| leatherman's log |
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January 2011 |
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| Week One: |
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| Happy New Year! |
| It's hard to believe that it's 2011. I
remember when I was a kid thinking about how amazing it was that I
was going to live to see the year 2000. Goodness! I even thought
about how I'd be such an old man of 38 when the year 2000 finally
rolled around. ROFL But there when I was hospitalized a couple times
there in the end of the 90's, I got a little worried that I'd never
have to worry about that Y2K bug. Thankfully that's all in the past
now, and I got through it, because coming this far gave me many
happy years with my dogs, with my Jim, and even time enough to move
back home. |
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| Before we move another year into the
future though, I thought we'd take a look at some of past. |
| Looking at
the Past |
| On a cold afternoon stuck
indoors, what was there to do? Oh great (I wrote that sarcastically
LOL), cleaning up all that stuff just crammed into boxes and
drawers. You'd think I would have cleaned up and cleared up
everything in my big move down here just over a year ago; but some
of the stuff that I just crammed into boxes up in Canton was still
in boxes or shoved into the closet down here in Fort Mill. So I took
some time on a boring Winter afternoon to go through the junk I
shoved into the closet. |
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Of course, the fun part
about sorting and cleaning up stuff is the serendipity of finding
stuff.
In this case, I found a lot of old pictures. |
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| Aww! So you think these
are adorable pictures of baby Leatherman riding a pony? Actually
these are pictures of mIkIe and his parents finding out in a short
time that mIkIe is highly allergic to horses when he gets struck
with a serious attack of hives! |
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| Doggies |
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This is my first dog who is the first Belle, full name of Tinkerbelle,
when my family was living on Tyvola Road. Before my brothers came
along in the world, Belle was my buddy, friend, and playmate. |
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When my family got to the home we lived in most of our childhood over
on Norland Road, we had another Belle (not very original with the
names were we?) Belle was the playmate for my brothers and I for
many years. She was very scared of thunderstorms and often hid out
in the crawl space under the house, that we used to have to climb
down into to get her back out. |
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speaking of my
Brothers |
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This is a picture of the three of us
dressed up in Sunday finest standing outside the house on Norland.
Boy, it's hard to even remember us when we were all that young. |
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When a local department store, Richway, had it's grand opening, a
clerk was walking around taking Polaroids and demonstrating the
camera, and somehow I ended up with this picture (circa 1974) which
used to hang up on the wall in my college dorm room. |
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And speaking of college,
here I am as
just a lowly freshman
at Pensacola Christian College (circa 1981) |
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This picture was taken
after my first year in college (circa 1982),
back at home, and
visiting my Mom (Celia) at her job when she worked for the
city of
Charlotte's Public Service and Information department. |
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Good Lord! Just
glancing at these pictures is enough to let you know that it must
have been the 80's. After having lived up in Ohio for a few years, I
came back for a Christmastime visit, and my Dad took these pictures
(circa 1987). |
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| I have a strange nostalgia
- and melancholy - looking at these pictures. Looking back at these,
I know that in the timeline of what would become my life, that I had
probably already been HIV positive for 2 to 3 years when Dad snapped
these photos. All I knew back then was that I was happy with Randy,
we had recently opened our pet store, and soon would be making the
move down to Canton where I would live for another 22 years. Little
would I know, nor would I imagine, how much our lives would change
when nearly 5 years later to the date of this picture, I would being
getting my positive test results back. |
| The Lost
Tattoo |
| While I was doing this
closet cleaning, I did come across something that I had been looking
for for years and years. |
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I'm sure that many of you who have met me in person have seen the
tat on my upper arm of half of a man's face. And I know you have
seen it because of how many of you have asked "what's that a tattoo
of?" or "how come there's only half a face?" |
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Now that I finally found the original picture, which was an ad from a
magazine, I hope that you can see how it was a leather man with his face
half in the shadows. Obviously it was much better as a magazine ad than
as body art; but I still love him anyway. |
| Using Up
His Nine Lives |
| We have a very big scare
with Mr. Kitty (Mom's cat) just recently. For years he had been an
outdoor cat, until last winter when Mom suddenly began to worry
about the poor kitty out in the cold and snow (you know, the one
snow day in SC each winter). So Mom brought the cat inside; but not
wanting a litter box inside, she wasn't certain what to do next. I
took Mr. Kitty to the doggie door, shoved him out it and then opened
the flap so he could come back into. He saw; he learned; problem
solved. |
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| Then one night recently
Mr. Kitty didn't show up at dinner time nor for breakfast the next
morning. When he finally showed up that night, it was easy to tell
something was very wrong with him. Too be honest, I believed that he
had had a stroke. He could barely walk, was unstable standing, and
laid down all hunched up. Needless to say, we realized we would have
to take him to the vet the next morning and that Mr. Kitty might
have used up all his 9 lives. |
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However, when we got up
early the next morning, the cat was gone!
