My first Hurricane................on the boat

D dock predaybreak

       I was in my recuperation stage, which only means that I was still living way up in North Naples out in the country back in on two dirt roads.... Where the house I lived in was off a dirt road that was off the dirt road called Rock Road...Most people around here know of the Rock Road.  For some reason it seems like everyone has been there somewhere, or has taken it to somewhere.  All I did was find a beautiful house to live in out there....All new with tile floors, two bedrooms and nothing else around except the main house, and the animals that one could hear in the middle of the night that sounded like you were living in the jungle.  There were wild animals neighbor people had brought in from all over the world, not to mention the wild bore, and the chickens in the barn where I was along with the horses there.  The house had been built for their daughter who did not move into it, so special care was taken in the building of it.

    I loved being out there and I had started a garden with some organic tomato plants before I had finished radiation.  I never got to eat any fruit from those plants because as I finished with my treatments and made it to the Neurologist stage I was too exhausted and heavily medicated to do anything but sleep in my chair, watch the animals eat my tomatoes, and get out of my recliner once a day to get some food for myself somehow, unless someone would bring some to me by chance.

   As I progressed into trying to get out of the chair and exercise one whole minute at a time, this would eventually roll in to two minutes and on up until I could last 20 minutes or more.  I had to start playing again but I could not remember my music so I would practice my songs over and over.  I would play them as far as I could remember them until I could get them played all the way through.  Once I remembered them I wrote them down in a book.  Sometimes I would write only the words because the music was complicated and I had remembered it and gotten it into my head again.  Then for some of the songs I wrote down all the chords and the words so I would not have to try to remember them again.

     Finally I got it together to go back to Goodland and play one day a week.  Before I was ill I had played at Chuckles Pub and Grub ( which was actually called Chuckles Chickee Bar) every Sunday afternoon, and other musicians would come and sit in with me.  It became a very nice jam session.  I was now capable of conducting a jam session again.  I could not carry my equipment but my ex would come and carry my stuff for me for a couple months until I could carry it myself.

     Most of the time my other friends would help me with my equipment at the gig when it was over and I had made some new friends who would also help.

Home in a Fog

        My new sailor friend would say to me, "Do you want to get some food now?" and we would all end up over at the Marco Lodge having drinks and food.

     Sometimes after he took me out to eat, when it was raining my new sailor friend would say to me, "You should not try and drive up across that awful road.... that Immokalee Road to Rock Rd is a death trap.  You can come and stay on the boat."  And I would take him up on his offer and he would get up and go to work in the morning and let me sleep in.  I was still weaning myself off of some of the very heavy medications which made me so very tired and unable to drink any alcohol at all of course (after surviving all this I did not want my lungs to stop moving or my heart to stop beating due to stupidity).

     It took me six months to get myself off of all that medication they had me taking, but I made it and I was fine....mostly....or at least I had come so far that it seemed like, at this point, I was fine, compared to where I had come from..

      When there is a Tropical Depression that has been named because it has gotten up the strength of 75 MPH, the younger people that live in houses on Marco Island (especially those who work in restaurants and bars), think it is a great time to have a hurricane party.  You see they have to work anyway.  Some people that work in day jobs get to go home and prepare for hurricanes but the crews at bars and restaurants have to be there when the hurricane parties start..

More of the stationary dock

         I always thought of hurricanes parties as unnecessary and I would never go because I did not drink.  But this time a hurricane was coming and I had been on a sailboat and was learning how to sail.  And when I was invited to go to a hurricane party at a fellow musicians house with his family and their friends, I went.  Some of the family was at a bar partying and I was at the house with the rest of them.  Then I got a call from my new friend, the sailor.

     He asked me how I was and where was I going to weather the storm.  I was feeding the cat for a friend of mine who was away and she said if there was a storm that I was welcome to go stay in her house.  Well I told my sailor this and then I said but I would rather come and stay on the boat with you.  Now this was certainly shocking news to him because it was very different thinking to believe that anyone would feel safer on a boat than in a house.

