I'm baaaaccccckkkkk! The surgery went very smoothly and I actually feel pretty darn good. I am happy to report that the doc found no problems with the ovaries so they got to stay. The only time I've felt "pain" was Tuesday, just after surgery. They hooked me up to the pain pump and that was the end of it. I am now doing the oral narcotics and they have it all under control nicely. I have to say that it's soooo good to be back home! My skin crawls with the narcotics so having my own (cotton) sheets, pj's, towels, etc. makes all the difference in the world. So, all I can say at this point is that things are going very well, and it really was not all that bad after all :) I'm still very tired, though, so I'll have to settle in with a movie--I'm quite sure I'll fall asleep watching it, but that is just fine! Thanks again for your encouragement and advice--you guys have been super! I hope you are all having a terrific Thanksgiving day!

Maybe this wasn't the right thread to say those things about abnormal versus quirky...I certainly didn't mean to imply that the stories you told were anywhere near acceptable. It just made me think about it. Clearly, Neesie, you are a person who cares and thinks about ethics and citizenship. Absolutely, I'd have been very concerned in the case you described. I would even draw the line at an extreme eyesore in a well-kept neighborhood...I think that any situation that veers so far away from what is going on around it is cause for concern. The question, I think, is how you intervene. I might have been inclined to make a cake or a batch of cookies and take them over...or to host a block party and go personally to invite the family...to begin to establish a relationship. Then gradually you might be able to see what the situation actually is, and to move toward the family from a position of demonstrated kindness. Here is one of my favorite quotes, and I need to read it at least once a week, being, as I am, a person who would give advice to the cat, if only she spoke English. The wise rabbi Edwin H. Friedman said: "The colossal misunderstanding of our time is the assumption that insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change. Communication does not depend on syntax, or eloquence, or rhetoric, or articulation, but on the emotional context in which the message is being heard. People can only hear you when they are moving toward you, and they are not likely to when your words are pursuing them. Even the choicest words lose their power when they are used to overpower. Attitudes are the real figures of speech."

Do you have a way to play the film. I was reading about conserving old home movies in a scrapbooking magazine, and one of the ways suggested was to play the film and record it using a video camera. You could also narrate during the filming of it so you would have a soundtrack. They suggested having a good screen and setting up the camera on a tripod. I can take very good video with my digital camera - upload it to my computer, then burn it onto a DVD quite easily.

We have a Roku ... the company I work for has a wireless chip inside so a number of us at the office were given the Roku as a Christmas present a couple years ago. The Roku is very, very easy to use. Setup probably took all of five minutes. When Netflix was not charging to stream videos, it was a very good deal but now they charge $8 for mail order DVDs and $8 for streaming. Old movies aren't all that hard to find in regular programming with the cable service we have but I love watching documentaries, which are harder to come by, so streaming is good for that. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother. Jodi-