Arkansas Blog

Here's something you don't know....it's hot and dry over here in God's Country labeled the Ouachitas.

But your bill is nice and low, ay Cato?

Will tell you in a couple of weeks, JD.

Here's a bonus for all you Jackson fans. Do the clicky thing.

I knew that two dollars I put in the plate last Sunday would pay off. It's raining over here in the mountains.....after I've watered all day. But that's ok. I can roll up the hoses for a few days and give thanks....Now maybe my blackberries will do wonders.

Here's one for Max, Gun In Church fest. And, btw, gun Killin's in church are on the rise.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/27/armed-and-faithful-count-down/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Armed and Faithful Count Down
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
The Lede is in Louisville, keeping track of events at the New Bethel Church, which has invited its members and the public to bring their firearms this afternoon in celebration of gun rights.

Update | 4:50 p.m. A banner has been unfurled on the lawn at the New Bethel Church here, where people are starting to pull into the parking lot for the gun celebration.

Sheriff's deputies are on hand to make sure the firearms that are openly carried into the sanctuary are not loaded. (Of course, they will not check the concealed weapons that may come in because, by definition, they will not know who has them.) The festivities are scheduled to get under way within the hour.

Some levity for a Saturday night (at least it's funny in my world): The Log Cabin's police beat. People are...well, astounding. Two thirteen-year-old relatives get into a knife fight over candy and a man assaults his girlfriend 'cause he can't find his joint and then beats himself with a cast iron pan...damn, at least he ultimately did the right thing.

Sadly, much of the theft reports remind me of my 'shady' side of the family that always had a few things go missing about the time their insurance premiums were due.

From the LCD: "Assault near Foothill Drive (Northwest Lake Conway area). A woman called deputies on June 18 to report that her live-in boyfriend had flown into a rage and assaulted her after being unable to locate a joint. As she was calling FCSO, according to the report, the boyfriend "hit himself in the forehead with a cast iron pan and fell to the ground." The report indicates that no arrests were made on the date of the incident."

Jazzy, you/hubby are in my thoughts/prayers. I have one prescription that is $330 for 30 here and $90 for 90 out of Canada; and I have GREAT insurance. And, all those new drugs that pay for all our TV shows...forget it. Sadly, most of the 'new' (and usually better) cancer drugs are outrageously expensive. My insurance provider's favorite trick to deny paying for a drug is to hide behind the FDA. Each drug, well expensive ones, has to be specifically approved for the specific disease. One great new 'nerve' drug, Lyrica, is only approved for pain from diabetes...though there are hundreds of diseases/injuries that cause nerve damage.

I'm not saying she would have been wrong, zelda, but I would not be so sure who let the cast iron skillet fly.

Arkansas got honorable mention today by Gail Collins in the New York Times, who wrote that the Mark Sanford escapade gives us the opportunity to "revisit little-remembered historical precedents for scandals involving American politicians and Argentine women":

"O.K., I can only think of one. It was, of course, the evening in 1974 when Fanne Foxe, "The Argentine Firecracker," took a hysterical leap into the Tidal Basin after a fight with her inebriated escort, the House Ways and Means Chairman Wilbur Mills of Arkansas."

There's more. Clicky.

Provigil's patient assistance program is closed, but they do have a special department to help you fight insurance denials. That tells you something. Jazzy, if your insurance gives you any trouble, let me know and we'll see if the makers of Casodex can help. Surely there won't be any trouble considering that prostate cancer is what they make that for in the first place, as far as I know. But Lord knows, insurance companies will try anything.

Lyrica is a-gonna cure the whole world of fibromyalgia, too, you know, Zelda. I think it really would take care of FM pain. i have peripheral neuropathy (nerve pain, just like diabetics have) in both feet after the horrendous illness I had, and I took that for a few days. You stay asleep 24/7, nothing much bothers you. Its a bargain, too, folks, at $180 a month. Its chemical cousin Neurontin (gabapentin) is about $30-40, depending on your dosage, and that works much better for me anyway. thank God.

you have to wonder how much of your money they're spending on these constant commercials, too. My doctor told me that's why samples are so hard to get -- instead of giving doctors samples and free pens and neat toys, the drug companies put their money into TV and print ads.

Zelda, depending on income, insurance specific coverage, etc., you might be able to get some help from the maker of your medicine. Janssen gives me a lot of help on one of mine, thank the Lord, or I wouldn't be able to get it. But then Im uninsured and uninsurable.

And if anyone is on Nuvigil, there's a coupon online for a free week's supply with your Rx, duh. I thought you just went in and picked it up, whenever you felt like it. Once a month or so, maybe I could save up enough for one or two doses, but I doubt it. I guess that one's for adult ADD or narcolepsy too. Provigil must've spawned a cheaper cousin.

Jazzy, what did you do today, clean the lake? ;) take care of yourself, girl.

