Watered Garden

When we were living in the Palmetto State we were foster parents and one of my foster kids worked at Mickey D's. I had nothing but contempt for the "managers" who oversaw them. They were mean and hateful, only in their twenties themselves, but lording it over the hapless teens who served them like gods. One evening I went to pick this girl up, and walked in as a manager, white, had a young black worker backed up against the counter screaming in her face: "Contrary to what you may think," she bellowed, "YOU ARE NOT IRREPLACEABLE!!!!!" The girl was of course in tears. I simply cruised past, collecting my foster child on the way out and said, in a VERY loud and CHEERFUL voice: "Boy, I sure am glad I don't have to work for that B****!" We just breezed right out the other door. My foster kid's eyes were as big as saucers. "I can't believe you said that! You don't know what she's like!" "Oh yes I do, and you let me know if she says anything to you about it." End of story. The jerk manager eventually got moved to another McDonald's. WG

HB from WG!

Many years ago, while living in the Palmetto State, I went through a Wendy's drive-through on my lunch hour. I ordered a medium Diet and a baked potato with broccoli and cheese. The youngster on the other end promptly asked me "Would you like some French fries to go with that baked potato?" I paused, and asked "Why would I want French fries to go with a baked potato?" I could hear the raucous laughter of her fellow employees behind her. "I was gonna ax you if you wanted one of our new HOT DOGS to go with that baked potato!" She snapped defensively. "No thank you." I replied. "Drive around!" she snarled. She practically threw my change, drink and takeout sack at me. Unfortunately I was laughing too by this time. But she got the last laugh by giving me a sour cream and chives bake potato, which I discovered when I returned to my office. One of my favorite drive throughs is Tim Horton's, where they give Tim Bits to the canine crowd (with human's permission of course). The coffee is good and the sandwiches are too. (And the doughnuts, but we won't go there as I'm gonna start South Beach tomorrow). WG

When our house was built, it was a while before we got the yard seeded, and erosion wore several furrows in the side near the driveway. (the house is somewhat on a hill.) We left the furrows as is, and and gradually filling them in. They are probably no more than 3-4 inches deep at the worst places, just enough to give your spine a nice jolt when you are mowing on a riding mower. First time he mowed, my husband pointed out to me that in one of the furrows was a little nest with soft grasses and brown-gray fur. A bunny had had her nest there, but because of the long, cool spring and early summer, she managed to get them raised and gone before they were mowed over. Invisible from the house, safe from marauding dogs down the road, and too late to be discovered by the new puppy. Too cool. WG

Research my rear end!

Had an unfortunate situation similar to TheHighway's. When I went WOW in 1974-75, I left a house full of furniture in the care of my roommate who was, along with others, staying as a Medical WOW. She in turn lent some of the furniture to a couple in Indy on their interim year from the 4th WC. These individuals, instead of returning my furniture to my former roommate, GAVE it to another person. When I tried to find it, I had this trail to follow until my then fiance' and I ran into the guy who was the end of the trail for my furniture. I knew this guy from the medical center, and walked up to him, asked him politely about the table and chair and the bookcase, and HE JUST STARED AT ME AND NEVER SAID A FREAKIN' WORD - NOT ONE WORD! After a few embarrassing moments, I just walked away. I never saw the SOB again. He was a safety officer at the medical center and his job was to go around measuring amounts of radiation emitted in the buildings. I suspect he might have gotten a little to close to the cobalt or something. I still think to this day the jerk had my furniture and had no intention of relinquishing it, so just played dumber than dumb. But my roommate should never have "loaned" it to the WC couple, and they should never have GIVEN it away to someone else. I never did get to meet them. When I would ask at HQ, they were so protected it was unbelievable. Their names were W**ne and Ch**yl Fo***er. If you are out there, guys, I'd like to have the formica table and chairs and the big bookcase painted green and white back, please. My paternal grandfather made that bookcase by hand, actually it was some sort of a kitchen cabinet and I took off the doors and converted it to a bookcase. Who did you think you were to GIVE IT AWAY to someone else? I mean, yeah, I know you were a great and mighty man and woman of God who were highly exalted WC, but geez, to take something that belongs to someone else, and then give it away to yet a third someone, that's awfully close to stealing, at least in my copy of the Book. WG

