Thankful Just To Be Alive

Hi folks!  Haven't been around the old blogosphere for a few days.  Been busy don't you know?  

So what have I been doing?  Basically getting Casa Tipton-Kelly ready for The Season and that means buying plenty of flowers and plants.  LOTS!

But before I start down that road I just want to say I'm thankful to be alive.  I've added a new notch to my Life Experience Gun.  I'm a cancer survivor.  That's right folks, a year and half hour after being diagnosed with prostate cancer I'm still here, bringing joy to some people, pissing off the Usual Suspects and delivering pure happiness to a couple of Very Special People (they know who they are).  

This is the post I did this morning on the website Inspire, a support group website for those of us with different medical maladies.   

Happy to be alive. This morning was just another reminder.

Flower Power

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My regular followers will notice that I've been missing in action around these parts lately.  Yep, my work schedule at the hotel has again been changed.  Yep, I used to work two nights a week, Wednesdays and Thursdays.  We're going on month two now that I'm continuing to fill in for my co-workers.  God knows I love them all but they all have lives too and come to me when they need or want some time off.  Yes, I know we have TWO part-time workers but it always seems to be that the other part-time worker rarely fills in.  It's Good Old Ron as usual.  Same thing happened when I worked at the Hampton Inn in Lionville, Pa.  I had seven co-workers there but it was always Good Old Ron.  You know, the guy who can't say "No."  And yes, I know my co-workers read this blog.  

Yesterday I had a chance to get out and visit my favorite nursery and drop bucks on them.  I do love to keep the local economy going.  They're always happy to see me coming.  

We've had a string of fabulous spring time weather in these parts.  So unusual because usually we get one, two or at the most three days of nice spring weather before "The Humids" set in.  So far so good, just nice spring weather.  

Hopefully I'll get a chance to enjoy the next few days (after I go to work today).  I was hoping for a long stretch until I go to work again but I agreed to work for my co-worker this Sunday, Mother's Day.  How could I say no?  She's a mother.

A Walk on the Boardwalk

Rehoboth Beach Boardwalk

Yesterday morning after I got a haircut I decided to visit the boardwalk in Rehoboth Beach.  I don't visit the boardwalk as often as I used to.  Mainly because I don't like the ten mile ride down Route One from Casa Tipton-Kelly to Rehoboth Beach.  Although it is a straight shot, there are too many lanes, too much traffic, too many aggressive drivers.  I don't need that stress.  

However, I do like the boardwalk in Rehoboth Beach.  It is exactly one mile long.  I park at the one end and walk to the other end.  The combination of the boardwalk and my walking sneakers has the proper spring to my step.  I always feel good after my "Boardwalk Walk."  

When I first got my new Subaru three years ago I used to make the ten mile trip almost every day.  I enjoyed walking by the ocean, hearing the waves wash up on the beach, hearing the sea gulls, observing the many different folks…..life.  After all, I'm only ten miles from "the beach" so why not take advantage of it.  I remember all those years when we used to live in New Jersey and Pennsylvania when a trip to Rehoboth Beach was a major endeavor (three hour trip one way).  Now that I'm only ten miles away, why not?

Well, one reason is in the summertime, after Memorial Day we local residents avoid Rehoboth Beach as much as possible.  Why?  Traffic.  Very simple.  One just sits in traffic, inching one's way towards "the beach."  I remember last year when I suggested to my Canadian friend that we "go to the beach."  After about a half an hour of sitting in traffic in the steaming heat I told him to make the next U-turn.  We headed home for a more sane alternative to spend our summer afternoon.  

So yesterday I put myself on the boardwalk and did my sprint to the end.  After only a few minutes I heard "Is that Ron Tipton? Yes, that is Ron Tipton!"  I was recognized.  Ah fame, not so fleeting.  The person who recognized me is a blog follow and a new found friend Susan M.  Small world.  This is the same Susan who just happened to be in the Backyard Restaurant in Milton last month and recognized Dr. Spo and Company.  Small world.  

Susan - blog follower meets up with blogger 

Susan and I had a pleasant chat and we were both soon on our way.  Just another interlude in a very pleasant day folks here in Rehoboth Beach, Washington D.C.'s summertime capital.