DBI, did you get the $5 I sent you to help defray the cost of your hooker last night? Its too bad we just now found out about the gun rally or we could've made plans to go together. To Cato's house, where it's rainy and cool. We could set out on the porch & listen to the rain and talk. that sounds like a lot more fun to me.

Thanks for the info, tina, and Provigil is the drug I was referencing and intend to order from Canada. I'm the opposite on the Lyrica/Neurontin...Lyrica's great/other useless. (Which is the reason my insurance gives for denying Lyrica...'Neurontin is close enough and, most importantly, cheaper.') I'm just so happy I have insurance that I think the other 47 million Americans should get what discounts the pharmaceuticals hand out. Who knows...tomorrow we could all be in soup lines/begging for aspirin (thank you, Republicans!). (My doc did give me a huge sack of Provigil...like Christmas ha.)

I'd much rather be taking drugs just for the fun of it...than for the need of it.

I know we're the only industrialize country to allow the drug ads we see on TV 24/7. (New Zealand use to allow it but stopped...now we're alone with the pharmaceuticals.) Maybe it's just the doctors I've seen (not that many...I'm prone to stay where I land, unless it's hell), but there isn't one who would have responded positively to asking for a drug 'cause you saw an ad. And, my docs are, well, 'enlightened' compared to some of the Neanderthals.

Oh yeah...Provigil was suppose to go generic a few years ago...and then this fall for sure. Except Provigil's creators simply bought the one company that was set to release the generic version. Greedy Bastards. So it'll be a few more years. And, there is a huge demand for the drug because our military has been handing it out to it's war soldiers. Because it's suppose to be a safe, non-amphetamine stimulant (ha ha) it's OK to get a few more fighting hours out of our soldiers...ha again. Kind of like the non-narcotic pain reliever, tramadol, which has been handed out like candy 'cause it was a synthetic opiate rather than the real thing. Now...they're figuring out that there is no such thing as a 'free' medicine.

Send it to me Cato! I've been watering for the last four hours. The blooms on my tomato's are starting to dry up!

Didn't clean lake but felt like getting nekked and jumping in it, damn its hot. Took Armand for
a little tour and temp in my van said outside temp was 103.....hope Cato stayed home and
enjoyed his rain, I am soooo jealous, am I saying that after the floods of May??? Humans are
never happy.
Our little 6 mo. old man child has the 2 bottom teeth thru and working on the 2 top ones now,
pulling up to anything he can hang onto, reminds me of my second son, walked at 9 mos. and
has never stopped, today Capt. with AA.
Frenchie back for more x-rays tues. aft to see how the Casodex is working in his prostate........
I don't know, he is so weak, thin and tired, wish I could be a miracle worker, he has wrapped
me in cotton for 30 yrs. now I can't do a damn thing for him.
Oh, he is not diabetic,,,,you dreamed that part.

I was going to tell a true story about an iron skillet. Years ago, with first hubby, we lived in
El Dorado....went to a small baptist church where a woman with a severly mentally handicapped
daughter was there every time the doors opened, she was know in El D for being the most
faithful church goer and always had that daughter by the hand. We were transferred to
south Louisiana and lost touch with all those peeps........few yrs ago we met a couple from that
very church and they told me the daughter had killed her mama with a black iron skillet..........
true story..........guess she got tired of being drug to church.

For what it's worth Jazzy, I've had two close friends over the last ten years who had prostate cancer fly to New York Beth Israel Hospital and had their prostates taken out via the Da Vinci machine. It's now available at UAMS. Keep that option in mind.

My old friend from Santa Monica was visiting at dusk, CDT, and his lovely young wife, from Nepal, called him from San Francisco and gave us a live account of the naked gays marching in the streets.

She was so excited and wanted to know if this happens in other places and if Fayetteville, AR has naked parades featuring gay guys. She kept trying to say something...and I was mixed up..her accent is heavy but she kept saying they have such small balls, and almost no penises. I thought WTF! But he had the phone on speaker phone and I heard her because T had his wife repeat it a couple of times.
Weird.

Gee....lots of hits on this thread tonight...where to start? I guess a good fying pan story. When I was 20 my Dad rather rightfully kicked me out of his house for quitting college. The Vietnamese were being let out of Chaffee at the time and there was 5 people standing in line for every job, no matter how rotten or low paying and in the end the Vietnamese with the prominent sponsor got the job.

I was staying with an older high school buddy who had an apartment and worked as the night manager of a downtown motel. So I'd go down there and help him out and when no one was looking about 4 am, we'd sneak back to the kitchen and fix ourselves a couple of steaks. Or sometimes we'd go to the Waffle Inn and have some eggs. And that's where I first spotted Patches.

She was about my age, blonde headed, and truck stop whore good looking. She was friends with every man in town it appeared and her little waitress outfit was so tiny I could see her girdle sticking out when she handed someone their waffles. woo woo She flirted with every man or boy that came through the door, but I figured her flirting with me wasn't real because she could tell I didn't have 2 cents to rub together. But she was nice about it and when I took off my clothes at night to go to bed, I thought about Patches for about 7 or 8 minutes...if you know what I mean, Vern.

