Maxine Monday

My scheduled post - did not post!
Here she is, better late than never!

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Who is next for goodness sakes???

By MITCH STACY, Associated Press Writer Mitch Stacy, Associated Press Writer – 4 mins ago

TAMPA, Fla. – Billy Mays, the burly, bearded television pitchman whose boisterous hawking of products such as Orange Glo and OxiClean made him a pop-culture icon, has died. He was 50.

Tampa police said Mays was found unresponsive by his wife Sunday morning. A fire rescue crew pronounced him dead at 7:45 a.m. It was not immediately clear how he died. He said he was hit on the head when an airplane he was on made a rough landing Saturday, and Mays' wife told investigators the TV personality didn't feel well before he went to bed that night.

There were no signs of a break-in at the home, and investigators do not suspect foul play, said Lt. Brian Dugan of the Tampa Police Department, who wouldn't answer any more questions about how Mays' body was found because of the ongoing investigation. The coroner's office expects to have an autopsy done by Monday afternoon.

Mays' wife, Deborah Mays, told investigators that her husband had complained he didn't feel well before he went to bed some time after 10 p.m. Saturday night, Tampa police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said.

"Although Billy lived a public life, we don't anticipate making any public statements over the next couple of days," Deborah Mays said in a statement Sunday. "Our family asks that you respect our privacy during these difficult times."

I can't carry a tune

But he can - and I don't think he can speak English either!

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Cat butts, hot flashes and toilets. Fun!

Crabby old man cat had to go to the vet yesterday and nothing goes better together than 90 degree sweaty skin and cat hair. Yum! I literally had to grab a tissue and wipe my brow as well as dip down into the cleavage. I’m getting used to the varying temperatures of my body lately but c’mon, at the vet??

They took Riley’s blood, used a little pediatric blood pressure cuff on him to get his pressure, managed to get some urine from him and put some stain in his eye because he was doing the pirate thing again. The stain is for a better look. I need to start giving him the eye ointment again. Also came home with some glucosamine for him (arthritis) and of course – he won’t have anything to do with it.

Heard back from the doc today – his blood work looks good and so does his urine and she needs to see his eye again in a few days. Oh, did I mention she asked if I wipe his butt for him? Um no, I mean, I dipped his backend in the tub once when he was having some problems but generally, no. So she went on to tell me about how old cats get arthritic and have trouble cleaning themselves well and how he would appreciate it if I got some baby wipes and wiped his butt maybe once a day for him. Um . . ? Is this necessary? I mean the cat is spoiled enough, you tell me to feed him whenever he wants me to, and now you want me to wipe his butt? How much is he payin’ you Doc, I’ll double it!

I mean really!

Then today was all about the bathroom at my house. My daughter is visiting and my son is home (week off from work) so with one bathroom it can get uncomfortable. But with NO bathroom it’s unacceptable. Which is why both of my children left and I got to stay home not daring to eat anything and mentally constipating myself. Fun!!! But – now the bathroom is working again, I caulked around the bottom of the toilet and put the fancy new seat on the throne the BF bought for me. Very nice! So now maybe all of us can get back to normal.

But . . . . I just don’t know if I’m going to rush right out and get those baby wipes any time soon, I’ll have to think about that one! I have to draw the line somewhere, right?

Now I have a reason

I have mentioned this before. But it needs to be said again. If you like to shop online, find a way to do it safely. My recommendation? PayPal plug-in. I used it for a while and I loved it, but then I upgraded to the newest version of Firefox and it wasn’t available. So I just started shopping the old fashioned way, using my debit card wherever I was buying.

The PayPal plug-in puts a P on your toolbar at the top of your screen. When you start to check out in any shop PayPal drops down a box so you can check out with PayPal. Even if it’s a site that does not have the PayPal option normally. But what PayPal does is every time you use this plug-in it generates a virtual credit card number which is tied to the financial information you have supplied only to PayPal. So if you buy things from 10 stores – generally only 1 or 2 will regularly give you the option to use PayPal. If you have the plug-in, you can use it at every one of those sites. And PayPal is reputable and I trust them.

If you have a PayPal account I would suggest signing in and downloading the plug-in. It now works in the newest version of Firefox and IE. It will save receipts for you and everything, it’s really useful. Keep the records of your purchases all in one place, great, huh?

So why am I suggesting this? Because some slimy bottom feeder made a feeble attempt to rip me off. These crooks out there get your credit or debit card info and try it out by sending a tiny charge to it. Like say .90 cents for pizza at 3:00am. If the charge goes through they know they can hunker down and start shopping for what they really want. Luckily the little charge they sent to my card had already been flagged as fraudulent so when it hit my card it sent up red flags. My card was immediately turned off and a message was left on my answering machine at home. Unfortunately I didn’t get the phone message until I had my card denied at the grocery store on my way home from work, and luckily had one, count ‘em one check in my purse to pay for my groceries!

So now I am being issued a new card. Pain. In. The. Butt. But better than having to deal with a bunch of charges and the mess that would have caused. So tonight I went back to PayPal to download the plug-in and found that it WAS available for Firefox now, so you’re looking at (uh .. reading) a happy gal now. No excuses not to be safe. For me anyway.

Practice safe shopping, people! It’s for your own good. Really

Wii and Mii

I finally got around to doing some Wii Fit today. My poor little "Mii" turned a bit chubby when I was weighed and my BMI calculated, and after the balance test I was told "it looks like balance games aren't your forte." Ha! Ya think?

I hula-hooped and I stepped and I ran. My daughter had done it earlier and I only beat her score in the running. I have no idea how that happened, she must have been tired when she got to the running because I doubled her score! I found the running amusing, what with little puppies coming toward me and people passing me, butterflies in the air and a waterfall to run past. I was smiling while I was doing it. That's just weird. I don't like exertion. But I'm sure it's all part of my being easily distracted by shiny objects, or puppies, butterflies, and waterfalls as the case may be.

I didn't take a picture of my chubby little Mii, but I was relieved to see it didn't blimp out as much as I thought it would, considering I was declared obese. That alone is enough to discourage anybody.

When you start you have to set up your Mii, give it your age, height, and the things weighs you itself, I'm thinking it knows that's the only way to get an honest answer. Anyway, Dani went to set herself up and she put in her height and age and stepped onto the exercise board and it weighed her. It was a weight she was quite pleased with, even though she knew it wasn't right. She figured out that she had the board facing away from the Wii when it should be facing the Wii. Once she turned it around and stepped back on it said "it appears you are holding something that weighs 32 pounds." Lol! Um no, it was just weighing her for real. I was laughing so hard when she told me this when I got home from work, it was just too funny.

I did enjoy it but the key thing is doing it over and over.
Consistency. We will see. Took me 3 days for my butt muscles to stop hurting after playing tennis once! But I
know me. Baby steps. Just baby steps.

After that - toddler steps and . . .

Maxine Monday

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