ate shrimp scampi today//p called with lots of news//still have the flu, but not as bad

p called last night around 1 a.m.    i actually forgot i used to do that all the time hang and talk in the wee hours of the "morning" or night depending on how you look at it.   but i stopped a lot of that over a year ago because of the accident and the medical complications from the accident.  i'm in pain all the time now, so i do my own version of going straight home, its still late at night compared to some people, but not as late as it used to be.    so many changes. 
its p's b-day on the 4th.  good day for a b-day.  no one should forget it because its so easy to recall it - new year week and all.  she still isn't her though.  her husband (the good one, she had two bad ones before that) died 8 years ago which started a downward spiral and even without that, her husband always kept her in line because on her own, she often says things to people that she shouldn't say and he would pave the way FOR her and make her apologize or stop her before she got herself in deep water.  he was a very nice man - had she met him sooner, he was the one she would have loved to have had a child with and vice versa.  he had a shrew for a first wife and was totally estranged from his daughter with that wife, to the day he died.  very sad.   
p already had blood pressure troubles and her doctor had forbidden her from talking to any of her eight kids (all grown from four different relationships/husband) or she would end up having a stroke.  good luck with that.  each kid has a soap opera going on most of the time and then there are grandchildren and its like who wouldn't have blood pressure troubles with all that, though her's is much more extreme and would read more like a Vanity Fair.   Two of her daughters have died of cancer since her husband's death, the last one a year ago and she is estranged from her eldest son for about ten years now, thanks to her vicious, much younger half sister, who she shouldn't have anything to do with anyway.  it goes on and on. 
so she is down to five children and grandchildren to keep her blood pressure spiked.  gad!  now two of her grandchildren just had children.  two baby girls.  one has a black father and i told p that is very popular nowadays.  she can't remember the names of either great-grandchild, and i think she is finally throwing in the towel on the whole thing.  too bad she didn't do that ten years ago when the doctor told her to.  she doesn't sound like herself at all.  its very confusing and i'm totally impatient with it and i know it. 
hoping now that her house is quiet again she will rebound, though why she kept the house she lived in with her husband, i don't understand at all.  too many memories.  creepy really.  she left the house for 3 years and rented it out and then returned to it 3 years ago, then her daughter died in it, last year, and its one of the daughters who parties too much and who she never gets along with.  enough really - i would sell it if i were her, but its none of my business.  she also isn't driving right now so this isn't the best town for her to be living in, how the hell does she get around, taxis?  this isn't nyc or san diego where public trans runs every few minutes and no one needs a car at all.  the doctor loaded her up with anxiety meds after her daughter died and it turned her into a zombie.  she is still saying whacha ma call it, all the time when she can't find the words, though she claims she went off the anxiety medication.  she either needs potassium, and/or should try focus factor vitamins, they really do make a difference and they sell them right at walgreens.  grrrrr. 
i end up yelling at her every time i talk to her since her husband died so i avoid the whole thing now.  she needs to get back on track.  her husband used to be a minister for the ill at their church and she used to be involved with volunteering for the church and raising dogs at their home.  her house was one of the ones where every light is on after 12 a.m., because she used to bar tend/short order cook, most of her adult life and the hours never shifted for her even after she gave up bar tending.   she is still up until 3 a.m. ALWAYS and she is still asleep all morning (like most of the people i know.  lol.)  the only difference is she is no  longer working - though it'd probably be therapeutic for her to return to work if it was possible, though i don't think she would get away with her sarcasm around here like she did in the north east.  not at all.  lol.  i think hollywood, california would have been a better speed for retirement for her, though i hear the pollution is awful over there.  
k also called and i started realizing i must have slept through a lot of the holiday with this flu and not even realized it.  whoops.  nothing else going on.  i finally got to eat grilled shrimp and shrimp scampi.  j and a didn't catch it themselves, its just what we ate.  had some wine and think it may have been too much for my stomach, knocked me for a loop.  but at least i got to eat something festive.  also received photos from m and m who are doing the world tour thing, also retired, even though they just hit their 50's.  some of europe and now the south pacific.  glad they splurged, though i'm amazed they have their health to do all that.   travelling is best done in your teens and 20's when you have the energy for it.  in that booklet "did this should have done that" for college students, but anyone can buy it, its the one thing that comes up the most.  sell everything and just go.  i agree 100%.  that is the time and that really is the only time for it.  m and m are the only ones i know of without health issues at that late age.  that is a lot of travelling and sight seeing for old people, when you are young you absorb so much more and you have it with you as you grow older, i can't see attempting it later on at all.  do you get anything out of it if you go when you are old?    wish i was them though.  they still get to travel and g's sister is back with an airline again and as always travelling.  wish i was her as well.  lol.    i travelled a lot in my teens and 20's and before that, but a little bit more would have been even better.