     This is the way it looked to me.  I could go to the house all alone for my first hurricane on the island, or I could go to a sailboat with a seasoned sailor who knew what to do....hmmmmm.... Was this really that hard of a decision?...I think not.  I knew that I felt safer with him than by myself....If I had never met him I would have gone to the house of my friend and weathered this new trauma all alone, but I was blessed and did not have to.

         So here we are on the boat and it is raining and pouring and blowing.  As it got later, we talked and discussed the storm, what to do, and played cards.  When it got late enough we laid down in the bed and I went to sleep.  However, he sat up all night, watched the weather and waited so that we would be safe...All he asked, is that if the need be, when he said we have to go that I was packed and ready to go.  To comply, I packed my stuff before I laid down on the bed.

Only part of the dock

         Finally the time came and he said to me, "Kaite, we have to go now."  Apparently this is all I needed to hear.  He said he had never before, or since, seen me move so fast.  I was up in 2 seconds with my bag in hand and was right behind him, on our way up the companionway through the hatch.

     As we were dismounting the boat, he said to me just come down here to the dock, I've got you.  He made this statement because, by now the wind was blowing at 55 mph, the boat was leaning so far to the port side that the floating dock was farther than I could reach with my legs.  We normally dismounted the boat like you would dismount a horse, over the life line to the dock.

         The floating docks (finger piers) we were tied to, led up to the main dock via a ramp securely mounted to each other, but the main dock was NOT A FLOATING DOCK....It was a stationary dock and by this time the tide was so high that the main dock and our feet were under water.  Thank God there was a railing so we could see where to put our feet, and in the middle of the night it was quite dark.

     This was around 4 AM so we drove out of Goodland to Marco Island, and ate breakfast.  By the time we returned to Goodland the water was over the road into Goodland.  We had to drive very slowly through it, as it was deep.  We were in a Ford Explorer so we could attempt this, but behind us was a van which of course did not make it through the deep water and drowned out.

The ramp

        We were the last people to make it back into Goodland before Goodland lost power.  Thank goodness we had eaten by this time. It was time to start our own little hurricane party.  We went right over to Jackie's Pink House Motel and sat outside with her and the other Goodlanders under cover that joined us in buying up the beer there and drinking it before it got too warm, since we were without electric...This seemed like the only thing to do at this point.

    Most of us were going around to help other people do things like find their belongings when the water started to go down, or put TV's and such electrical items on the beds and tables so they did not get wet with the water coming into the houses.  Also joining them in helping the people whose houses were on the water sweep the water out of their houses back into the ocean.

     We had at least been smart enough to eat while we could.  Others were scavenging to find food without electricity for the day.  I believe the electric came back on before dark, but when the water went down enough we went back to the boat and cooked because we had an alcohol stove and twelve volt electricity.  All we had to do when the batteries ran down was start the boat and charge them up again.

     I do so love living on the boat.  It has been 6 years already and I have been through almost too many hurricanes to count now, at least 8 that I remember very clearly and I know there were a few blurs.  We and the boat have survived them all.  That says a lot for us.  I think.

Thank You Rabbi

The Cool Manager: Shiree

    I got there at the usual time for set up, got into my room... and waited for the right time to carry all my equipment into the Tarpon Lodge....and get set up for the gig....I have so much fun with the employees at that place....Everyone that works there is just fun to be around....we have our own rapport, should I say....last month when I played there, the manager and one of the waiters (the manager of the bar) had this conversation between them about me that he did not work on the nights I played but they screwed up and he was scheduled that night while I was playing and they did it with such straight face....and while they were conning me with this, the manager, Shiree, crawled around on the floor behind me and one book at a time took my music books and hid them, she wrapped them in my shawl that had fallen to the floor, and inserted them under the cushion in the chair in the front foyer behind me.....She said later that they thought that I was going to play out of one book that whole night , before I noticed my other books were gone....they waited and waited and waited and finally.....

     And this time I actually had some time to sit down and get rested up from the set up....Then I went back out to the bar to get my equipment turned on and talked with some of the very nice people that were part of the party that was there to get married this weekend....