May Day

Today is the first day of May folks.  

Every year when the First of May rolls around what it reminds me of is a May Pole.  Why?  I think May Day triggers a long ago childhood buried memory of a May Pole.  I don't think I ever danced around a May Pole, at least in this childhood.  Maybe I did in a previous life.  




 These days I appreciate just being able to get up in the morning and put my two feet on the floor.

At this time of my life when I finally realized much of what I was brought up to believe in, the propaganda that our religious and governmental institutions brainwash us with is a fraud.  When I realized that if we get through this life relatively unscathed and not taken advantage of is almost purely a matter of chance.  

I try to so hard each day to concentrate on the positive and try and push the evil that exists in the world into the background.  There is a lot of good in this world but there sometimes seems to be an equal amount of evil.  No wonder some people are nuts, bipolar or whatever the current fad word is for unbalanced people.

I have my little routine every day.  I try to stay out of people's way.  My mission in this world is not to look for angels angles, to take advantage of people but to live my live in relative happiness in my little corner of the world.  And pay my bills.  

May 1st signifies the beginning of a new season, perhaps the best time of the year.  For me, living in the tourist Mecca that I do, it means avoiding Rehoboth Beach as much as I can until the Horde tourists return to their little suburban hovels.

I have my very own Garden of Eden here, which I worked my whole life for folks and I'm ready to enjoy it.  Now bar the door Katie so I can keep out those who seek to take it away from me.


Kiss the sky today folks and spread the love you have for tomorrow we'll all be dead.

What Money Can't Buy

Donald Sterling Tokowitz court side at an LA Lakers game with his granddaughter  girlfriend - notice the permanent smirk on Tokowitz's face

Respect.  That's what money can't buy.  You can have millions and even billions of dollars but you can't buy respect.  Awful people like the now outed racist Donald Tokowitz Sterling may have convinced himself that his 1.9 billion dollar fortune brought him respect, especially when he "contributes" a few dollars to the local LA NAACP so they can present him with a lifetime achievement award, which just goes to show you how phony baloney those "lifetime achievement" awards are - they usually go to who gives the most money. Either that or they're popularity awards for members of the same "in" group but that's a subject for a another blog.

Yesterday the National Basketball Association's commissioner, Adam Stern, banned the odious, racist Donald Sterling (I hate using his fake last name, his real last name is Tokowitz) for life from the professional basketball.  He also fined him the maximum fine of 2.5 million dollars which is hardly a drop in the bucket of Sterling's (real name Tokowitz) 1.9 billion dollar ill gotten (he's a slum lord who sues at the drop of a hat) fortune.  Also he's been ordered to sell his team (which he is refusing to do, wait for it……he's suing!) The irony in Sterling (real name Tokowitz) in selling his team is that the LA Clippers are probably work upwards of one billion dollars.

Mrs. Tokowitz Sterling who Donald Tokowitz Sterling will now run the team, Jabba the Hut ain't giving up that easy

But you know what folks?  No matter how much this cretin (and comparing Sterling - real name Tokowitz with cretins gives cretins a bad name) ends up with he won't have respect. Sure, he's got more than enough money to get a blow job for whatever pretty damsel he chooses.  And he has more than enough money to have hordes of toadies bowing down to him.  But he will never have the respect which I suspect he desperately wants.  Now I could be wrong and this vile human being could be devoid totally of human characteristics that we take for granted, but I do believe that Sterling (real name Tokowitz) craves respect.  And that folks is the ultimate punishment for this man.  At 81 years of age he probably doesn't have a lot of time left on this planet to foul the air with his presence but what years he does left, he is a pariah.  

Donald Tokowitz Sterling - NAACP (LA chapter) Lifetime Achievment Award designee (since withdrawn)

I probably should feel this sense of satisfaction that Sterling (real name Tokowitz) is getting his just desserts, no matter how long delayed but I do. We all know people like Sterling.  People who view and treat others as "less than" just because they are different than they are.  Whether those other "different" people are gay, overweight, a different nationality, handicapped, or different religion.  There are people in this world who make it their life goal to obtain vast amounts of wealth just to have power over others.  Then they discriminate against those who aren't venal like they are, thus affecting their lives.  But every now and then one of these human flotsams is brought down and there does seem to be some justice in this world, however rare and temporary.  