How he had enough strength to stand, much less walk out of the
house, and jump the backyard fence is beyond me but we looked
everywhere and the cat was gone. He didn't show back up all that day
and Mom and I were both pretty upset thinking that he had left to go
out in the cold somewhere and die. |
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| Surprisingly he showed
back up for dinner that night; but he was still very messed up. This
time we out-thunk the cat
and closed up the doggie door. So the next morning as Mom and I were
getting ready to go to the vet, Dennis fed the animals (their 4 dogs
and the cat). Dennis put on the cat's food out in the usually spot
on the front porch and watched, seeing that he was eating some. When
Mom and I were ready to go, we couldn't find the cat anywhere. It
seems Dennis had been watching him - watching him as he finished
eating and walked off into the woods!!
We finally corralled Mr. Kitty into the house that night and were
prepared to take him to the vet the next morning. |
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| Surprisingly, the vet
didn't suggest that euthanasia. Instead he offered to keep Mr. Kitty
over the weekend, give him fluids for the dehydration and a course
of antibiotics. The vet said by Monday, we'd either have a healthy
cat or know what should be done. |
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Then the snow and ice hit,
so Mr. Kitty ended up at the vet's for four days. When we finally
were able to get back to the vet's, we were surprised once more. Not
only was the vet charging an unbelievably low fee (< $150);
but Mr. Kitty was incredibly well and healthy. |
Although you can't tell it from this
picture of him sleeping in a basket in the living room, it's like we
brought a new cat home from the vet.
Mr. Kitty has been happy, purring, able to walk and jump, playing
(something he just NEVER did before) and very happy to be back with
the family. |
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Week Two: |
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| It's Like
I'm Still Living with the Yankees! |
Sn@w again?!?
Can you believe it? It sn@wed again down here in South Carolina -
and it was a lot of snow! Around 4 inches of the white stuff with a
glaze of ice on top just to make it all look pretty. |
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Even though I'm playfully complaining
about having sn@w here in the South, it is very pretty.
The only real gripe that I had with this sn@wfall was that with the
cold weather, it took nearly 4 days for the snow and ice to melt
away - and that's a long time for sn@w to hang around here. |
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| I don't think the birdies
will be taking a bath for a while. LOL |
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Week Three: |
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Cabin Fever
or
Just the Normal Insanity? |
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After two days of being stuck in the house, the roads were pretty
cleared (except for the shaded hill right outside our house in front
of the driveway LOL) and I finally got out for a bit. Although it
hasn't been that long, my hair seemed to have grown faster this
Winter and it needed cut again. |
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| Of course, after the cut,
I needed to color the gray out. I was tired of the browns (you know,
the normal color of my hair when I was 18)
so I went looking for some shocking red again - but I couldn't find
it, so I had to settle for just regular red. |
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Mom thought the color was crazy and didn't share any of it with me.
The good news though is that I finally found the shiny copper color
I was looking for (the kind Mom used to say made me look like a
clown
 when
I used it when I was living in Ohio), so I'll be even more red the
next time I color my hair.
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Week Four: |
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| Cooking for
a Cause |
| I mentioned several times
in my blog through the last few years the amount of time that I
spend in the chat forums of AidsMeds.com (http://poz.forums.com).