     The Tarpon Lodge is almost the perfect setting to get married, the sunsets and the beautiful gazebo on the grounds, with the pool and the 5 star food, the fishing guides at the dock....I found out that there were going to be 4 Toms there and one of them was the groom and the bride's name was Diane...All of a sudden I had an attack of very bad heartburn so I  ordered a dark foamy beer while I was out there getting a sound check, to try and make the heart burn go away.  When I made mention of the heartburn, 3 people at the bar (out of the 5 bar stools there) offered me some of what medications they take for heartburn....it can be so very bad and one should "swallow the camera" as they say, to take care of it so that it does not turn into something worse later on.

     I have been taking a medicine for my stomach for years but the last time I filled my prescription the insurance company said they would not pay for my particular medicine (Aciphex) any more so I now had to call them and find out what they will pay for and get a new prescription...I had forgotten since I am in and out of town so much these days...I finally accepted a purple pill from one of the Toms.  It (or the beer) saved the day.

     Well last night I ended up taking something I think was "THE" purple pill...and it worked so very good...of course I did not know it would work so I had a second dark foamy beer just to be sure I would be okay to sing....A person simply cannot sing with heartburn...way too much pain...

    Much to my surprise, while I was singing a song, I looked up at the end and there stood the Rabbi I recently met, and her husband.   They came to hear me sing.  She said that she would try to, and then all of a sudden there they were.  I was very happy about this because I had committed myself to singing alto in her choir for High Holidays(Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur).  This all began because I am working as a personal assistant to a friend of mine a couple days a week who is a realtor going through Chemo' for her current breast cancer...And she has come to hear me sing many times, and sings very well herself.  She also said to me that I should help them in their choir because they need an alto right now.  I went with her one time to choir practice and worked on my computer while they practiced and while I was there I spoke with the Rabbi and she was such a nice person I decided to sing for her.  Since most of the songs are in Hebrew, the Rabbi had assured me that I was not going to sing anything that was against my own religion, as it was all only in praise of God that they sing their prayers.

     We had a great time that night. The room was packed and except for the fact that the Rabbi and her husband were so upset because the crowd was very loud while I was entertaining them, it was all good.  The Rabbi herself had been an opera singer, (and is also the cantor at the Temple) and knew how hard it was to sing to a room with noise in it, but I am used to it from starting out in Rock and Roll.  I eventually got control of the room even though the audience was so involved with themselves, being wedding people, and it turned out to be a very respectful and appreciative audience when I got done with them.

     High Holidays finally came and I do have to say I had never been in a religious service that lasted more than 2 hours...My first day which ended up being the morning of Rosh Hashanah, because I was booked for an engagement of my own on the evening before, was a four hour service....Well!!...about half way through I asked one of the other women in the choir..."so how long is this service?" and she said, "Oh, eight hours" and kept a very straight face....I laughed it off but I was beginning to wonder.......after a while.

     Then came the time for Yom Kippur.  I was actually going to be in a service that lasted all day.  I had been booked once again the night before, at my gig of half way to St Patty's Day, and was pretty exhausted for the next day, but I did make it.  This service was 3 hours, then 3 or 4 more hours, and then 3 or 4 more hours.  However the Jewish services always ended in food being served and eaten together, very good food, and with everybody talking to each other it was quite nice.

     I said my goodbyes that day to all my new acquaintances at the Temple, because my commitment was now over, and spoke again with the Rabbi and her husband.  He, himself, was absolutely entertaining.  The Rabbi kept saying things like we will be seeing more of you, and my not understanding why she was saying that, and of course she was explaining that she did not mean she was trying to proselytize, but she would be seeing me, and that she wanted to talk to Judy.  Later upon finding out that they might try to hire me to be an alto in their choir, I felt very honored.  I also felt very honored to have met the Rabbi and her husband and will greatly respect their friendship, and I am quite happy for the education of the Jewish prayers that I have learned to sing.  I have  a special gratitude for the learning of the Hebrew that I now have.  It is a beginning.  I would like to learn more and I would like to learn their numbers system, I believe it is called "Gimatria"...but I have been wrong before (usually only in marriage ha ha)(not my first marriage though).