When I am in the presence of my Lord and Savior, the LAST thing I'm going to be thinking about is whether I remembered to scrub out and dry the kitchen sink. And I think He would just smile and say, "Hey, don't worry about that stuff. It's your heart I'm interested in, not dust bunnies!" WG

Uncle Harry had a Cadillac with a license plate that said "The Way." I think it was the Caddy he had to give back as a result of a lawsuit way back when, but then he liked Cadillacs so it could have been another one, or several, as you can transfer a license plate from one vehicle to another here in Ohio. WG

I'm pretty sure it was promoting though it might have been building. It was praked in a handciapped parking spot. I was hoping LCM was there in a wheelchair so I could dump him out and kick his head.

Of course, allopathic medicine seems on occasion to think this is something new. Where I used to work, they made a bit of a splash with their music program, as if they had discovered it themselves. They did in fact have people who would come and play music for the dying. A personal, and somewhat painful note: When my beloved, 87-year-old aunt was dying of complications from a massive stroke, I had Hospice bring her to my home. I arranged the living room with soft lights and spring flowers (it was April and we had a lot of daffodils and tulips). I playing soft music on my stereo. I wouldn't let anyone come in the nearby front door and when people did come to call, I made sure they spoke softly and positively. I had one TWI tape, of the quartet, because she knew one of them and like the family. When she breathed her last, it was to Pachelbel's Canon, and me telling her the next thing she saw would be the face of Jesus Christ. I'm so thankful I could do that for her. the soft lights, flowers, and especially music seemed to relax her somewhat. WG

Yesterday, Mr. Garden and I were going into a store when we noticed a van parked near the door. On its bumper a neat little white sticker with WC-green lettering: The Way International Promoting Biblical Understanding Yeah, I thought, and a whole lot more you DON'T want to put on your car for all to see. Didn't see anyone we recognized. Of course, we've been out for a long time, were never famous or prestigious for people to recognize, and a stream of hundreds of Wayfers could probably stroll right by and we be perfect strangers to one another. But it gave me a little chill, and then a good, inward laugh. WG

I had a gold on blue one once that stated I had been for a trip on Ambassador I, aka The Vomit Comet. WG

Another time in FLO we went to some college or other for dorm-to-dorm witnessing. I was with two other women in some dorm room talking to a couple of girls, when the third year Fellow Laborer lady, being amazingly naive, gets up, goes to the window, and admires the houseplant growing there. What does she use to fertilize it? It's beautiful and so healthy with those lovely deep green serrated leaves. What kind of plant is it? The girl who owns the plant kind of mumbles that she really doesn't know exactly what it is. About that time, my bored to the bone self looks over........and it's a freakin' MARIJUANA plant! It seemed like the girls who shared the room were kind of anxious for us to leave for some strange reason after that. I don't even remember if I told the planter lover with us what she had been admiring. I was pretty dumfounded that someone actually existed who had no idea what a marijuana plant looks like. Waysider, if you read this, please let me know if you guess who it was!!!!! WG

Okay, here's a pretty neat one: In Fellow Laborers of Ohio my first year, we were divvied up like spare change and sent to various areas to witness every evening after work. No supper, just meet at a given place and go door to door witnessing. Now it was winter, snow, ice, cold, the whole nine yards. I worked in Columbus and had to meet my team up in Gahanna for an exciting evening. It did actually turn out to be pretty exciting, not because "The Word Moved" or anything like that, but because I got to pair up with my future husband! We had a good time. One night, on an unfamiliar snowy road, I drove my car partially off the road into a ditch. We were stuck! No two ways about it, that sucker wasn't moving. The future Mr. Garden got out and assessed the situation. He told me to put the car in reverse and when he gave me the word, hit the gas. He heaved that car right on up out of there! Didn't even hurt his back. We went on our merry way, getting told to "get off my porch", snarled at by chihuahuas, etc. But it was still a neat and godly thing that the car got unstuck. No way could he have done that without God's help. WG

I would think any attorneys for the YFZ folks would be preparing the mother of all class-action lawsuits about now. It's all about legal, not necessarily all about right. I think Texas broke the law in a big way. If those kids were receiving food, clothing and shelter, and were not in any grave physical danger of being beaten to death, starved to death, or seriously harmed physically, they should have been left with their parents. If those teenage girls have been taught from infancy that they glorify God by marrying in their teens and bearing children for a man who is older and has other wives, well, they're being taught wrong, but on the other hand, is Texas interfering with their freedom of religion? WG