I think that site has been good for me and I've tried to be good for
it. While people there have supported me (even contributing to the
fund when I had to pay for Jim's cremation), I have been able to
share my experiences to help people see a way forward once they
turned HIV positive, and I've been able to guide people to the
resources they need to get proper medical treatment. In a way, my
volunteer work with Catawba Care has actually been an out-growth of
the work that I've done at aidsmeds.com |
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| Several years ago, some of
the members there arranged to all gather together and spend some
vacation time together. For the last 6 years now, they have
continued that tradition with a vote on place and time and have met
in Mexico City, Toronto, Boston, London, and Las Vegas. |
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| For the last few years,
I've joined in on the location voting but the two cities that I
would be most likely to get to, Cleveland or Charlotte, just never
seem to have enough interest to win out. LOL This year's AMG (AidsMeds
Gathering) is being arranged in Seattle. |
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| Although I just don't have
the funds to be able to go to the other side of the States and meet
in person some of these people that I've been talking to and sharing
with for years now, because of a new project this year, I am able to
contribute to helping someone to attend. Every year, the Grants
Committee collects and disburses funds helping people pay for
travel, lodging, etc to attend the gathering. This year one online
member had the grand idea of collecting the recipes we had been
sharing into a book with the profits going to the Grants Committee.
I've had $10 sitting in my PayPal account for some time (after
paying off last year's hosting bill for reigningpages.com) and I
couldn't think of a better way to spend that money than to buy a
cookbook to help my "friends" as they gather once again. |
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| Although we were hoping to
see the cookbook before Christmas, it was still just as exciting
when it arrived. |
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| One big reason that it is
so exciting is because I contributed quite a few recipes to the book
too. It's very cool seeing my recipes for Southern Cornbread, Angel
Biscuits, Lemon Bars, Black Bean Corn Salsa, Bean and Bacon
Coleslaw, Hash Brown Potato Casserole, Butternut Squash Cake, and
Amish Friendship Bread in print |
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| Since I know that my
recipes are good,
I was excited about trying out some of the recipes that other people
submitted. |
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| Oh gosh! The Bacon-Wrapped
Stuffed Chicken Breasts were incredibly good. Besides beating the
chicken breasts flat, it was a pretty easy recipe with a lot of way
it could be changed to shake it up. I served it with some rice and a
side of cranberry-orange relish. |
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| Well, I did fall prey to
making one of my own recipes; but that's because one of my AM
friends pops in every couple weeks to ask about my Lemon Bars. I
keep inviting him down from NY but we always eat them up here before
he has a chance to make travel arrangments. LOL |
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I had some trouble with the yeast for
one recipe. I guess I should just not make bread on frigid Winter
days, because it was nearly too cold for the yeast to do it's thing.
However, I did finally get the Bacon, Swiss, Cheddar Casserole Bread
to rise and got it baked. MMM. This turned out pretty dang yummy. |
| As you can see, I kept taking pictures
of the finished foods after trying out the recipes. I posted these
in the "cookbook thread" trying to do my part to promote more sells.
Well, some people tripped on them and some people loved my pictures
of "giant food". Since I had tried out any more recipes yet, when
the crowd hollered for more "giant food pictures", I threw together
this one of "leatherman climbing mountains of Southern Cornbread" to
sate them until I figure out what to try out next. |
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Week Five: |
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Some
Special People
and A Special Visit! |
| Since I opened this year
and month with some old pictures, I'd like to end this month with
some new pictures. |
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| It's been very nice, now
that I'm back in the area, to get back in touch with old friends and
relatives. Several times this past year, Mom and I have headed up
the road a bit to meet up with my Aunt Ann. Although one of her
daughters (my cousin Terry) doesn't live too far away from Ann, Ann
and Terry went down to Ann's other daughter's (my cousin Laura)
house to celebrate Christmas. They posted this great picture of Ann
and her new doggie Teddy taking a stroll out on sand just south of
Myrtle Beach on Christmas Day. (If you look miles and miles on up
the shore, you'll see where I was staying at the beach when I was
there last Christmas. LOL) |
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Can you even guess who this
next picture is of??
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| Did you figure out that it
is my "little buddy" Ritchie? Does this picture from 10 years ago
(Feb 2001) help you decide? They just grow up sooo fast! |
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And here's one last picture of a friend
for this month, Angie, Ritchie and Becca's mom. But wait! Isn't that
mIkIe's room in South Carolina?!? Yeppers!
Angie and her sister took a trip to Florida to spend a week visitng
their mom, and what do you know but SC is right on the way from OH
to FL. Matter of fact I-77 runs about 2 miles from my house, so the
ladies and I met up at Waffle House for a quick breakfast as they
drove through town. Afterwards, Angie made a short visit to see me
and the boyz (who were very happy to see her! ) |
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