     The next morning at the Tarpon Lodge eating their exquisite continental breakfast, I ran into the "Tom" who gave me "his" purple pill.  I truly did hesitate to take it the night before because I could find no particular printing on it of any kind, but I was in such pain.  It is odd the things we do, mostly when we shouldn't.  I later found out, when I called my doctor for a prescription of my own, that it was probably not the purple pill I took.  I mean 'THE" Purple Pill.  It, I am fairly certain, is something different, but you know what?  The one I have works pretty darn good.

GETTING BACK TO LIFE...IN GENERAL....BACK TO MY MUSIC

     I had just returned to Marco island from my 10 year stint in Michigan being a scientist in Molecular Epidemiology.  I remember having this very nice gig 3 nights a week in Naples Florida... and I was also working at a day gig for a plastics company doing statistics on the computer with their efficiency formulas for their manufacturing computer systems...I could not have been happier.

     Then....I had a toothache and went to a dentist that I found...I had asked around and some of the other people at work said they thought he was good...so off I went.

     When I was sitting in his chair he took an x-ray of the area I had a problem with and when he came back in the room, he started feeling my neck and the glands around my throat....Well...!!!...I wondered why he was doing something that people do to you (like your Mother) when you are sick....so I asked....

     That was the beginning of a whole new reality for me....something I had never encountered before in my life....I was ill........All I heard was the word growth....He then walked me over to another office in the same complex we were in...This doctor was an oral-maxillofacial surgeon....I certainly could have gone my whole life without finding out what his job entailed.

     I went in the very next day for surgery.  Apparently this tumor was as aggressive as an a very aggressive cancer.  the doctor proceeded to tell me I had one of three diseases.....I do not remember what they were but at least one of them was a type of cancer and none of them was a good idea.

     The surgeon decided that it was always a better idea to have a local than to be put to sleep for the surgery so I acquiesced.  We began and after about 15 minutes of surgery I made sounds referring to the fact that it was hurting me and he numbed me again.  Again, after around 15 minutes of surgery I made sounds that it was hurting and he numbed me once more.  This went on every 15 minutes or so until he had removed two of my back teeth on the upper left side and scraped out the bone under them.

     Then this surgeon tells me that I cannot cry, whistle, sneeze, or cough for a few days until this heals because he has exposed my sinus cavity, and sends me home.  So let me get this straight.  They tell me I most probably have cancer, but do not cry because it will be very very bad if you do.  How nice.....I am not even allowed to have emotions about what I am going through.....

     Okay....Okay...I got it.....

     Did I forget to mention that on the way out of the office after surgery I have to write a check for how ever many thousand this cost???

     Sooo....knowing that I am going to have another surgery next month because what the surgeon is trying to do is save as many of my teeth as possible, I say to him, "I think we should go for the anesthetic next time.  I cannot take that pain again."

     Now, when I go back for my check up a couple days after the first surgery he says to me. "Amazing....It is healing!"  Now this takes me for surprise because he did not tell me this, but then he says to me "I did not sew it up because cancer tissue does not heal and I was just sure it was cancer"   The he says "Good news...It is benign".  I am thinking "Well of course it is.  I just knew it was benign".

     Then when I go back in for my second surgery the doctor tells me that pathology said it is not cancer.... Great!!!...but they do not know what it is.....hmmmmm.  This time I am thinking "No sh**t Sherlock" but I kept my mouth shut about it.

     Now his wife is a surgical nurse....so here we are doing surgery in his office..and he puts the proper stuff on my finger to check my pulse and the other things attached to me and he is putting the needle into my arm for the anesthesia and he has the gas thing over my nose and I do not like the smell of this gas.....and I am starting to shake and my legs are starting to jump and he asks me if I have anxiety and I say "oh yes"...and he takes the gas off my nose and puts a surgical hat over my nose so that I can breath some of my own CO2 now and stop the anxiety when I hear him puting tape over the needle and I say to him "Oh did I tell you I am allergic to paper tape?"...well no I did not.... So now I hear him taking the gloves off of his hands because he cannot get the tape off with his gloves on and well about that time I fell asleep.....I am no fun to do surgery on because I am allergic to everything.....


