Another Sunny Day in So Cal

A bit hazy today but gorgeous all the same. A white crane flew down near the wood pile this morning. Than another one flew down too. They must be a pair. The first one seemed like it wasn't doing very well swallowing something. I took some photos and the second crane flew away. I didn't get any photos of it flying. Then the first one seemed to recover and it flew away too.



When I put the card in my computer card reader it wouldn't work...the photos still show when the card is in the camera so need to find another card reader and try again.



With Hailey off to school, E.R. still in KY, and David down the road on his bike, I'm in the house by myself. Doesn't happen very often. It seems so quiet here. Well a cat walks through the house once in awhile but then they are very quiet walkers.



E.R. called me and said he would be headed home on Friday. He has been in the snow storms back there. Had to drive several hundred miles on black ice. On the way to IL His brother said he could drive better being he was a truck driver. So E.R. let him take the wheel and they wound up in a ditch waiting for a tow truck. Someone came by and volunterred to pull them out with a chain and E.R. said OK to that. Paul, his brother, thought they were all going to get killed. It worked out fine though and they were back on the road with E.R. driving. E.R. said it was cold in KY but he is having a nice visit back there with his family.

Cats

We have five cats. Tuffy is a big black shorthaired cat. His fur looks like satin. He is a miniture black panther. Tuffy was purchased at a pet store from an animal rescue group. We got him an his sister at a discount because they were all ready five months old and no one had offered for them. It was late August and they don't like to be selling black cats near Halloween. They were both living in the same cage and were both wary of people.

Hailey renamed them Tuffy and Angel. Their birthdate was listed as March 30, 2005. Not too long after their first birthday Angel followed me outside one evening when I was bringing in things from my car, and was never seen again. Tuffy ran back into the house with his fur standing out like a plush toy. We knew Angel must have crossed paths with a coyote. One sometimes comes through our yard at night.

When I bought this house it came with a gray and white cat named Katy. Katy belonged to my stepmom. My stepmom passed away in 2000. Since E.R. was renting her little house and living with our son David, he stayed on and took care of the property for the trust until I bought it from the trust. We took care of Katy for those years until this place was mine to move into from the storage I used to manage. I had dreamed about going to Arizona or New Mexico, but since it is hard to move David I stayed here. I didn't only get the place I got my ex too. It has been interesting.

David met some people down the road that had to move and couldn't take their cats with them. So I said OK we will take them. They came by soon after and handed us two cats, and mama cat and her six month old son. They didn't even tell us their names. The mama cat was friendly and liked to be petted but she growled at Tuffy and Katy. Hailey was told to leave her alone. To let her get used to our place. Didn't listen and got bit on the arm. Trip to doctor and antibiotics for Hailey. I named the mama cat Stormy. Stormy is a short haired silver colored tabby. She fits her name. Stormy settled in and Katy and Stormy ignored eachother. Not Tuffy. He took all that growling personal and the two have disliked eachother ever since. I named Stormy's son Fluffy Boots. Fluffy is fluffy what else and tabby colored. Tuffy and Fluffy don't get along but mostly stay away from eachother.

In the spring of 2006, Stormy went catting around and got PG. On July 5th she had five kittens. Lots of photo ops. We couldn't keep all those kittens. My daughter and her two children Megan and Cody moved here that spring too. Hailey and Megan both wanted a kitten. So we kept two.

We named the fluffy kittens Tuxie and Smokey. Tuxie is black and white and Smokey is an almost black sooty color. Katy was about eighteen or ninteen and one day went to sleep and she was gone. So we now have five cats. After the experience loosing Tuffy's sister Angel we try to get all the cats inside the house every evening. Once in awhile one will refuse to come in. Then we worry.

Sunny Day

Spring is really here. Every thing is growing and green.

I've been fighting off a cold and lots of coughing and Hailey too is not getting over her cold. This must be the cold that doesn't go away. It starts with a very bad sore throat and then feel bad for a couple of days and then the coughing and sneezing. About the time it seems all over it all starts up again with a head ache, aching bones, and sore eyes that feels like the flu but not quite as bad. Then it goes back to feeling like a chest cold. I once was sick the whole month of December and pretty much missed Christmas because of something like this.

Hailey just talked me in to letting her stay home today. I've been making her go to school all week because she has missed so much. This week end we need to buy her some camouflage pants and a black tank top for her dance class. They wore this costume last year but Hailey has outgrown her stuff. Finding camouflage pants for a teenage girl is not that easy to do.

