Memories of Downton Abbey

Every time I watch Downton Abbey I am reminded that this is not the first time I have seen this series. I saw it about ten years ago, maybe more; I know it had to be an alternate universe since it is a new series, with each season being written one at a time. But, I do have memories of what has not yet happened; of Bates deciding he will not return to service at Downton, but will somehow take ownership of the shop that sold him the leg brace in order to make them himself, only better. I think while he is getting the shop running he will not let Anna know where he is, but will come back for her later. Thomas and Mrs. Obrien will both be fired. Carson is Mary's natural father. 

Today I was sitting here in my room; the one on the right side of the front from the street view, which is right next to the driveway. I heard a horrible racket outside. Ran to look, and some jerk was running from the cops and crashed his truck through my gate into Annie's travel trailer and knocked it back four feet. There was a guy running around the corner and yelled at me "Can I use your phone?" He was acting sneaky and scared; guilty. I, silly me, went in to get the phone. When I got it I realized I couldn't give it to him to run away with, so I went back out without it. The cops were at the gate. Harry and Blue were very upset so I brought them in the house. They pulled their guns and yelled toward the corner of the house, right by my window, "Get down, sir!" LOFL, sir. As they were taking him to the car he yelled at me "Tell them!" like he was mad at me. I thought about that and realized he couldn't have been the same guy that asked for my phone cuz to get to that side of the house he would have had to jump my back fence, Peggy's fence, and back over her fence again on the front side. I told the cops this and one said, "Here, let me tell you something and see if you want to stick with that. The first time I saw this guy was at a stop sign. We were both stopped and I looked right at him. This is the guy. He was alone. Now, if we find out that you are making this up to help the guy, it's perjury". 
This pissed me off very much, but I just said I'm not lying. I had already had the guys in vests go check the garage for the other guy. Also, one pole on the back side fence was bent, with no tire tracks, but a kinda heavy black plastic box, you know one of those insulated ones. Anyway, not heavy enough to bend a fence post if thrown, unless thrown by something with a lot of force behind it. Weird, huh? One lady cop pissed me off, telling me she wouldn't take my statement as long as I was smoking. #### her. I talked to the guys. One little trainee type asked me for my birthday and SS number and phone number. I was a little bit outraged and said "Am I a SusPect!!??" He was so nice and young; poor puppy. 

Trudy

What to do?

After a couple of weeks (I don't know) the family needed to get home so Mother and i had to decide what we were going to do. Wayne screamed at Bev that Bakersfield was no place for Mother. Jeff felt that Hot Springs wouldn't be good for us as I would need help with Mother and they were so busy all the time. I thought it would be best for her and the family if she were in California so they could come see her more often. Told her she needed to get out here as her kids were getting old and she'd want to see them before they started kicking the bucket. ;) The best way for her to travel, if we decided to go to California, was with Bev and George in their MH. To make a long story short, she said she wanted to go, then she didn't, then she did but that was the day after they left so Wayne came and got us in Henry's van. He had a bed made in the back for us so she'd be comfortable traveling. Riding back there was fine, but getting her in and out was a chore for her.

At Flagstaff we stopped for the night. They told us we were in room 16. Went there and it was a storage room. Mother could hardly walk but we made it to the right room after being sent back and forth a few times. It was cold and windy too. The transmission went out while we wer there so Wayne got on a bus and went home to get his Jeep. Poor Mother was not feeling at all well while we waited and just slept most of the time. Couldn't get her to eat. Once Wayne got back and we got on the road again she felt a bit better.

We stayed with Renee until October when Wayne found us this house. The owners knew him so didn't have to do a check on us and only asked for first and deposit. They are really nice and keep the place fumigated. I love them. :)

On the 25th I went to Jamestown for the memorial Mark's family held for him. I think all of them that I know were there. Patty had a screensaver on her TV that was a slide show of Mark and a full sized picture of him on one of the doors. It was hard seeing him standing there looking so cute; knowing I could never hug him again.

After I got back Mother started having one health problem after another and the doctors kept changing her medicine and she just got worse and worse until taking her back to the hospital didn't help. It was congestive heart failure. Hospice set her up with a hospital bed and other accessories we needed to take care of her at home. Bev and George came back down. Leah caught a train, and Brenda flew out. When Brenda got here she went over and said "Hi Mother." Mother said, "Well, who are you?" Brenda said "Oh, Mother, don't you know me?" "Well, I might have an idea." she twinkled. We lost her in her sleep on the 29th of October. Just a little over a month before her 99th birthday.

I still haven't taken it in that she's really gone. She never was gone before; she was just somewhere else. I miss her very much. Nobody ever loved her kids and grandkids more than Mother did; especially when she was younger before she had hundreds of them.

About my status update

Trudy Fuller Caswell

I believe we are spiritual beings, as are dogs, trees, and rocks - that we are all part of each other and of the earth. We are god. I'll pray for us/me.

 ·  · Share · 8 hours ago near Bakersfield · 

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    Jerry Hendrix I don't mind being your cousin, but I am not your dog's cousin. Rocks are for braking or throwing, but I'm not going to love one or marry one.
    