Flash forward about 20 years, it was actually more like 17 years and I'm running a business and having a spell where I couldn't find any new hires to save my soul. And in the door one day comes a girl named Marsha. She's about my age and some sort of crippled and real country, but real sweet and she was begging me for a job. I could tell it was a mistake, but I had to hire her or do the work of 3 people myself and I was about worn out from doing that for a couple of weeks. So I hired her.

For the first couple of days she was a pretty good waitress and then she started slipping and being bossy and saying things in front of customers she shouldn't be saying. And one night some wild man came through the door and started hollering Patches Patches Patches! And ohmagod.......Marsha WAS Patches! It all came back to me....of course she was Patches! And of course Patches would have aged about 30 years in 17. So we started talking about the old days and she told me the story of her life.

Her Mama was no count and drove a Taxi, when she worked at all. Her daddy left so long ago she barely could remember his name. She had no schooling to speak of and started waitressing as soon as she could get away with lying about her age. Her Mama kicked her out 2 dozen times and one time she went to live with a man and his wife in their house trailer out in the sticks. In a few days the wife, assuming she was really a wife....left and it was just her and the old man. Well...I'm sure it was all planned, but next thing Patches knows...she's the wife or more to the point, she's the one the old man rapes day and night and gives her a good beating when she's not in the mood.

So one night when the old man is passed out after he's beat and raped her particularly savagely that day, Patches finds some rope and ties the old man in his bed. Then she goes to the kitchen and finds the biggest cast iron skillet there and comes back and starts beating the tied up old man. She said she'd beat him until he passes out and then she'd go and take a little nap until she heared him hollering and she'd come back and beat him some more until he's knocked out. This went on for 3 days until she got tired of the game and then she walked off down the road and she didn't know if anyone found the old man or not. She said she hoped he was still out there rotting in his bed.

I asked her if the old man had injured her back, since it was plain to see something was wrong with her. She said no....her Mama got drunk one night and kicked her down a flight of stairs. Merry Christmas, Mama...... I kept Marsha on for about a year until I had no choice but to fire her. About every customer I had had it with her. She'd cuss people out, she drank the pure grain alcohol out of my Christmas cherries and then couldn't walk, she tied up the phone talking to an obscene caller.

Her big fat Taxi driving Mama started hanging around talking bad about my paying customers. It just got ridiculous and she had to go. Next I heard Marsha/Patches was working in the roughest bar in town out on Midland Boulevard, and then I heard she got fired from there for having a bad attitude....that's about like being kicked out of hell for being too mean. Anyway, there's my frying pan story and I doubt any of us ever had it as bad as poor old Patches.

I didn't get your 5 bucks, tina, but me and Charlie didn't need it. Some heavy set girls came in and we wore ourselves out talking to them....which is just about enough activity for a 80 year old man without a prostate and a 53 year old married diabetic. I impressed the girls with the pictures on my new cell phone. It's got a "take a picture" button on the side of it and I keep hitting it by accident, so I have a nice picture of my crotch, but it's OK cause it's covered up by my pants. I got a picture of my thumb or my knee...can't make it out. I've got 3 pictures that no one can identify...looks like abstract art. And the one picture I actually took of my daughter going off to prom. I love technology...but me and cell phones don't get along.

I'm sure WeatherBug is lying to me by saying it will only be 90 tomorrow, but man....I'd sure take it. These window air conditioners don't have enough juice. Some rooms are 80 and some are 85 and it sorta feels like you're in a bowl of warm soup all the time. But then the old central unit probably didn't do much better when it was 104 outside. I hate this going backwards stuff. What next...a watercooler sticking out the window? I do hope fins on cars comes back.....I like fins.

Frenchie may be worrying himself to death, jazzy. Distract him if you can. Maybe some marijuana brownies or something? He needs to think of something else for a couple of days.....easier said than done, I know. But we're all pulling for him...and for you too.

From Zelda's police beat:

residential burglary - "The thief or thieves also destroyed the resident's multi-colored hookah."

Now that's just sad.

I see that Ahmadinejad is now telling Obama to shut his pie-hole in criticising Iran in how they have silenced their opposition in the election and post-election demonstrations.

I guess it is time for our weak sauce President to get the ole apology tour scripts out and tell Iran how sorry we are about butting into their business.

Obama needs to step down and step down now. He is far too weak to stand up to these Middle Eastern dictators. If he doesn't we are all in deep doo doo.

OBAMA = One Big Ass Mistake America

"He is far too weak to stand up to these Middle Eastern dictators. If he doesn't we are all in deep doo doo."

Just wishing we had W. back to show how strong we are in the Middle East, catfish?

"OBAMA = One Big Ass Mistake America"

I see you are part of the network.