I titled my blog, "What I Think," but so far haven't put much of that in. I've been thinking about the election. Clinton and Obama are truly fighting it out. I know a lot of people like Obama but I'm not exactly sure he would really be good for the country. I thought Hillary would have an easy time getting the Democratic nomination. Not so. Which ever one does get it I think that if the other would agree to run on the same ticket as vice pres they would have a good chance of going all the way. But I wonder if that could happen with the animosity they are showing to each other. And if they did join up would anyone believe in them. Both have a lot more money than Mc Cain. Though it looks like Mc Cain will get the Rebublican nomination. That will make a big difference in how much Mc Cain will have backing him. I'm thinking now that Huckabee will run as vice pres with Mc Cain. It all comes down to women, race, and white America. And who do you trust? We will just have to see what happens.

So much for political thoughts.

Killed My Board

When I started my Photoshopping board I tried very hard to install phpbb3. I downloaded the program and did everything said to do but nothing would work. Finally I found that a program on my brand new server would install phpbb2. It worked and we were up and running. Many old friends from Janee's joined and some new ones too. The only down side was the spam bots that swarmed like the plague. They can actually join a board. Then later come back and post their muck. Most were pill pushers but one was a hard core porn pusher. I did write about all this. Adding a mod to the board was said to help stop the spam bots from joinning a board. Which I was afraid to do in case I messed everything up. One mod changes the place that the generated letters show for visual conformation. It is said bots are now being programmed to over come this.

So I would check the board several times a day and if I saw a strange new member with jumbled letters for a name and strange hobbies for a graphic board...like camping and skiing instead of working with graphic programs and one other sure sign that I don't want to tell...I knew to delete them. Which I did often. That cut way back on unwanted posts. I read up on these spam bots and they will join a board and then come back later and post. That gives the bots time to check their e-mail and log on. It really seems to me that there might be human hands involved in this process.

My phpbb2 board has a warning in red print that says it needs updating. Dumb me! I tried and killed the board. So had to install a new one in a new directory. I did try to recover the old data but my backup was flawed and the board wouldn't install over itself on my web site. These things are tricky. Anyway many of the members have found their way to my new board and so we are again happy campers to have a place to stay connected. The new board still has that red warning print but I'm going to ignore it for now.

The only good thing is a reprieve from the spam bots. They haven't found us yet. I did make an index page for my site with directions to the new board and after the first day I got a brain storm. I put the link in a graphic.

Another trip over to Borrego Springs

Jackie, Jocelyn, Hailey, and I drove over Saturday morning. Then instead of driving out to the desert through Julian we turned left at Santa Ysabel and drove out past Lake Henshaw. We stopped at the Santa Ysabel mission too. I've been passed there many times but have never stopped before. We looked through the little one room museum and at the artifacts and photographs there. Very interesting.

In Borrego we went to the park visitors center first. Hailey wanted a book "Fossil Treasures of the Anza-Borrego Desert." So got that for her. We walked around there for awhile and then we drove up to Coyote Canyon. Good place to see wildflowers. Then we drove back to a really nice resturant and sat on the terrace for lunch. Lunch was great. We had Chinese food and Hailey enjoyed Broccoli Beef and I had lovely Cashew Chicken with steamed rice. We shared our food around. There was too much for just us. Jackie got pork dumplins and Joyceln a noodle soup with lots of chicken and vegetables. So was glad they ate some of ours.

Then we went to a gift shop...what else?...and looked through the rocks and things. Hailey got a bag of polished rocks and a carved stone butterfly pendant. Jocelyn had spilled some of the liquid from the food Jackie had boxed up on her lap and wouldn't get out of the car. So I bought her some silver earrings. Hailey can't wear earrings now because she let her pierced ears heal closed.

Then we decided to head back out of Borrego a different way than we came in. We went out towards Julian. We stopped at a monument to the Butterfield Stage stop. We talked about maybe driving there on another trip sometime.

This was the view of the mountains from the Monument

Before getting to Julian I had to drive up Banner Grade. That is one winding road. Not as narrow as it used to be but still dangerous to speeders. I took it nice and slow. We stopped in Julian but the wind was so cold that we didn't walk around very long. The town was full of tourists as usual.

We enjoyed seeing the wildflowers too but I got better photos on Monday. Still it was a nice trip over and back.