    8 hours ago · 
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    Trudy Fuller Caswell They haven't proposed yet.
    

    7 hours ago ·  ·  1
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    Brenda Fuller Shriver The feelings are undoubtedly reciprocal. lmao
    

    7 hours ago · 
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    Jeff Fuller-Freeman Jerry, maybe the right dog just hasn't come along yet.
    

    7 hours ago ·  ·  1
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    Brenda Fuller Shriver rofl Jeff!
    

    7 hours ago · 
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    Delete CommentMark as Spam

    Marie Shriver i thought he was only excluding rocks from the marriage field? and was just stating he's not related to trudys dog? so no marrying dogs either?
    

    7 hours ago · 
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    Trudy Fuller Caswell If I ever marry again, I'd prefer a dog, a rock, or a tree, to a man.
    

    7 hours ago ·  ·  1
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    Delete CommentMark as Spam

    Marie Shriver i knew a woman i was related to would soon make that statement trudy!
    

    6 hours ago · 
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    Trudy Fuller Caswell What will the next one say?
    

    5 hours ago · 

I actually hoped my status update would have triggered a discussion that would save the world.  I'm buzzing with having figured out what I believe and why. I know I'm slow, but I'm coming from a much farther place than many of you; you know, having been a churchgoer all through my formative years, and being conditioned to respond to christian triggers through music, bible "stories", socializing with others who discuss why this one is the only true faith (how special we are), and being asked to help out with this or that that will do somebody some good. It's a social club; a bar without the hangover.

 I am almost giddy though, with having reconciled with myself. It's like being born again ;). My emotions were always so invested in believing, that even after I knew I didn't believe it, still the brainwashing made it hard, scary, sad. Finally, I got through to myself for good when trying to label myself. Not atheist. Not agnostic. Theist seems so distant and empty and doesn't mean much of anything anyway.

PS. It may seem simple and obvious to some, but it only recently hit me that admiring and agreeing with Jesus does not mean I'm a believer, doesn't mean he was god, or half god or third god or the son of god. It does not mean Mary was a virgin. It doesn't even matter if he really said what he said; the words attributed to him in his "golden rule" are what matter about him. Be good to each other pretty much sums it up as far as I can tell. It does not mean the bible is god's word except in the sense that all of us and everything together are god's body, so whoever the people that wrote the bible were, they were part of us/god.


4/18/12
Well, I had completely forgotten about the above, but I was just on my way here to talk about how at first giving up religion was an emotional experience, or anyway the emotional aspect of it, the lightness of facing myself as I am, not as one who should be something else in order to further the goals of the supreme master of the universe. When I was still overcoming the programming, hemming and hawing in my head, back and forth, and evolution came up I would get hung up on whether or not reconciliation was possible between the two camps. Even though I watched some documentaries and read a bit about evolution, it somehow didn't seem all that interesting or important. I'm thinking that one of the blocking devices Christianity uses must have been preventing me from seeing the incredible beauty and awesome wonder of evolution.

Now, thinking about DNA and the information it is supplying and how lucky we are to live in a time when this is all new, and coincidentally, to be finally, thoroughly, cured of religion is really a great experience.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

January 27th Mark was laid off from his trucking job. February 27th his insurance was canceled. March 1st he started projectile vomiting. Finally on the 3rd he agreed to go to the doctor. Double diabetes! 637 blood sugar. Hospitalized for five days. He'd been having symptoms for a couple of months but when I suggested it might be diabetes he insisted it could not be. He believed in magic and jinxes; thought denial would work.

Big bills. No job.

I need to find a way to make some money without leaving the house as Mother needs me to prepare her meals and help her take a shower and so on.

My niece in law makes good money online from home, but the company she is associated with doesn't need any new agents at this time. So, I've been trying to find one that I can trust that will trust me. It's rough out there.

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November '09

Finally working; contracted with LiveOps doing telephone sales by phone and internet. It was pretty frustrating at first. My agent helper always answered every question I put to her with a canned answer, which I had already found on the faqs page, but which stopped short of answering me. Then when working the agents who were there to help on the spot were just as likely to give me bad info as not. It did encourage me to attend the conference/training calls. Those agenst who ran that couldn't give me a canned answer and be done with it. After a month or so I was doing very well, and was invited to work dedicated lines, which also paid bonuses. It was the best paying and easiest job I ever had. The callers were almost all nice and friendly and some were a lot of fun. Of course, I couldn't have too much fun as the calls were supposed to be done within 20 minutes. Hah.

After about three months of it I started having coughing fits right in the middle of one of my speils and would have to ask the caller to hang up and hit redial to talk to another agent. My voice started getting tired too. I've since learned that is called "vocal fatigue". Each day I had to work less and less until the last day I worked I was only able to do it for about 20 minutes.

Finally, in March '10 I gave up and went to the doctor. Emphysema she said after looking at the exray. I don't know what she said after that, except I thought she said something about my heart. Great.

Thank goodness for our families. They helped us through so many hard times; don't know how we would have made it without them.