Dear Santa, I would like a horse for Christmas. Love Paja

Christmas 1965:

They think because I'm a month old, they can get away with giving me no presents.....FINE. I'll just get the measles.

Christmas 1966:

Santa want "Glick Glick" (horse)....got puppies and another brother.

I was framed!

Christmas 1967:

Santa want "Glick Glick" (horse)....got puppies (again) Santa see my bow legs? I was meant to ride!

Christmas 1968:

Santa I wanna horsey....got another brother.

 HEY! I meant a REAL horse!

Christmas 1969:

Santa I NEED a horse. A black one. Got handmade jammies.

Christmas 1970:

Santa i whant aye horsce for crissmus i bin good. paja xxxooo

Christmas 1971:

Horse horse horse horse horse Don't bring me anything except a HORSE!
HOOOOOOOOOORSSSEE!

 Christmas 1972:

Okay how about one small pony? We all got cowboy hats! your a mean one Santa, teasing me this way!!

Christmas 1973:

Big sister says your not real, and I believe her. (but just in case you are real, I WANT A HORSE!)

Christmas 1974:

HORSE OF COURSE!

Christmas 1975:

Dear Santa I really want a horse like Little Joe's or a buckskin like Pa Cartwright's.

Christmas 1976:

Santa I got a sister for my birthday, how about a horse for Christmas so I can take her riding?!

Christmas 1977:

SANTA! is this a hint of things to come?!! A magazine on horse care!!

Christmas 1978:

Santa! Just one horse/pony and I will stop pestering you PPPPLLLLLLEEEAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSSEEE!!!

Christmas 1979:

Santa, I got a brother for Easter, kittens for 4th of July...things are on a roll! How about a horse for Christmas!!

Christmas 1980, 1981, 1982:

Black horse, chestnut horse, palomino horse, Arabian, mustang, draft horse, race horse, Connemara, roan, sway back old nag I don't care as long as its a horse!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Christmas 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986:

Santa I am working nights at HIHO, feel free to drop my horse off at work. I can graze in p-wing's yard until I get off at 7 am.

 Christmas 1987:

Stopped by and saw my siblings. Guess what I see on my sister list behind me. Yup,a horse. Santa, I asked first!!

Christmas 1988:

WHOA!! puppies again! Santa I said H - O - R - S - E !!


Christmas 1989, 1990, 1991:

Santa, still working nights, still want a horse, still waiting...

Christmas 1992:

Okay Santa.
I don't want puppies.
I don't want another brother.
I don't want clothes.
I don't want fruit cake.
I JUST WANT A HORSE.


Christmas 1993:

I GOT A HORSE!!!! THANKS SANTA!!!!!!

We got Tinkerbell for Christmas. The farm kids wanted to ride her. She was acting spooky, I insisted on getting on her first. She reared up and flipped over on me.

 She dislocated my pelvis and fractured my sacrum. $15,000 worth of surgery/hospital stay and one metal plate and 4 big ass screws and I am good to go. That was an interesting Christmas. Ambulance ride and emergency surgery.

 The other bills were pretty scary at the time.

 On my CNA salary.

 in a complete fluke I actually had insurance that year because HIHO paid for it. In my 15 years of employment that year, 1993. Was the ONLY year I had health insurance.

 In the end, staring at  $15,000 +  worth of bills, all I had to pay was the $500 deductible. Which the house insurance paid. All it cost me was....nothing.

Christmas 1994:

Santa, I've given it a lot of thought, and this year I would like a gold fish.

(A small one.) -  Paja

Horror at Time Castle

This blog is for my daughter. A writer like me.  A weaver of words. A puzzler spider taking 26 letters and endlessly stringing them together to make a web of words to capture their readers.

There exists in a box of my belongings a great weapon.

I leave it to you.

Here it is:

You wield is like this:

It is all that remains of a vast empire. A boy named Noey used it to save his people. Few know it is also a portal capable of pulling people in and out of time.

I found this in the dirt while digging and to my surprise as I reached my hand through it to wear it as a bracelet, his young hand grabbed mine and I was enlisted in to his band to fight at Time castle.

I  am the last to know his story.

You will find some of it written down in my box of stories. Do not dismiss them as the ramblings of a child. It all happened just as I described.

This is the daughter of the king of the dog clan. Her name is  Taria.

She loves this boy from the unicorn tribe. Fram.

Time Castle or TC was a place of peace until the sorcerer Waldess drew the magic out of it and left everything broken and decayed.

It took both sides to fight in this war.

The wind sisters Kilo and Sheila were changed into beasts as well. They had to be captured as they could not be defeated by conventional weapons.

Waldess would eventually be killed by Noey. Not knowing the weapon's devastating power, the boy thought by using it, he would pull Waldess out of time. Instead it pulled him INTO time. There his life ticked down in seconds until it ran out.

As I carried the lifeless bodies of the tarpis from the battle field, I came across the weapon laying in the grass. Everyone was busy celebrating. I stole it. I tucked it under my shirt and when no one was looking used it to return home.

Daughter you must safe guard the weapon.

Only those who are writers can summon the energy web into the mouth of the weapon, and make it function. Use it wisely.

