacks as often show pain in  the left side/arm/neck/jaw. Indigestion/heartburn. Shortness of breath. Dizziness. I’ve had them all and I may have had a minor heart attack a decade ago; the doctors aren’t sure and there’s little, if any, damage.

We are more often mis-diagnosed by the medical community that still thinks chest pain + male = heart attack while chest pain + female = stress or overwork or hypochondria or “cry for attention.”

We feel chest pain and remember that the bathroom still hasn’t been cleaned, and continue on with our list of chores until we are later found dead by a family member rather than seeking immediate help. Our native mindset is to take care of others, not ourselves and so we continue on preparing dinner.

… I was going to finish that sweater.

… I was not going to buy any more clothes, but there was this sale at a local store that I usually don’t go into and it followed me home. And it’s not the first time that happened. At least it wasn’t a ferret that leaped into the car.

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And now here it is, the last day of February save one, and the month is gone, and the time that I hoped to be able to get out of work and get down to see my daughter 17 times one last time is about gone, too. I haven’t had 2 days off in a row since the last time I went down, back in January, and it doesn’t look like I will. Or maybe, well, I love the idea of going down for a visit, but I just can’t imagine the pain of getting back into the car, starting the engine and driving away from all of them.

The losses have just been too much lately.

I’m not sure what season it is. I thought it was February, which is during the winter, isn’t it? (At least here in the Northern Hemisphere?) Right? Shouldn’t it be cold, windy, snow on the ground?

Please explain to me why, on the 23rd of February, I’ve got this damn dandelion growing in my weeds front yard?

And these little blue flowers?

Polar shift? That’s it. The planet is upside down and we’re in the Southern Hemisphere now?

OK. Must have happened while I was sleeping; didn’t feel a thing.

I spend too much time on Facebook and there are two group sites that I particularly enjoy reading – groups of students from two different high schools. I lived in one small beach town in New Jersey from 1st grade through the end of 10th grade. At that time, in March of my sophomore year of high school, my parents dragged me moved to Florida. I attended 2 different high schools but remember far more people from NJ than from FL. I went to school with the NJ kids so much longer and left Florida damn near 40 years ago. Still, I enjoy the posts from the Florida group for the information about the area and all the changes – and there are a few women very active with the group that post a lot of pictures.

Today I saw this one, and felt the tears well up.

The Pompano Lucaya, 1200 N. Ocean Blvd, Pompano Beach, FL 33060

My mother worked there for quite a few years as the front desk clerk. The managers were great people, were very good to her and left her in charge of the whole place when they were away. They went home several times a year to visit family in Georgia, and took many cruises. While they were gone, Mom and I stayed in a room on the 1st floor so that there was a “manager” on-site 24/7. I worked my first switchboard there, part-time while I was in high school, so that the evening shift clerk could get the audit done without the constant interruption – realize that, back in those days, hotel switchboards were busier than they are now. Back then, there were no credit cards, phone cards or cell phones. All calls to or from guests were placed by the hotel operators.

I did a search for “Pompano Lucaya” and found a site where postcards are for sale – and found this one (or one very like it) It also showed the reverse of the card they were selling.

Postmark is Mar 20, 1970. Mom was working there then. I’m sure of that because that’s just 6 days before my oldest son was born. I remember going back to work for them for a few weeks just 3 weeks after he was born, because the phone company had a rule that I couldn’t go back to work there until 8 weeks after delivery. And the managers went on vacation that year in late April-early May? I remember staying down there with Mom and all the maids sneaking into our room to hold the new baby!

And oddly, when I looked at the info on the back of this card, I remember those people. They came down every year from Mass, always stayed on the 6th floor.

Damn, I’m getting old.