     You gotta just laugh at this though....because this poor surgeon is trying to do his job and encounters all this stuff that he has never had to deal with before....not that they are not used to that.....I am certain that every case is very different....but when you come across someone who is allergic to so much medication and medical items.,,,,you just have to feel sorry for this man going through this in the middle of the start of the surgery....I am allergic to 8 different things that can cause real problems in surgeries....I always have this great big red folder unlike the other people getting stuff done.    I can just see them talking about this for years....Like over drinks at the Christmas party...you know?

     Well then, eventually I wake up from this surgery and they have removed two more teeth and scraped out more of the bone again.  I cannot sit up because every time I change position from lying down to sitting up I feel like I am going to throw up.  So I am there in the office chair for hours and finally they put me into a wheel chair and roll me out and the family takes me home and I sit up all night long on the couch and puke black stuff for 11 hours....I had a double bagged grocery bags and a trash can there with me on the couch....it was just so much fun...

     When I went back in for the check up after this surgery the doctor said to me, "We sent this to the Armed Forces Unit in Bethesda Maryland for diagnosis.  I am thinking , "Good now we will get some answers."

After the illness I was singing again

     Well we did try to keep my eye tooth.  Now we had to crown the front teeth (which at this time were perfectly fine) to hold the partial in place....so the eye tooth became loose also and we had to remove it as well.  I told the doctor that I am NEVER going to puke for 11 hours again and we will have to do this with a local.  He agreed and added that now he understood my system to be one with a high metabolism and then everytime he would numb me, my body would metabolise it within the 15 minutes and I was no longer numb and he would just have to keep numbing me every 15 minutes and we would be fine and no pain for me.  He did this and we got along fine during this surgery.

  We did three surgeries, one a month, found out it was benign, found out it was not cancer but they did not know what it was...they sent my tumor(s) to the Armed Forces Unit In Bethesda, Maryland for pathology and it came back as "Histiocytosis X"...oh yeah...you guessed it...the "X" means they do not know anything about it.....

     This is a long, drawn out, very scientific illness so I will spare you the details and just tell you that I recently spoke to a pathologist about this and he informed me, once again, of how unbelievably lucky I am to be alive...!!!!! And I am sooooooo grateful to be alive...!!! They treated me like they had treated the other patients before me....Did I forget to mention how very, very rare this is.....So rare that no one is doing any research on this...And it is mostly children who get this........ And it is mostly fatal....I did however see the only specialist in the world, who happens to be right here in Florida....in Tampa at the Moffitt Cancer Center....of which I am now a proud card carrying member....

     Then, they treated me with radiation ...in massive doses .... (I will tell you this story later).... during which time if I had not spoken to my sister about this and she sent me to find a Reiki Master to help me through the treatments, I never would have made it.

     When I finally found a Reiki Master, she was also an RN and she prayed with me on the phone about my illness and explained to me that "I had to think of this treatment like God cradling my head in His Hands and it was through this treatment that He was saving my life"

     The radiation went up through my brain causing the most extreme case of anxiety the doctors had ever seen....I could not sit down or lie down or stop moving for 3 days until I drove myself to the doctor and said "get rid of this...make this stop...now" .....I lost my math functions and some of my word functions in my lexicon....The final straw was my diagnosis of PTSD.....Great!!!  Just Great....So now they decided to put me on massive doses of neurotransmitters and meds inducing them until I did nothing but sleep in my lazyboy chair for 9 months....One day I simply said ...Whoa!!! And proceeded to wean myself off of the drugs and went back to work.

     Now I became a country song.....I lost my great job because of downsizing at the company...I had lost my gig when I could not play because they were taking out part of my mouth at the oral maxillofacial surgeons office....the man I had been with for over 12 years walked out on me to another woman....and my dog died while they were radiating me....OKAY WHERE WAS THE TRAIN??? 

     Well there was no train in this song and no prison....but when you go through something like this you also have to remember that you pay for this while you are getting this or they do not do the work...So now that I had spent every last dime of my money... I had to go back to work....and I managed to get $300.00 out of my insurance companies (both of them) because the reports said tooth....even though it was the bone they were taking out..the teeth just happened to be connected to the bone.

