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"I just ate less...among other things..." #120

“I just ate less…among other things…” #120

“Did you think I was dead?” Nope…not yet my friends… But before I venture too far down that rabbit hole…let me first say I hope that everyone (who celebrates this holiday) had a great Thanksgiving…and to everyone else I hope your Thursday went well… I…for one…am still very grateful (not that I was not ever NOT very grateful) for everything because that is a medically proven way to live happy and…

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"I just ate less...among other things...#119

“I just ate less…among other things…#119

  “Breaking News”!!!!!! Well, since CNN has decided that after (I’m sure) months of intense deliberation…that using the header BREEAKING NEWS!!!!!…EVERY DAMN DAY…was not exactly correctly describing what their viewers were going to see….every damn day… …I thought that I would use that eye-catching header to describe my current life. I did NOT reach my 135# goal for the fourth of July…

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"I just ate less...among other things..." #118

“I just ate less…among other things…” #118

I TAKE 100% RESPONSIBILITY… it was absolutely all my fault… Let’s begin…shall we? No…wait.  First you have to see this photo of me…taken about a trillion or so years ago. This was me on my brand-new Columbia 20″ bicycle which my dad got for me.  I was 7 years old.  What is so important about this photo?  You innocently ask? Look at the front of the bike just below the handlebars.  There you will…

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"I just ate less...among other things..." #117

“I just ate less…among other things…” #117

“I never saw it coming…” Way, way back in January…which is when I last posted…I was pretty focused on saving my husband’s life…and not doing a half-bad job of it, I might add.  I was steely-eyed focused… He was resisting all efforts to “do the right thing” and as we all know (well…those of us who have an IQ of over 50) know…YOU MUST DO WHAT THE DOCTORS TELL YOU TO DO…OR YOU DIE!!!! So after a…

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"I just ate less...among other things..." #116

“I just ate less…among other things…” #116

FOUND IT!!!!!! Because I am the type of person who cannot let things go…I have been on a frantic but semi-controlled  search for the past couple of weeks for this chicken noodle soup recipe that I was very fortunate to find from a trusted source on Twitter. I made the soup and even though my husband will not eat chicken…go figure, right?…he ate the whole bowl…chicken pieces and all. Perhaps he…

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"I just ate less...among other things..." #115

“I just ate less…among other things…” #115

“WHEN…” When the ambulance drivers start to look familiar… When the paramedics say…”Wasn’t I just here a couple of weeks ago…?” When you find a corner of a doctor/clinic waiting room and have no problem with setting a physical boundary so no one else can sit next to you… When some people who do not understand what “tele-health” means but you do and have to explain it to them…and by them…I mean…

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"Annabelle & The Radio Guy" Ch. 14

“Annabelle & The Radio Guy” Ch. 14

“Oh!  I’m sorry.  I thought you were someone else…someone I’m supposed to meet here…”  Henry kept talking…almost as though he couldn’t stop.  But I took another step. I really couldn’t help myself…he sounded so puzzled…so flummoxed…so un-Henry like…that I had to laugh… Yes.  Yes.  The laugh he had been listening to and apparently loving for the past few months…my very “unique” laugh… His head…

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"Annabelle & The Radio Guy" Ch. 13

“Annabelle & The Radio Guy” Ch. 13

I could see through the restaurant’s floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked Lake Superior that Henry had picked a table toward the back of the restaurant. He had no idea what I looked like but of course I could recognize him. I had seen countless ads in the local Rocky Point newspaper promoting his show. He sported a shock of blonde hair and even though we had what seemed like about a month of…

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"Annabelle & The Radio Guy" Ch. 12

“Annabelle & The Radio Guy” Ch. 12

Of course…it wasn’t the program that was changing my life…it was Henry. He was charming.  He was interesting.  He was comforting.  He was funny.  He could be outrageous. I soon realized that I was really looking forward to calling in and talking with him…more each time. Sometimes I purposely stayed awake for the whole show…until I heard the familiar strains of “In the Still of the Night” playing …

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"Annabelle & The Radio Guy" Ch. 11

“Annabelle & The Radio Guy” Ch. 11

From that first night of talking with Henry…my life was just plain better. I can’t really explain it…but I was happier…much happier than I had been in a long, long time. I didn’t dread going into my bedroom at night…I looked forward to it. Maybe it was because I was looking more outward than inward. I was connecting with the world and it didn’t natter that I couldn’t  see as well…or that now I…

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"Annabelle & The Radio Guy" Ch. 10

“Annabelle & The Radio Guy” Ch. 10

It took me over three months to drum up the courage to call in to Henry’s show.  It was on July 4. I became a “first-time caller”  choosing the moniker, “Annabelle from Rocky Point”. My real name is Karla…but I have always loved the name Annabelle.  I wanted to give that name to our daughter when she was born but Chuck didn’t like it…not even for a middle name.  I bet there’s a story…

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"Annabelle & The Radio Guy" Ch. 9

“Annabelle & The Radio Guy” Ch. 9

Later that night…I had a frustrating conversation with my daughter, Lizzie, who was currently being “played” by her father to get back in my good graces…for whatever reason I did not know…nor did I care…although I suspected it had somethin to do with money. “I think he wants you guys to get back together!” Lizzie had said excitedly.  I could hear lots of “hope” in her voice. She hadn’t been in…

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"Annabelle & The Radio Guy" Ch. 8

“Annabelle & The Radio Guy” Ch. 8

I carefully removed the towel and there…nestled in some white tissue paper…was the little black transistor radio.  It was so small…maybe a little bigger than a deck of cards. The box also held a relatively new-looking Timex watch (obviously still ticking) and a small black and white picture of my mom, taken when she was probably about twenty.  She was standing outside, next to a four-foot…

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"Annabelle & The Radio Guy" Ch. 7

“Annabelle & The Radio Guy” Ch. 7

So…there I sat on the edge of my bed…pathetically holding my little pink radio…trying to think of how I could make it sound better… I looked up at the wall across the room from me.  There was a blown-up photo of my mom and dad sitting in a couple of deck chairs on the back porch of this house.  Lake Superior was in the background. It was my favorite picture of them.  They looked so relaxed and…

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"Annabelle & The Radio Guy" Ch. 6

“Annabelle & The Radio Guy” Ch. 6

I  knew I should be grateful that I had not suffered any devastating side-effects from my stroke…and I truly was. I didn’t even mind using a cane once in a while…if I felt I needed it for stability.  I was in a good place. But honest to Pete…I needed something to replace the books I had gotten so used to reading every night before I went to sleep. I had tried using the magnifying glass device…

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"Annabelle & The Radio Guy" Ch. 5

“Annabelle & The Radio Guy” Ch. 5

The stroke…although minor…had affected my vision slightly…to the degree that I couldn’t read very well…at least not without high magnification. I was advised that in cases like mine, my eyesight should return to…about 90%.  I somehow managed to find this reassuring. I had “retired” from my job as assistant editor of  the Rocky Point Press a couple of years ago so there was no rush to “heal up…

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"Annabelle & The Radio Guy" Ch. 4

“Annabelle & The Radio Guy” Ch. 4

Time moves on…imagine a wavy screen that in movies and television often signal a time change…now journey ahead about 40 years… Last year…after a four-hour session in the dental chair…I had a small stroke and a few months after that…I had a massive seizure… This nonsense was followed by the not completely unexpected exit of Chuck,  a rather dull and narcissistic husband who couldn’t quite see his…

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