Then I activated it and the damned thing would not work. I could not make or receive calls. The customer rep advised reprogramming it which I did and advised me to keep trying for a few days. I tried to call from a train to say I'd be late as the train had to stop for every freight train to pass as freight pays the railroad more than passengers do. No luck. Maybe it was because the signal was blocked by mountains. There were mountains everywhere I went but other people were successfully shouting into their phones. As it happened I spent the most time with friends who provided me with a phone and even the use of a computer so the mobile one languished.

When I returned home I finally did something about it or tried to. The company promised to ship a new phone to replace the defective one. A box promptly arrived. An empty box containing three small sealed plastic bags filled with air and a couple of shipping documents.

But I'm not giving up. Inconvenience and defective equipment hasn't stopped me yet. I'll keep trying until I get a phone that works or it's time to demand my money back.

Surely it doesn't mean that I'm not meant to have a mobile phone.....?

I spent a week visiting a dear relative still depressed after the death of her husband last Jan., a wonderful man who was like a big brother to me years ago. She also has difficulty getting about, and with her vibrant lust for life (in spite of or between bouts of sadness) and having her driving licence taken away becase of poor vision, it's like being under house arrest for her. Fortunately a few good neighbors and friends, and a daughter, give her a lift once in a while. She has a habit of saying, "Yes, but..." when people try to give positive suggestions, so I don't know how much aid is actually out there but not taken advantage of.

Then I paid a lovely visit to my dear cousins Audrey and Robert in Arroyo Grande and got to see some of the spectacular scenery in San Luis Obispo County - took walks along the beaches as well as cliff walks with great views, really enjoyed the birds we don't have back East, like the pelicans fishing in the ocean and resting on small nesting rocks just offshore at one of the beaches up there. But greatest was just hanging out with these great people. What a great addition to our family Robert is. He hails from Cheltenham, from a family with Welsh origins, and grew up as a young lad in North London, where he says his heart is, despite moving to the beautiful Cotswolds when the family began to prosper.

I hated leaving them but was also eager to get to Ventura to visit a remarkable woman of whom I am lucky enough to be a friend. We had daily adventures driving through nearby areas which are most beautiful. Despite loving the seashore and the wonderful aroma of the sea, I was awed by the beautiful Ojai Valley, and the mountains.

I want to write more but time for dinner now. Hope to continue writing of this wondrous place soon.

'

"Would it also be suitable for a patient who also has Down Syndrome?"

I passed it on to the author, Lydia Burdick, and she kindly provided this answer:

"What I would say is: I have heard that my book is effective with people from age 2 through the very elderly. And, as my book can be used on many levels, it can be read to the person, the person can be encouraged to read the book if they can (and if they can't or won't the book can be read to them), the illustrations can be talked about and questions can be asked about the illustrations and text. So, it is likely that someone with Alzheimer's who has Down Syndrome will probably enjoy the book with a partner on at least one level, and probably more than one."

I hope that if anyone has any other questions they will let me know and I will pass them on to Lydia.

So after the usual, e.g., insulting it, calling to the gods of electronics for help, bemoaning my cruel fate, turning the computer on and off a few times, plugging and unplugging mouse which still languished on my table, I called Staples, the computer store. They're usually nice about returning and exchanging stuff so was about to head off there as invited by voice on phone, when I turned computer off and on just one more time. And the cursor moved. Go figure.

I was glad not to have to take the time to drive to the store as I am in the midst of packing and checking and rechecking to-do list in preparation for leaving for 3 weeks in California on the third of Aug. Any sane person would be planning a stay in Antarctica during this heat wave instead of going to a place which has been having an even hotter, murderous wave. But Calif. weather reports indicate the heat may ease up for awhile. Still, from LAX I will be going directly to Orange County, the O.C. of TV series fame, and that's sort of cool.

My visit there has been put off too often as I am planning to visit, at Seal Beach in the O.C., (among other people and places) an elderly much loved relative whose husband recently died and she's been wanting to see me again after years apart. So, although I will have access to computers from time to time I may not be blogging for awhile.

But soon I will be able to send my international postcard exchange card to Scotland from my vacation spot. I have already received a lovely card from Romania.

To contact the author, Lydia Burdick, write her at lydia@twolapbooks.com

For overseas orders please go to your national www.amazon.com
You can also check her book at her publisher's website: http://www.healthpropress.com/store/activity.htm - -where the published book and her soon-to-be-published next book are written up.