Just the Middle of the Week

Hailey will be back to school today. We are fighting it out though. She did have a cold and I did let her stay home yesterday, but give a little and then she doesn't want to go back. Her cold is gone, and she has already missed too much school. Like I said before when she was in sixth grade I believed her too much when she said she didn't feel well. She missed so many days the school was ready to turn me over to the sheriff's department. They threatened me with arrest. Even after I kept Hailey from missing any more days the attendance clerk had me scheduled to visit with a deputy. I managed to convince the clerk that I had turned things arround and she could see that Hailey had not missed a single day since. So didn't have to have the meeting with the sheriff deputy. Very scary.

Well that was this morning. Hailey stayed at school and went with her Show Choir class to perform in La Mesa. She still felt under the weather and was coughing when I picked her up from school. I feel really bad about it all. She pretended so much it is hard for me to tell when she is really sick or not.

E.R. and his brother Paul stopped by for a little while before they left to stay over night at Barona. After the races in Las Vegas E.R. is going to drive Paul back to IL.

There used to be a small stock car race track in El Cajon. It was near the airport. In the beginning it was a dirt track and my Dad was the contractor for the original grading. It was one of his first jobs as a grading contractor. The race track was on a long lease from the city of El Cajon and the city was really sorry they had ever leased the land. Over the years the track was paved. Most races were on Saturday evenings and only during the racing season...spring to fall. Then houses were built on the hills. People were not happy about the noise from the track. So all the races had to be over early. The owners would not give up the lease so the track stayed. E.R. used to like to go to the races on Saturday night. On the Fourth of July every year the track had a really good fireworks display. We used to drive over and find a place to park along the road...one year we parked in the parking lot. That year I got some nice fire works photos. Once, Hank Williams Jr. played there though it wasn't a very good place for a concert. Some of the drivers that got their start at Cajon Speedway went on to Nascar racing. The lease was up in 2004. A couple of years before that the owner was shot and killed at his front door by robbers. The killers were caught tried and sent to prison. I have always wondered how some people can think it is all right to harm others and throw their own lives away too. Now the track is gone. Things change.

I've been working on my photos from our quick trip to Borrego on Monday. Will post some tomorrow. Some came out pretty good and I managed to get some flowers I haven't photographed before. I got my CF cards mixed up and thought I had lost all my photos from Monday. It was a sinking feeling when I put the card in the reader and nothing! I found the missing CF card on the floor of my car...but not until after I spent the rest of Monday and part of Tuesday being pretty depressed about it. I've been looking through the book I bought Monday to identify some of the flowers in my photos. I like to shoot raw and that gives a large file size. Which can be a really good thing. In one of my photos a flower was sitting there near the one I was focusing on and it was so different. I'm sure I've never seen that one before. With a big file size it is easy to make a nice size photo out of a small part of the bigger picture.

Borrego Springs

Sunday morning I had breakfast with Sarah from Hemet and her daughter. They were down to spend the weekend at Barona. We planned to take photos around Lakeside but the weather was rainy with low clouds and was totally miserable. Still we had a lovely time talking.

My father used to own property in Hemet and my mother and stepfather at the time, Don Lease, took us past their place to visit on our way to Washington state. My Dad and stepmom lived in a small trailer in the middle of farmland. There was lots of empty space there in 1949. My dad was growing watermellons and also working as a heavy equipment operator.


My stepfather had a job at Hanford and we were going to get a house in Richland Washington. Don had a coupe and he made a place behind the seat for Barb and I to ride. There was no place for us to put our feet down. We pulled a rented trailer with Mama's stuff in it. Don wasn't happy that Mama had agreed to visit my Dad. Then they had a time finding the place. We didn't visit very long. Don drove us up Hwy 395 and since it was March it was cold. We stayed one night at a motel. When we got into Northern California it was snowing. Somewhere Don and Mama stopped and shipped our things and turned in the rented trailer. That took awhile to arrange and the lost time upset Don. We drove through Oregon in the night. It was slow going. Don kept having to stop to wipe the snow off the windshield. Mama kept wanting to find a motel and just stop. Finally in the very early morning before day light we came to the Columbia River and the ferry was not going to open for hours and Mama was angry because Don didn't get us that motel room. So we sat in the cold car waiting for the ferry listening to Mama and Don be mad at each other. My legs and feet cramped up and it was too wet and cold and dark to get out and stretch. I was crying. Then Barb started crying too. Mama made us be quiet.


Hemet doesn't look any thing like it used to look. All the fruit orchids and fields are gone. All Covered with track homes now. Before I left the casino I just had to loose a little money. I seldom play the machines at Barona because I'm not much of a gambler and I usually loose. . . well doesn't everybody? . . . most of the time anyway. So next time Sarah and her daughter are down we will try again on the photo taking. . . and I will stay away from the machines at Barona.


