This 'n' That

My mom got home from the hospital yesterday.  She had extremely high blood pressure so they kept her a couple days to try to get it under control.  She's doing fine now.  They had to change one of her medications.

As luck would have it, either my mom lost her wallet or it was stolen from her purse.  Both her ATM card and mine were in her wallet.  Now we have to go down to the bank and cancel both of the cards.  That means we'll have to withdraw cash to pay for groceries in a few days.  It's not a big deal but it's a hassle.

This vertigo keeps making the screen appear to move, so it's difficult to write anything.  That along with my blurred vision makes it even worse.  I need to get to an opthalmologist to have these cataracts looked at.  I just hope my insurance covers it.

Yes, I'm typing completely random thoughts.  Since I'm pretty much confined to the house, I have nothing interesting to write about.  Since the doctors can't operate on me because my heart is too weak still, I have to live with the physical problems caused by the surgical screw-ups.  I can't even help my mom bring in the groceries because of the surgical hernia.  It makes me feel pretty weak and useless.  I guess I am.

I had really wanted to make a zombie film with Karen's niece and her friends but I don't know if that's going to be a go now that Karen dumped me.  It would have been fun just to make a low budget film.  Karen's niece was writing the script.  She's a very intelligent young woman.  She reminds me of a young Katy Anders in more ways than one.

It is hard for me to find purpose in my life right now.  I think I've alienated just about everyone.  Looking forward, I don't see much of a future.  Maybe my sister will end up sticking me in a nursing home where I will rot away until I die.  I've already spent a day in one and don't look forward to being in there longer.  Sometimes I wish God would be merciful and just take me in my sleep.

Love, Hope, Peace, and Christ be with you,

Cal

I Figured It Out

Yesterday I posted something that I had written a couple days earlier then revised.  I left a long comment to Katy that was full of fear and anxiety.  I didn't realize what was going on until later last night when the anxiety came to a head. Yeah, I got angry about being dumped, but that was just a very temporary thing.  Yesterday I started freaking out over EVERYTHING.  I had the urge to jump out of the bed from the anxiety.  At that point I realized what was going on.  The feeling was unmistakable.  I have cabin fever.

I've only had cabin fever once before maybe five or six years back in December.  My son was driving me to my sister's house for Christmas dinner when I was suddenly gripped with a strong urge to jump out of the car.  I made it to my sister's house but sitting through the dinner and chit chat was nerve wrenching.  It continued even when I got back home.  Come to find out, it was cabin fever.  I had heard my grandmother talk about getting it when I was a teenager.  It was my mom who told me about when she had it and recognized the symptoms in me that I remembered my grandmother talking about it.

Now, in spite of what some people say, there's really not much you can do about it but ride it out.  Valium helps, but if you don't have your prescription, you aren't going to get any relief.  It's especially difficult for those of us with anxiety disorder.  The odd thing is that it hit me in the Summer.  It's generally a Winter affliction.  Maybe the darkness in my room because of the jasmine vines covering my bedroom window had something to do with it.  Still, I've been out of the house walking, going to the doctor's, and going to get groceries.  It's not like I haven't left the house at all.  I HAVE been confined to either a hospital bed or my bed a lot this year because of the heart surgery though.  Maybe that has something to do with it.

I feel sorry for poor Katy as I unloaded my emotions on to her comment.  I don't like doing that to people.  I really wasn't myself.  It was the cabin fever... either that or a bad trip flashback from something I took in the 70s.

I'm In Limbo

Yes, I'm in limbo.  You wouldn't think it possible, would you?  Still, here I am, floating in a void, nothing to see, nothing to do, nothing to look forward to, nothing interesting to talk about... I'm just in limbo.  In fact, I'm not sure how or why I'm typing this blog.

Unfortunately for me, there seem to be a lot of allergens in limbo.  I've been floating around sneezing with my nose running.  I'm glad I had a box of tissues with me when I was zapped into limbo.  At least sneezing and wiping my nose is something to do now that I think about it.  I guess limbo isn't a TOTAL bore.

The one woman in the world who I thought would never betray me... did. My guess is that she got in contact with some other person from high school whom she admired.  I'm so used to that happening by now that it barely phases me.  It pisses me off a little, but other than that, it's just the same old boring story of my love life.  Now I've decided to just wait for my death alone... which would only be a problem if it's going to be a long way off.  I've gotten used to being alone so it's not much of a problem for me anymore.


I'm in limbo. I'm in the middle of nowhere. No friends to call on me. No ability to go anywhere. No future to look forward to. No money to do anything. No way to get my bottom teeth pulled. I'll just float here letting my bottom teeth rot, poisoning my system and further damaging my heart until I leave limbo forever.


Everything is fine. I'm in limbo.

What is the Greatest Commandment?

                                                 What is the Greatest Commandment?

What IS the greatest commandment?  We have a couple answers here.

Matthew 22:34-40

New International Version (NIV)
The Greatest Commandment

34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Footnotes:

Matthew 22:37 Deut. 6:5
Matthew 22:39 Lev. 19:18

If you look at these verses above, you get two rather than one; however, if you read Galatians 5:14 you get the most important commandment, loving the Lord being assumed:

Galatians 5:13-26

New International Version (NIV)
Life by the Spirit

13 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh[a]; rather, serve one another humbly in love. 14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”[b] 15 If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.

16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever[c] you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.
Footnotes:

Galatians 5:13 In contexts like this, the Greek word for flesh (sarx) refers to the sinful state of human beings, often presented as a power in opposition to the Spirit; also in verses 16, 17, 19 and 24; and in 6:8.
Galatians 5:14 Lev. 19:18
Galatians 5:17 Or you do not do what

There are reasons for verse 19-21 talking about the acts of the flesh. They all cause someone pain. Some of them cause more than one person pain... sometimes many people. It's all about love, folks. It's all about love.

