It's Been an Honor

This day is Erev Yom Kippur, (Yom Kippur Eve,) usually commemorated with two festive meals, the giving of charity, and asking others for forgiveness. This is to ask YOUR forgiveness for not explaining why all of my pings have stopped without anyone knowing why.

I wouldn't exactly call this a 'vanity', more like an explanation and apology to all of you who have added your names to any of my lists for why you don't get those oh, so many pings anymore.

Below is what this post started as. And THIS is how it ended. I figured it was better to show you *what only ywp pr three [ep[;e a;ready know than tp have you thonl I just qioy/>[?

Paet od this post is comp;etely unedited and pitposefully so. It's to show you as best I ca hy O dpm't [pst very ,uch any,ore.

Ihave ;pst ,ost comyro; pf ,y ,pypr skills and my eyesught is fokkowing very closely/ Both are failing and tryong to pst even one line takes amywjere frpm 20 ,imutes to hald an hour and stil has ty[ps even though I thinl it looks all right. It is frusteating amd embarrassing, nit I don't want anyobe to thiml I a, ignorong or disinterested becaise nothing could be further fro, the truth.

The illness conbomed woth a ,addive quantity of frigs has made ,y duslexoa nearly i,possible to cope with. Sometines I will type the same wrong letter three or fpir ti,es before I get iy roght and I odten end up in tears.

So you see. O do SO apologize if I have let you sowm or goven the ompression that just stopped caring. O woll never stop carong.

Thanl you and please don't stop pinging me to articles of interest. U read them all at 150 ,agnification,

U started this post at 2:-- AM pm the dot/ Oy is npw 2:30 and I am gpog tp edot ot.

Part of this post is completely unedited and purposefully so. It's to show you as best I can why I don't post very much anymore.

I have lost lost control of my motor skills and my eyesight is following very closely. Both are failing and trying to post even one line takes anywhere from 20 minutes to half an hour and still has typos even though I think it looks all right. It is frustrating and embarrassing, but I don't want anyone to think I am ignoring or disinterested because nothing could be further from the truth.

The illness combined with a massive quantity of drugs has made my dyslexia nearly impossible to cope with. Sometimes I will type the same wrong letter three or four times before I get it right and I often end up in tears.

So you see. I do SO apologize if I have let you down or given the impression that I just stopped caring. I will never stop caring.

Thank you, and please don't stop pinging me to articles of interest. I read them all at 150 magnification.

I started this post at 2:00 AM on the dot. It is now 3:20 and I edited it but I have to add something. (Editing as I go now.)

When this first started, and the posts were really screwed up even after I had edited them, I would ask the mods, who I am so grateful to, to pull them and sometimes they were gone before I even got back to the page. Thank you, Mods. I realized I couldn't keep doing that for long. The Mods aren't babysitters and they have more important things to do than stop me from embarrassing myself.

The final kicker though, was a Freepmail I sent to Brad's Gramma. She sent it back to me and said it was the first good laugh she had had all day. When I saw what I had sent, I was beside myself. She understood it, but I don't know how. And that was the end mostly.

I have several rather large ping lists and would be extremely grateful if someone could take one or two and get the word out. Please Freepmail me if you would. I will give the links and graphics and explain how to keep the indexes right with the links. Anything I can do to help, I will...gladly.

Tomorrow is Yom Kippur and I will be offline all day from sundown today. May G-d hear my prayers.