Monday morning E.R. and I drove over to Borrego Springs to see the wildflowers. They are wonderful. First I've never seen the hills around Borrego so green. So there is lots of water. I took lots of photos and will get some posted soon. I will add them to my other wildflower photos from past years. This year saw some flowers we've missed in the past by being just a little to late. The ocotillo isn't blooming yet. That is the way it has always been for me. . . getting over there once or twice during the bloom. There are always some flowers we see every time, but then there are some we only see once. Every year I always wish I lived there.

On the way back we stopped for lunch at Santa Ysabel at the Apple Country Restaurant. They serve pies from the Julian Pie Company. After beef stroganoff for lunch, I had the rhubarb strawberry and E.R. the apple. Yum!

Hailey went to school with a cold and Elizabeth brought her home from the nurse's office. We arranged that before we left for Borrego. In sixth grade, Hailey missed so much school that they threatened me with arrest if I didn't change things. After that unless Hailey has a doctor's note I have to send her to school sick or not and let the nurse send her home. Seems a little hard to me but that's what we do. So even if Hailey says she doesn't feel good I send her off the school.

She stayed home today and is a very crabby girl. I told her if I'd known that was how she would be I would have made her go to school anyway!

Parrots and Other Stuff

Jackie and Jocelyn came over yesterday afternoon. We decided to go out for a late lunch at the Valley House. Hailey always has the grilled cheese sandwich. My stepmom, Marlise, and I used to take Hailey to the Valley House. Hailey was in a high chair back then. Later a booster seat. She used to take the booster seat back to where they kept them as we were leaving. She was so cute. The waitresses always made a fuss over her. We lunched there often. Marlise came by the storage almost every day after my Dad passed away. She was the boss so I could close up the office and go to lunch. After Hailey came we took her with us. Marlise died in the summer of 2000. For a few years we didn’t go back to the Valley House. Then three years ago, I had a birthday party there for Hailey. It was fun.

Elizabeth worked there for a few months after she came out from Colorado. Yesterday was the first time back since Elizabeth quit working there.

After lunch we brought the girls back here. Then Jackie and I drove up to Jackie’s house. She has a young African Grey that she is keeping. Her name is Bug. Jocelyn named her. So Jackie let Bug out of the cage. Bug has not had her wing clipped so she flew around the living room. Jackie’s living room has a very high ceiling. Bug landed on my head. Playing with Bug made me miss Charlie. I had to give Charlie up because of our cats. Charlie got upset and began to bite me. He used to let me pet him and was a very loving bird. Then Fluffy got on the top of his cage and scared the heck out of Charlie. Nothing was the same between Charlie and me after that. Charlie lives back at Jackie’s now. She says he still says things that sound like me. Charlie and I used to talk a lot.

Bug landed on my lead a couple of times. It feIt strange having a parrot walking around on my heard.

Jocelyn got an iPod for Christmas. She couldn’t get it to work. Finally Jackie took it to the Apple store. They checked it out and it seemed all right. The store clerk put a song on it.

Still it wouldn’t work on their computer after they came home. They need a newer version of iTunes and the store had it set for a Mac not a PC with Windows. Jocelyn left the iPod at a neighbors house up the hill so Jackie and I drove up there to get it. Then we came back to my house. I fixed the iPod. It just needed to be reset.

While I was having a good afternoon some scuzz put some very hard core porn photos on my Photoshop board. Yuck! I got rid of them, but one of the members saw them first. I feel bad about that. Seeing porn should be a choice. It shouldn’t be shoved at people that are disgusted by it. I’m going to send bad thoughts to that porn pusher wishing him bad luck, bad times, and a miserable life. Bad Karma for sure!

Clear Skys for a Little While

Woke up to clear skies. Weather says rain tonight and tomorrow. This will be the third storm and since it is supposed to be windy probably the worst. We will just have to wait and see. Was so hoping for clear weather tomorrow.

The desert is in bloom and plan to visit on Monday or Tuesday. The peak of the wildflower season is supposed to last through the first two weeks of March. So am hoping for more than one trip over there. E.R. is going to the auto races in LV next weekend. He is leaving on Wednesday after picking up his brother from the airport. They will stay the night at Barona. Then it is up to LA then to NV and then on to IL for a couple of weeks. So he is not going to be here later for a trip to Borrego.