And if you ever go back to Time Castle. Tell them all hi from me. They will remember me as the warrior Tugi. I commanded the band of Mandolinchi's.

rainy day thoughts on my health

In addition to polymyositis the rheumatologist also thinks I may also have rheumatoid arthritis (RA).  Yeah I can't even have one illness, I have to complicate things with two.

 It may take a long time to get a definitive diagnosis. Which is fine with me, cause I don't really want ANY of the diagnosis.

Doc wants to put me on plaquenil and wean me off the prednisone.

Love the medical profession...oh this medication is working and returning to you function and quality of life? LETS CHANGE IT!!

Plaquenil scares me for its eye side effects. I am still grappling with the effects from the PVD that happed this summer.

I have to look at all the drugs being offered with the knowledge that what ever I take I will be taking for the rest of my life, and all of them, ALL of them have nasty bad side effects that will shorten said life.

Cruel twist eh? The cost of feeling better and having quality of life again is a shortened life.

I'm also haunted by the knowledge of where the dx of RA and those medications will take me. I have spent the last 33 years watching there effect on others.

Knowing how the story ends, makes it hard to want to read the book.

December the 36th

On an antibiotic for pneumonia, trying to stay in bed. Been sick since Nov 19th. Only one disk of Vikings left then, I think I'll be up trying to clean more. This day is not one I like, bed is the last place I should be. It's the 36th anniversary of the death of John Lennon.

You would think after 36 years the pain would subside. I try to let the hate and anger go each year, and the day pass quietly by. But then there is this...a rose bud opening on this date year after year when ever I am near rose bushes. Somethings just deify understanding.

I'm not sure I ever shared the 8th of December rose story before.

Let me share now.

That first anniversary of John Lennon's murder was so hard. Ugh. Incredibly painful.

This was in the fall of 1981. Yeah, I was quite a messed up child at that point. Damaged so severely I was self injuring on a HOURLY basis, and living 24/7 in a suicidal state. John's murder fractured the small bit of sanity that was holding me together.

I took to wearing that orange shoe lace around my neck as a memorial to him. I had planned to burn it on the 1st anniversary of his death. December 8, 1981 I went out to my rose garden to burn and bury the shoe lace and discover one single red rose bud on "Master Mike" (yes my rose bushes had names.)

It was a powerful sign....and quite likely saved my life that night.

Each year post that for 13 years I went to that bush on December 8th and was greeted with a single rose bud. I lite a while candle each anniversary and then put in in a box with the carefully clipped bud.

Year fourteen, I lite all 14 candles and then buried them all.

14 candles and 14 rose buds.

I was done grieving.

Grieving, not forgetting.

I stopped looking for the roses. Sometime around anniversary number 25 the rose story came up on December 8th in a conversation at work. Co-workers were a little doubting. So on my break I left and went to my old rose bushes and returned with a single red rose bud.

I can't explain it. It's a small bubble of peace that is given to me by the universe.

***On and interesting side note. The above school picture was refused by the toka staff. They said and I quote "It's not appropriate for the year book."

???? I have no idea, why they deemed this to be so. I can't find anything wrong with it. I thought at the time it was the shoe lace. But really I honestly think they were being bullies and tormenting me like so many of my classmates did.

That picture is one of a small handful of unguarded ones that actually capture all of me and accurately portrays what and who I was at the time.

Thanksgiving 2016

Last night at work was a whirling chaos of endless call lights, medical emergencies, over fed fish, malfunctioning alarms, mountains of paper works, a late start on my med pass and then getting behind on the pass as I stopped to call 911.

There were unreachable goals, unforgiving deadlines, fire men, extra laundry, plus my fever and a snotty nose. Topped off with foggy glasses, and itchy face from wearing a mask the whole shift.    

...and, I loved every second of it.

Being on Prednisone has greatly improved my quality of life and significantly decreased my pain level. My work week just flew by, and I am a little disappointed that I'm out of the game for my usual days off.

Far cry from 6 weeks ago when I was fighting to get through each shift and seriously thinking I was going to have to retire and find a less physically demanding job. I'm so thankful this week for my wonderful work family, amazing residents, and that blessing of prednisone.

Perhaps the most devastating thing on my EMG report:

was this:

when did I become middle aged??!! BWHAHAHAHAH!!! I want a second opinion!

Shout out to all the spouses of healthcare workers.

I can remember talking to my new husband and telling him there would be days I would come home from work a sobbing mess. When I had to endure things beyond what my heart and soul were capable of.

That there would be days I would be caring for a resident I had grown to love, and had to watch them die an agonizing death. Deaths that even medication could not make painless. You can only watch so many people die before it erodes your heart.

On those days you need to talk.

You need to sob and be held.

You need to purge the sights and sounds from your soul to keep them from suffocating you.

I told him that on those days he just needed to hold me and listen without hearing a single word I said. Nothing was needed from him other then to just listen without hearing, to witness the fragile vulnerable soul emptying the pain from deep within.

These spouses enable all of us to keep going and not reach a point we turn off our hearts and loose the special light that makes us outstanding nurses/CNA's/caregivers.

They all deserve a high five for what they do for us.