     So now I was starting my life over....I found a job that I was on my feet 10 hours a day...I would go home at night and cry myself to sleep cause my legs hurt so bad from being in bed for 9 months and now having to stand up all day...I got over that and I got a better paying job which was horribly stressful...I learned lots of stuff though.

     A new man walked into my life and I was learning how to sail.  Thank you God.

     I am just praying that I can learn the right stuff from this experience and not have to go through it again....I am doing my best....Believe me....

     I could not even carry my brief case for awhile but I got back to where I could play and eventually carry my own equipment.  I had to keep practicing my songs until I could remember them over and over until the memories would eventually come to me.  Every day was just a little better as I worked hard to get back into shape....I had to start by exercising one minute at a time but I finally got up to an hour and off I went....Thank you again God

Pubs Are Always A Touch Classier Than Other Establishments....Plus They Have My Kind Of Beer...

     When you are out at the bar having drinks, how much of what goes on in the room do you see??

     Did you ever stop to think.....What do the musicians see all night long?? 

     We are out here doing what everybody does when they go out at night for dinner or drinks.

    While we sit here and they wait on us and bring us what we want to eat and drink and all the extras we can think of to ask for while we are there having fun drinking and dancing and eating and talking to each other and..... socializing.. ..basically.

     Now....what are the musicians doing? I hate to bust anybody's bubble but they are working.  They are doing what they do…. to the best of their abilities....for however many hours...2 or 3 or 4.      

    Sometimes they do not even take any breaks in that length of time. They just work straight through.

     Now you have to realize that according to physiologists the work a musician does on a stage is like 8 hours of work for every one hour they are on that stage...the amount of expended energy is tremendous compared to most any other kind of work, especially in that pay category.

     These people do not have a job.  They do not go to work.. They live work...they do not "do" something.  They "are" something.  Music is what they are.  They live it, breathe it, eat it, sleep it, and do it.  It is their God given talent, and if they pursue it and embellish it with many, many, many, years of perfecting their ability then they become very good at it.      

     They have given up a normal life of living in the audience where people wait on you and give what you ask for.  

     They have moved into the realm of being something.  Something God gave them, so they could “be” a musician.  And live out of the realm of the normal.  And in this different realm of frustration and emotion and thoughts put into a different language than others put their thoughts into, musicians still have to have their language understood.  So now somehow they have to also bridge the gap between their language and the other one that most people speak.

   Yet this is what musicians do....but they see everything that goes on in the establishment all night long...they may not see it with their eyes but they hear it.  This is just as good as hearing something to a blind person.... So much more is heard by a musician than a non musician...as also a blind person.  

     They hear music............and everything else.

FLYING TO BALTIMORE........WITH MY ANGEL

 Please excuse the finger on the lens...but I was just a little concerned about my flight since I had not flown in over 30 years...oh....except once in '95 when I had to fly to Europe.  But that is an entirely different experience in itself.

    This is where it all started....Notice the very busy action of the feet....I was just sitting anxiously in the airport waiting to board my flight trying to remain calm and I put my life in God's capable hands as usual....then.....I noticed a lady sitting relatively close with West Virginia printed on her carry on.....I had to make mention of it and we talked. And then it was time to board.

     My number was before hers so I got in line first.  It was not too long before I was picking out a seat on the plane.  There was a guy seated next to the window and I sat one seat over in the aisle seat because I figured....knowing me....I would be going to the ladies room, maybe even more than once....during this flight.

     Seats were narrowing down and I saw this lady I had been talking to from West Virginia board and I told her she could sit by me if she wanted....She did and we talked and kept each other calm as she does not care to fly either.  I found out her name was Janet and her husband was employed at WVU in Morgantown WV.

     We were talking and laughing and having fun.  Everyone around us was kind of just sitting there....or sleeping....or being dull.  I waited patiently to maybe purchase an alcoholic beverage in the form of an imported beer during the ride, which of course they did not have, so I passed and drank what soda they gave me or water, I do not even remember now.

     By this time Janet was getting rather airsick to her stomach and she managed to not want any of the cookies I had brought on board but she ate the little cracker things they passed out...all 1 ounce of them or maybe it was 2 ounces....it was so tiny I thought "Really! What was the point!"  But Janet seemed to need more so I gave her mine as well....and that actually got her through the trip.  She had a clear soda also to calm her stomach.