Yesterday morning I opened the door for my cat Tuffy and he took one look at the rain pouring down and backed up. We lived in Washington state my freshman year of high school...the winter of '55-'56. While we spent many summers up there that was the first winter. I still remember the long rainy weeks. My stepfather at the time was a fireman at Ft. Lewis. He worked 24 and was off 24. My younger sister, Barbara, and I went to school at Fife. Fife was a combined school of elementary, junior, and senior high.

We had first gone up to Milton Washington in the summer of 1954. Bob came down to get us and we drove up the coast route and saw the redwoods. We drove accross the Golden Gate bridge. Bob kept getting lost and it took him awhile to find how to get to it. Bob and Mama were supposed to get married that summer, but they were not getting along. Bob's daughter was there and things were tense. There was a custody hearing and they sent me with Bob and Anita to the court house in Tacoma for it. The judge talked to Anita in his chambers and when he came out he let Anita go with her mother. Bob was upset by that and it meant that he had to pay child support for her too.

My father and stepmother came up to visit us that fall and it was decided that we would come back to California with them. They drove us back in their car. The previous school year we had lived off and on with them. Because my mother was testifying at a family custody and kidnap trial. But that is another story. I graduated from eighth grade at Lakeside. Same school Hailey goes to now. I liked living with my Dad and stepmother. I loved my mother but life was always tense with her. She got angry easily and it was hard.

Mama came for my eighth grade graduation and then we went back on the train to Washington. That trip we went on the ferry across San Francisco Bay to meet the train on the other side. The summer was peaceful when Bob and Mama were not fighting. Weekends when Bob wasn't working, they used to take us to Auburn to stay over at our aunt and uncle's place. Then go out for the evening. Most times they would come back angry. My aunt and uncle fought too. One time we were all sleeping in our cousin's room and heard them arguing. My aunt would say she was going to stand on the train tracks and let a train hit her. Then she slammed doors through the house going out. Pretty soon she slammed the doors coming back and they would yell at each other again. I don't remember how many times they did this before it got quiet. Anyway Mama started letting us stay home while they went to Auburn. We used to hear them come back because they would be arguing. Until we stayed with Daddy and Marlise our bedtime was 7:30 at night. that was much too early but Mama wouldn't change it. Marlise let us stay up later. First eight and then 8:30. Mama wasn't happy about that. When Mama and Bob went out she made us promise to be in bed by 8:30. We used to stay up watching TV and when we heard the car we would run upstairs and pretend to be asleep.

The second day at Fife I had an anxiety attack. I sure didn't know what was happening to me. Someone from the school drove me home and everyone pretended I had the flu. I stayed home the next day and then went back after the weekend. I was fine after that.

My stepfather, Bob Bloomquist, burned himself in a backyard trash fire. This was in the fall of 1955 before Christmas. My mother was cooking fried chicken and it was almost dinner time. Bob came in the house with his shirt all burnt and skin dripping from his arm. Mama didn't drive, but Bob's brother in law was next door. Ralph drove my mother and Bob to the hospital in Auburn. My sister and I waited for them to come home and they didn't. The chicken got cold on the stove. Finally Mama called and told us to go ahead and eat. The chicken was cold and we didn't feel hungry. The next day Barb and I went out to look at where the fire was and saw where Bob had run after he was burned. He ran through the yard until he threw himself down and rolled to put out the fire. He later told us that he had thrown an old paint thinner can into the fire and it had exploded and set his flannel shirt on fire. Back then they didn't sell clothing that was sort of fire protected.

Bob was in the hospital for weeks. Ralph used to drive us over in the evenings to visit Bob at the hospital. Mama didn't work and so money was very tight. I remember the cold storm that was unusual for Western Washington. We had an oil heater in the living room and the pipe under the house froze from water in it. To get things going the pipe had to be heated up. With Bob not there my mother had to crawl under the house and light a rolled up news paper to warm the pipe. She was so scared that she would set the house on fire or blow it up that she made Barb and I stand outside in the back yard in the cold.

We had icicles hanging from the house and a rose bush by the house was covered in them. It was beautiful. Barb and I lived through the days. My Dad sent a small amount of child support and Bob must have gotten some sort of disability. But things were tight. I don't even remember our Christmas. Finally Bob got out of the hospital, but he couldn't pass the physical to go back to work. He had to go in for therapy. Bob and Mama argued a lot.