I was just adding to it a little bit...ocular melanoma is very rare. When I worked at the cancer hospital, there was a physician there who had developed a method of treating it by surgically placing a tiny radioactive plaque inside the eye, right on the tumor. It usually shrank the tumor and rendered it inactive, but frequently at the expense of the patient's vision in that eye. Of course, that's better than shuffling off this mortal coil by a long shot. Trust me, I do know what I'm talking about. WG

Okay, once again..... Melanoma can actually originate almost anywhere, including in internal organs. It does widely originate in the skin. All those news reports that melanoma is exclusively a cancer of the skin are oversimplified and somewhat inaccurate. Ocular melanoma, a primary tumor inside the eye, is one of the most common primary neoplasms of the globe. Ocular melanoma, if it metastasizes, will very very frequently metastasize to the liver. No one knows exactly why; it just likes the liver. VPW had a primary ocular melanoma, hence the enucleation of the eye. It metastasized to the liver, and that was it. I wouldn't wish melanoma on anyone. It's a real nasty SOB and hard to get rid of. It can lie dormant in the body and pop up in some other unlikely locale years later. And no, I'm not a physician, but I worked for a damn fine cancer physician for nine years and learned a lot. WG

Sadly, Memorial Day is still not celebrated in much of the Old South, though Robert E. Lee's birthday is in some areas a holiday. We are, and in my opinion were, ALL Americans. A couple weeks ago, I was walking through the parking lot of my favorite grocery store, and there was an older gentleman sitting outside on a bench, eating ice cream. He was wearing a cap that said "Viet Nam Veteran." I walked over to him and asked, "Sir, you actually served in Viet Nam?" "Yes." He answered, somewhat defensively. I stuck out my hand. "Thank you!" I said. "Thank you very much." He shook hands with me. "You know," he said," about 5 people have said that to me in the past 30 years." I've done that before. The look of surprise and gratitude is worth it. Viet Nam was an unpopular war, as much as Iraq is. But the men and women who serve in our armed forces are under authority and should be honored for their service, IMO, no matter how much we hate the circumstances in which they serve. WG

And I saw my dear departed brother-in-law. Thank you. WG

Kudzu - the gift that keeps on giving, and giving, and giving, and....... WG

As far as 'House" is concerned, I can't bear watching it. It is medically inaccurate for one thing, but the main thing that bothers me is that I have worked in many hospitals in several different states throughout my life, and have had the privilege of working as a secretary to two fine physicians, one at the beginning of my career and the other at the end of it, and NO WAY would a physician act like that and get away with it, no matter how brilliant they were. He is mean, hateful, sarcastic and addicted to painkillers. I've known of physicians who had addiction problems, and once they become a danger to the patients, they are OUT. No resident would work with someone like that. Not today, maybe 35 years ago, when only attendings had human rights. If I ever had to "serve" someone like House, you can bet I'd put Ex-Lax in his morning coffee and tell him the barista gave him chocolate flavored coffee because she liked him so much! I've watched it a very few times and I have no pity for this man. A BK amp would take care of his pain and he could learn a little humility along with PT for his prosthesis. WG

Thre was an episode a few years back when Kate, the agent who was murdered by Ziva's half-brother, asked Gibbs, "What did Ducky look like when he was young?" and Gibbs, after a second of thought, replied "Ilya Kuryakin." WG

I used the Yahoo people search to find a Wayne, and then separately a Susan Leeds on Palmer Street in Bowling Green, OH. wG

I can just tell from the look on Jethro's face that he will get his team back next season. And did y'all notice that before he called them in, that new director, "Creepy Guy" cause I can't remember his name, took something out of his own file and shredded it? It would take Abby about 20 seconds to piece that back together. It's gonna be interesting. Apparently Director Shepherd had an unnamed neurological disease that would have caused wasting and loss of motor function, and kind of chose to go out this way, according to what Ducky told Gibbs. BTW, I once worked for an elderly British physician, a woman, who sounded and thought an awful lot like Donald Mallard. It's eeery, and it's why I started watching NCIS in the first place, right after this phsyician I had worked for died. WG

Visits to Van Wert too numerous to count. I sent you a PM. WG