     She enjoyed looking out the window, which is something I did not plan on even thinking about doing.  The thought of it was not a good impression in my mind, but after we both got more comfortable talking and having fun, I finally looked out the window every once in awhile just to do it and get over my fear.

     When the steward eventually came around to bring us drinks we were happy to get something to quench our thirst.  Then of course they came on and said that we were encountering some turbulence.  That made the attendants sit down and there were no drinks to be served to us until the ride got settled down.

     Okay now, they did not have any kind of beer that I would enjoy and now I got nothing at all.  This did not keep us from having some chuckles to calm ourselves down.  When the flight attendant did come back around with drinks, he said that we were having entirely too much fun for a 6 AM flight.  I proceeded to tell him that we were probably the most uncomfortable people on the plane and this is how we handle it.  He was impressed.

     It had to happen eventually and now was the time.  I saw people going to the water closets they provided on board and I now had to try them for myself.  I stood up out of my seat and walked up the aisle to the door.  Once inside I found it to be quite uncomfortably small but I managed.  When I was almost done and could figure out next how to wash my hands, the door flung wide open!!!!!!....Much to my chagrin I reached out with the one hand that I was not pulling my pants up with, and grabbed the door and pulled it shut once again.

    While the door was open however, I did manage to see that the flight attendants could not see me.  And neither could the passengers see anything but my arm flying out of the door after the door had opened and grabbed it back shut.

     While I was so very happy that no one could see me with my pants down, I was still embarrassed of course and probably blushing when I finally got back to my seat.

     There was Janet lhao as they say in text land.  She told me she knew it was going to happen eventually because the light saying occupied never came on.  She knew that the door had not properly shut or locked or something and was just sitting there laughing and waiting to see the event that followed concerning the door.

    I told her how happy I was that SHE WAS HAVING SUCH A GOOD TIME AT MY EXPENSE….But I really did not care and we laughed plenty more.

     We were finally nearing our destination.  I knew we were because she had been telling me about where we were, by what the terrain looked like out the window the entire trip.  Once again I was looking out the window.

     This was getting to be rather not bad.  Then we began to circle and descend.  This was the end of my happiness.  The landing gear came down and I always hated that but I was still doing okay because we were talking and I was distracted.  Then it happened.  The whole plane started to shake, badly.  The plane shaking was like something I had never experienced on a plane.  I thought it was going to fall apart.

     Now mind you I was not afraid.  I did not think we were going to die.  But for some reason I believed the plane was literally going to fall to pieces.  It was shaking so hard.  But it was shaking like back and forth from left to right.  At least it seemed that way to me.  

     When the pilot got the plane stopped from the landing, the entire plane applauded... I was dumbfounded by the applause but so very glad to now understand that this was something that was not normal and yet it seemed that this happened once in awhile because these people were not shaken up.  They were just rewarding the pilot with their praise for getting it done with everyone still in tact, including the plane.

     This is of course what I told absolutely everyone I saw about for the next two days.  I just kept repeating the story.  I had to get used to it I guess.  I kissed the ground when I was on it again as you can see.

     I may never see Janet again but it was certainly a good experience for me, only because she was seated next to me on that plane.  And, I believe her to be one of God's angels for my flight.  Thank you God....for Janet.

Tarpon Lodge July 8th Come and Join The Festivities...

Here we go again...Sister Kaite is back at the Tarpon Lodge....

We are going to have fun so come out and join us....We cannot help but have fun out there...the food is great and the show is "Musical Mild Intelligent Humor" (and song)...come out and "Participate With Sister Kaite..." ...Enjoy  the show...with the Sister...

    Sister Kaite is there once a month and she will not let you down.  She will introduce you to new songs and happy is the mood...

You can hear The Cow Song and The Cat Song and maybe even The Circus Song if you request it.....Sister is happy to play for you and have some fun with you....you can also hear Keb Mo'...Eric Clapton...Johnny Lang...Bonnie Raitt...Delbert McClinton...and sooooo much more...find out for yourself...July 8th ..it is a Thursday and it is early enough you can make it in time for the food.

See You There...