Bob went to work at Boings for awhile. He still couldn't get back on at Ft. Lewis. Fife had a ninth grade graduation and I wasn't even going to go to it. My teacher drove me home to change into a nice dress and I did go to the graduation. The dress was one I had made in Home Ec class. They were big on all the girls taking Home Ec in high school up there. No family was there. I had it all the year before so it didn't seem important to me. Barb totally missed out on a grade school graduation ceremony.

The next summer wasn't much better. We started school in the fall. That October my Dad and Stepmom flew up to see us. My mother talked them into taking Barb and I back on the plane to San Diego. We had to change planes in LA. Barb and I had put our clothes in two big suitcases. We rolled them up real tight so we could pack everything we had. The next flight was going to Miami with a stop in San Diego. That was back when no flights originated in San Diego. Then they told the San Diego passengers that San Diego was fogged in and that we could pick up our luggage from a cart. Ours wasn't there. My dad got them to stop the Miami flight take off to get our stuff. We came down to San Diego in an old bus. Miserable trip.

We started school at Grossmont. Since I was already in Home Ec they made me stay in it even though at Grossmont it was an elective. The teacher didn't have enough books and she gave me one that belonged to a girl that was moving. Something happened and she came back for awhile. So I had to give the book to her. She moved and took the book. Three years later I had to pay for that book to graduate. The teacher marked me down as having the book. Not fair. I tried to tell them that, but they were not interested and the teacher was not there anymore. My first experience with bureaucracy.

Here I Am Again

Rainy days again. In winter we expect rain. It is good for growing green things...trees and grass and flowers. I am hoping there is a good wildflower season over in the desert this spring and that I get over there to see it. Some flowers are already blooming there. It is all timing. The rain has to be enough and at the right time.

Here everything is green. Our hills are covered in green grass. Lawns are looking shaggy. Tall grass and weeds grow along the roadways. So the rain is needed. It is just that I am used to sunny days and get a little down when it stays gloomy too much.

Hailey had to write some poems for her English class. She needed six poems but only did five. I couldn’t get her to do the last one. It is hard to just sit down and write a poem. Well unless you are a professional poet. What ever that is? I do think she could have done the poem but she just wouldn’t! Stubborn or what! I used to write poems. Over the years I saved some of them. Most went into the trash. Then I put what was left of them on my web pages. I haven’t added to them in years. Just a few poems and that represents over a half century of living! Then Hailey has to write six poems in a couple of weeks.

There are two ways to write a poem. One you just sit down with a pencil and paper and think up something to write about and make yourself do it. If it has to rhyme then you let the rhyming words rhyme in your head and make them into lines that hopefully make some sense. Of course there is more to poetry than rhyming words… or not. There is structure and rhythm.

The other way to write poetry is to let it write itself. The words float around in your head born of some deep feeling that just has to flow out of your brain like water out of a bottle. Some might say wine instead of water. But we are not made of wine, and we are made of water.

So, for ordinary people , writing poetry is not something easily done especially when you are forced to do it. I do think learning to write is important and should be a good positive experience. Everyone has the ability to be creative. But when we force children to be creative we are pushing them too much. They can shut down and start feeling like failures. Creativity should be fun, and exciting. Learning should be fun and exciting. We put so much on our school children it is a wonder we don’t have more problems with them than we do. We are not giving our children a good place to learn or teaching them the skills they need to survive in adult life.

It is three am here and my big black cat is sleeping beside me on the bed. I have this tablet laptop and can write these words with a digital pen. Just like writing a letter. In not a bad typist. I learned to type in school back in the ‘50s. My dad bought me a portable typewriter. My typing speed was never spectacular. I could do sixty words per minute. I also had problems because my little fingers are crooked. I was born with bent little fingers. My mother and her father also had them. Not my children though. Then from my Dad I got slight dyslexia. We could read just fine but writing words and transposing numbers caused us problems. When typing, I have a problem typing i for e and vice versa. My daughter also is slightly dyslexic. She is more so than I am. She can read because we took her to therapy when she was young. My Dad stuttered when he was young and I still do that a little when I’m stressed. My daughter too. She has to sometimes slow herself down. I think the stuttering happens when our brain is thinking faster then we can talk. I used to hate to get called on to talk in class. Most of my teachers were kind enough to not call on me and I didn’t raise my hand either!

Having a typewriter handy all my life was great for when home computers came into daily life. I didn‘t have to take a class in keyboarding when I went back to school in the late 1980s.

So now I’m writing words on my computer screen, and this way a person doesn’t even need to know how to type. I do need half way decent handwriting. This program sort of guesses at the words. I write my name, Dorothy, and sometimes it comes out toothy or slowly or Dowdy or….