Love, Hope, Peace, and Christ is With Us All,

Cal-el

Man of Steel Review

      Who better to review Man of Steel than Superman himself? ;)  I thought it might be really good because I heard so many people say it was. They were mistaken. It wasn't good. It was a rerun of the same old Zod story with slightly different twists. I figure they put General Zod in the Christopher Reeve movie for comic relief. Why Smallville and Man of Steel have to dig him up and put their own twist on him, I don't know. The only reason I can think of is that they don't have an original idea in their head. If I see one more story about Zod I'm going to puke. Maybe they're doing too much coke or smoking too much crack. I guess people who never read every comic book where Superman made an appearance might think it was good. My niece thought it was. The one plus I will give it is that PARTS of it were closer to the comic books that I read from the time I was six or seven through high school. What really ticked me off was the music. Let's compare.

                                                                     John Williams

http://youtu.be/e9vrfEoc8_g

                                                                    Hans Zimmer

http://youtu.be/LaxqxfpSzMQ

     In comparison, I think that Hans Zimmer's version would be a good lullaby. John Williams' version gets you excited and ready to see some super action. What's worse is that it didn't get any better throughout the movie. Every music scene had uninteresting music that really didn't match the scenes. After all, the music is supposed to set the mood for the scene. I guess that's why they had Superman's takeoffs sound so loud. They needed SOMEthing to wake you up. Hans Zimmer should write for movies like Out of Africa.

                                                   John Barry – Out of Africa Theme Song

http://youtu.be/eWZ2adCaKo4

     Comparing him to John Barry might be a bit too much of a compliment for Hans Zimmer, but to be fair, I haven't heard any other of Hans Zimmer's music.  John Ottman did a much better job than Zimmer.

                                                     John Ottman - Superman Returns

 

http://youtu.be/MRjW8d98198

     Another thing... they had to go and change the back story of Superman going from a kid to Superman as did Smallville. No Superboy. I don't like when they completely screw with the original story. It's like reading Moby Dick then when you get to the movie the story is about Jaws. I'd give it a 2.5 out of 5 at the most. 

 Love, Hope, Peace, and Christ is With Us All,

Cal Jennings

What the H Happened?

Sometime in March, I woke up lashed to a hospital bed. I didn't recall going to the hospital nor did I recall being rushed to surgery. All I saw was Vietnamese-looking nurses and wondered if I had been captured by the Vietnamese... though I never went to Vietnam. Too many war movies I suppose.

I didn't feel like I had been operated on. I guess the anesthetics they injected inside me were still working. I was informed that I tried to pull out my breathing tube and had torn my vocal cords. I must have tried to pull out one of the blood tubes from my neck also. In fact, I think I remember doing it, though it is a brief memory. I know I at least touched it. I finally gained enough

My hospital stay was brief compared to the last CABG. Although I felt great compared to the first one, they did let me out of the hospital too early. They ignored the pneumonia that I had in my left lung which caused me to have to go back into the hospital a couple more times.

My chest cavity was raw inside where they tried to wash away all of the blood that had been spewing from that artery that detached. They told my mom that the heart was so covered with dried blood that they didn't know how it was still beating. It caused me extreme pain but they didn't want to give me pain medication that would actually work. I did finally get them to double my hydrocodone and that helped somewhat... kind of like better than nothing.

Although I feel better than last time, I haven't really felt well enough to write. I just didn't have the energy... especially with this COPD which they're blaming on smoking but is more likely from the asbestos that was floating in the air when they tore it down from the unit. In fact, the operators who smoked lived longer than the people who didn't as a rule. I suspect the tar probably decreased the amount of agitation from the asbestos. The company doesn't want anything like that to be exposed, though so they'll probably never look into it. Besides, I didn't smoke that much. Just enough to protect my lungs if that really was the case. I did sometimes smoke a pack a day but I also had years when I quit. Now I'm smoking three to nine puffs a day... sometimes up to one cigarette a day if it's really a stressful day. Still, the doctors want me to quit completely.

There really isn't much left that they can remove without causing me extreme medical problems, so hopefully they don't TRY to remove anything else. I've really been wanting to blog something... ANYTHING, but today is the first day I was able to sit here and type... mainly because of the breathing problems I believe. I was having some chest pain too, but that seems to be absent today. Hopefully it will stay absent and I can blog regularly again.

I've been watching the news and there doesn't seem to be much of value to report on. Well, maybe of value but I've decided that there's nothing much we can do peacefully and I'm too broken down to do anything other than yell and shake my fist. Of course, that would be seen as a terrorist action and I'd be hauled down to Gitmo for the rest of my life... if I survived the flight or boat ride over there.  My only hope in life now is to meet +Katy Anders, but I hope not under those circumstances.

Love, Hope, Peace, and Christ is With Us All,

Cal Jennings aka Space Eagle aka Cal-el

I can't post here with my cell phone.??

I thought Multiply's blogging feature was removed Dec. 1st. I'm glad to see that it hasn't yet been removed because this is the only site on which I can blog on with my cell. You guessed it. My computer is in the shop again so this phone is my only connection to the Internet.

In other news, one of my best friends since high school and I are getting along very well. I was extremely glad to find out that she didn't die in 2001 like I thought. She's the only woman who really knows what I'm like. We used to go on camping trips, fishing trips, and beach trips together as a group. We're looking forward to being together after her house goes through probate so she can leave Kentucky. She already has a buyer for her house lined up. I haven't been posting much on facebook because I've been busy talking to her.

Well, I'm off to see if I can copy and paste this to Blogspot.