Reading “Sunshine on My Face” aloud with a patient or someone you love has been reported to bring about positive results. Alzheimer’s patients who have hardly spoken for long periods have begun to communicate and can read this book aloud. But please read about it yourself and see if you are not favorably impressed by the results of its use. I do think that it can help people all over the world, not only Alzheimer's patients, but people who love them, and health professionals interested in learning of new techniques of communicating and treating them.

By the way I have not personally met the author yet, but she is a good friend of one of my daughters and that is how I learned of it, read about it, and decided that more people could benefit from learning about it.

All I did was buy a new mouse. With my old mouse trying to make the cursor click where I want it to (or making it move a playing card to the one of your choice) is like trying to make a wildly wilful scent-crazed bee in a field of purple coneflowers alight on the flower of your choice, not his, so you see I really need a new one. But instead of buying one like the old one, I had set my sights on a cordless mouse. I bought one. A half hour or so ago I pulled out the old plug and tried to plug in the new one which is attached to the base of course, not the mouse, and it does not fit!. It is a different shape from the one the old one fitted in. That hasn't happened since I tried to buy a new mouse for my old computer and found it was already so obsolete that no mouse would fit it. I bought this new computer less than a year ago so can it already be obsolete? I'll find out tomorrow when I try to exchange it for a mouse that fits.

Some mornings it doesn't seem worth it to gnaw through the leather straps. -- Emo Phillips

I'm looking forward to my trip to California where I will spend time with my very scarce relatives. My parents were by far the youngest of their siblings, so I was (am) the youngest of all my cousins, which wasn't much fun on family get-togethers. No one produced a lot of offspring either, most of whom are living in California. So that gives me the opportunity to visit after a long time between trips and to explore some sites which I have never seen.

I am looking forward to swimming in the Pacific again, which I haven't done since I visited Hawaii. It's a marvellous experience. I miss swimming too because there's no convenient place to swim here. The closest is the high school swimming pool. Other, nicer outdoor spots require a longish drive to reach. It would be nice if we could swim in the Hudson River, but maybe it's still too polluted although some cleanup is going on. Slowly. Also it probably the current would be too dangerous. It would be quite an adventure to be swept downstream and carried all the way to New York City and be rescued by a N. Y. C. fireboat or the Staten Island Ferry! That's if one made it alive.

As you probably know, once again the UK has taken the lead in practicing good manners in the Case of the Oxford Circus Preacher who faces jail time for violating ABRO.

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews\&storyid=2006-06-12T121134Z_01_L07465849_RTRUKOC_0_US-BRITAIN-BEHAVIOUR.xml\&src=rss

Reading about it in my Reuters Oddly Enough bloglines feed today reminded me of the long-ago-time that I was enjoying my morning subway ride to my job in Manhattan, trying not to stay awake, when the sancrosanct hush was violently broken by a man in civilian dress, holding a bible, and shouting at the top of his powerful lungs that we'd better get saved or he'd know the reason why. By the time we reached my stop, Grand Central or Times square (can't recall which), I was a headache-wracked wreck, not even fit for work. I alit from the car, so did the preacher, I spotted a transit cop, pointed the peace disturber, cried "Arrest that man for disturbing the peace!" The cop cried, "I'll get him for you!" and darted off.

The preacher, aware of the the danger he was in, slipped through the doors of another train across the platform just as they closed.

Can you imagine my frustration at being balked in my public-spirited effort to punish a law-breaker? The cop was disappointed too. I know that the Lord has said that vengeance is His - but this was righteous, a crime-fighting citizen on the job. Couldn't I have had just one test case? It would have been a cause celebre.

And now the time has come when the peace and quiet lovers will have their day in court.

Now I think that there must have been a typo in trinouncement when I googled it the first time, as thankfully it's now there and looks good too. So if anyone noticed my previous blog and agreed that I am not too bright, they were right -- that one time at least!

So let's blog it, speak it, and use it to our hearts' content until it catches on in the English-speaking world and then some.

I just noticed I misspelled it at first, which is really not too bright but I think its okay now.

My daughter made a trinouncement about her wedding yesterday to me: 1. they've ordered the wedding cake; 2. it's going to have fresh flowers on it; 3. she's going to wear fresh flowers in her hear, hopefully from her garden, on the date, Sept. 30.