Donald Tokowitz Sterling with wife - maybe he can go into timeshares now that he doesn't have an NBA basketball team to make more millions for him and wifey poo

Balance

Lately I've been thinking a lot about balance, as in my life.  I've been working too much lately.  I've been worrying too much lately about unimportant things.  I need to get my life back in balance.

The past few days I've been updating my Find a Grave.com (acronym FAG) account.  There is only one reader of my blog who knows what Find a Grave.com is.  We're volunteers who take pictures of gravestones and post them to a website.  I've talking about this "hobby" of mine before.  Some may think I waste my time, it would be better spent in going to church or say, volunteering my time at a local thrift store or some other endeavor they consider worthy of filling up my "spare" time.  But folks, walking around graveyards, enjoying the peace and non stress of cemeteries give me a peace of mind that I rarely find in other quarters.  I prefer to make my own decisions as to what to do with my time.

I go to work where there is all too often some kind of emergency.  I come home and try to figure out how to pay ever increasing bills on my mainly fixed income.  Just this week I received significant increases in my car and homeowner's insurance.  Consistent insurance increases are my biggest concern in my retirement. At my former home in Pennsylvania, ever increasing taxes were my constant concern.  Always something.

Then there is my health.  A year out from my prostate procedure I still have fatigue that requires me to take a daily afternoon nap.  Then there are the side effects.  Annoying and not suitable for discussion in this family friendly blog.  

It seems there are some that feel the need to volunteer my time for one of their causes.  Uh….no thanks.  I appreciate the thought but my plate is quite full already.  About a month ago I was quite annoyed when a stranger who I didn't know posted publicly on Facebook that I should "take the lead" in helping a sick member of our community.  Where did that come from?  Who is this person volunteering my time that I don't know? Trying to shame me into volunteering. Again folks, I'll run my own life. I'm the best judge of how I spend my time. Why don't you volunteer your time instead of taking to Facebook and trying to shame me into volunteering my time?  

So for the next several months (or longer) I'm going to take time out for…….myself.  I'm going to start posting my thousands of photos that I've taken over the past two years of cemeteries I've visited here in southern Delaware and during our trips South.  So if anyone is thinking of volunteering my for something, my plate is already full.  Cast your gaze elsewhere.

Prostate Cancer - No Easy Answers

I occasionally go into the support group website Inspire to check and see how my fellow prostate cancer patients are coping with their diagnosis, tests and treatments.  I don't go as often as I used to because quite frankly sometimes it is depressing to hear what others are going through.  Makes me realize how lucky I am to have my prostate cancer localized (which is what I was told but one never knows). 

Last week I read a new posting, which was like to many other postings from men newly diagnosed with prostate cancer.  They are overwhelmed by all the options (which I won't go into here) and all the possible side effects (which I won't go into here either).  All of these men are looking for a clean cut (no pun intended) answer of how to treat their prostate cancer. Well folks, there is no easy answer.  

Thus I was heartened when I posted a response to one such man who didn't know how to proceed after he got his diagnosis of prostate cancer.  See below:

Hey folks, in life there are no easy answers.  From the day we are born we are programmed for survival.  Why?  I don't have an easy answer for that except maybe to love and be loved.  Thus, when we come to a point in our lives that our survival is threatened, when we feel we're losing control and when we feel we may not survive, panic sets in.  

A very ill friend of mine recently said "I'm not afraid of dying but I am afraid of HOW I'm going to die."  Same here folks, I am not afraid of dying. I just can't work up that fear.  Oh I know many of those "God fearing" folks want to make sure they get into Heaven.  I don't know what happens after you die (nothing I strongly suspect) but what I do know is what is happening when we're alive.  

I do not want to be dependent on anyone when I die.  I do not want to suffer excruciating pain (I am a coward at my core, yes I said it).  

I've lived a long life.  For over 90% of my life I've been extremely happy and content and not wanting for anything.  I've been loved and I have loved (and continue to do so, thank God).  Lesson, make every day count and be thankful.