Sent to all lists. You are not required to read or respond in any way. Honest.
Before anything else, thank you everyone for the prayers and good wishes and advice on this thread. I know most of you have been through some scarey times and worse, so I appreciate this all the more. Thank you all again.
And now I HAVE to tell you one more story and ...(OH NO, YOU SAY, BUT BEAR WITH ME HERE.) This will close this chapter of The Perils of MestaMachine.
Wben I was a little kid, my godfather had a TV repair shop near my house with a two burner cookstove in the back. One day I walked in and smelled something fantastic cooking .
In a giant skillet, he was frying a ton of ground beef,onions, and butter, and on the other burner was a pot full of boiling macaroni. He said it was a secret, magic recipe, but if I wanted some, he’d teach me the magic ingredient and I could even sprinkle it on all by myself.
It was fun and of course I wanted to learn the magic. He drained the macaroni and poured it all into the skillet and then he handed me a pepper mill and showed me how to use it and THAT was fun...the magic ingredient...black pepper while saying abra cadabra.
He mixed it all together and told me to put some more on and not to forget the magic word. He mixed it and looked at it, smelled it, and said it wasn’t enough yet.
After that, he ground enough pepper to turn the entire top black. It tickled my nose but I was starving, It smelled so good. He mixed it all together again, said the magic word, and put the lid on with the stove off and we just waited.
And suddenly he decided time was up and pulled the lid off and OMG. My mouth was watering and I watched him put a couple of little spoonfuls into a bowl and hand it to me while he filled a dinner plate for himself and dug in. Looked at his. Looked at mine. And he looked over at me out of the corner of his eye while I filled a fork full and jammed it in my mouth.
Stunned is not the word. I gasped and couldn’t hardly breathe. He laughed and kept eating. Said it was the magic working. Slowly, I took another small bite. Then another. aSKED FOR MORE and ate it all.
For the rest of my life, every time I made that macaroni recipe without the pepper, without fail, I would HAVE to pour pepper on at least a plateful and say the ‘magic’ word.
Pepper otherwise was just for sunnyside up eggs. I never used pepper on anything else except on rare occasions.
Why am I telling you this?
About a week before they postponed my first check-in date for the hospital, I started craving Walt’s Magic Macaroni. I just couldn’t find the energy to make it. The craving was so strong, I dreamed about it.
Hardraade knows this is true because every day I would tell him that as soon as I could, I was going to make some...and he would laugh.
4 AM one night I couldn’t stand it anymore and decided if it was the last thing I ever did, I was having me some of Walt’s macaroni. And I did. I made a whole deep chicken fryer skillet full to the brim, separated out a decent container full for Vaeh, then covered mine with enough pepper to choke a horse. I ate like a starved beast and the skilletfull didn’t have a dent in it. I ate it every day for breakfast, lunch, dinner, in between, early, late, kept adding more and more pepper. Then it was gone...and I was still craving pepper. So I made the biggest soup pot I had of homemade chickensoup. Same deal except I added pepper almost after every spoonful.
Noticed I still had to go to the bathroom, but not as often and it didn’t hurt so much, but it was still loose. The nausea was minimal, and I could handle it.
My legs were a severe problem. Times I could barely walk. The swelling was painful and so frustrating and after doing some research, I decided that the lasix I was taking was dehydrating me to the point that my muscles were swelling to try and grab as much water as they could. I stopped taking it completely.
STILL craving pepper, I made a huge tupperware bowl of potato salad and pepper, pepper, pepper. Had dressing left when almost all the potatoes were gone so made more macaroni, added some tuna fish, and kept eating.
The pepper craving was still with me, and having stopped taking the lasix, my hands and legs started feeling a whole lot better AND the bathroom trips became more infrequent and nowhere near as loose. Pepper on everything and that is the way I was when I finally went to the hospital a month or so later.
Today I dumped pepper on beets and everything else that went into my mouth. Oodles of noodles is a staple ‘round here...and I spent a good part of the day researching pepper and its relatives. Some of you probably already know about the attributes of pepper, but I didn’t. Surprised the heck out of me.
The REAL miracle was how I started craving Walt’s Magic Mac and the strong insistence that I simply HAD to have it no matter what. Walt, whose magic lives long after his death, and G-d’s allowing me to hear his message. I think it saved my life...proving once again that G-d does indeed work in mysterious ways.
I still have a long way to go to win this war, but with G-d’s help and you guys in my corner, one battle at a time works for me.
If you made it all the way through this, thank you. If you didn’t, thank you anyway. For everything.
You aren’t likely to see a post this long from me for a while. This took hours and hours. Dang.

Without further adieu, allow me to present
tada
PEPPER
http://suite101.com/a/the-top-ten-health-benefits-of-black-pepper-a193900

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.