Wal-Mart. The Chart House Restaurant. Emmy Awards.

Last Saturday, I felt boring as if I have had no plans but yesterday I had a fun.

Yesterday afternoon, I went to do a grocery at Wal-Mart.  I asked Wal-Mart employee if she has a new battery to be exchanged for my watch cuz I discovered my watch was not working that afternoon before I left home.  But she said Wal-Mart doesn't have one.  I was disappointed but I think I forgot about it.  I had to buy a different size of battery for my small wireless clock.that I could put in my bathroom.  And then I went on to buy more food until I've decided I am finished.

When Mom and I arrived home in her car that late Sunday afternoon, I got unexpected plans.  Joe made me staying in the car and wanted to take me out to eat.  I was surprised.  That was so unexpected.  I didn't know what he has in his mind.  We went to The Chart House, an expensive seafood restaurant in Daytona Beach.  The Chart House is located on the Halifax River surrounding by many boats everywhere and between 2 condos.  I had been there few times but not much.  That was a long time ago.  The last time I went there was in the Winter of 2005 or 2006.  I recall Joe brought his guests and our parents to celebrate my birthday there but it was belated.  Anyways, the outside that night looks shining and beautiful and quiet.  Joe and I were talked on other things personally.  Our food was so delicious.  I ordered coconut shrimps with rices but this food look so big.  Wow!  I had a salad from the bar before the dinner arrives.  I took this meal to home so Dad can have it cuz I know he would like it very much.

Did u watch Emmy Awards show last night?  I missed watching the first of 3 hours Emmy Awards show that night cuz we were about coming home from a trip to the restaurant in Daytona Beach.  I was looking at Joe's watch by checking out what time while I was at the restaurant.  I realized I am going to miss watching it.  I can't wait to get home but I've got to be patient.  After I got home from a trip to Wal-Mart where Joe had to buy a cologne for Dad, I am so glad that "Recount" won an award.  I haven't seen it but I will rent that DVD movie one day when I have time.  I really wanted to see it badly.  I can't believe Tina Fey won 3 awards.  Tina looks so pretty and sexy but much alike Sarah Palin, Vice President hopeful.  LOL!  Tina is so funny when she played Sarah Palin on SNL. on "TODAY" show.  She dressed up so nicely in it next to Hillary Clinton.  Wow, so many awards went to "John Adams".  I want to see that DVD movie, too.

Meet Carole Rome, Florida Governor Crist's Fiancee

Florida Gov Crist and his fiancee, Carole Rome

We know about our Florida Governor, Charlie Crist, as being a bachelor until last July when we found out he's engaged to a businesswoman from New York City.  Actually, we also found out Crist got a new girlfriend before that.  Wow, I can't believe it.  Crist had been a bachelor for about 30 years after his first marriage was failed.  He's from St. Petersburg.  We were surprised to find out his engagement.  I read an article about Carole Rome in the Local section in my hometown's newspaper last Monday.  It's an interest to get to know who Carole Rome is.  She's very pretty and smart.  Here is a copy from St. Petersburg Times online that date Sunday July 13, 2008 I found:

The governor had the evening planned.

He bought the ring on a Wednesday from a jeweler near Publix in northeast St. Petersburg. He took his date to Ceviche on Beach Drive that evening, and outside were the city lights and the warm breeze off the bay. They would eat tapas and stroll to his apartment, where the 51-year-old bachelor would ask the woman to marry him.

But alas, a couple who live in his building saw them, said hello, and asked if they'd like to come up and watch the Rays play the Red Sox.

The governor did not get his job by disappointing people, so he and his date watched the Rays come from behind with six runs in the seventh inning. By the time it was over, proposing marriage didn't feel quite right.

He waited till morning. She was sitting on the couch when he took a seat beside her.

He checked the clock: a few minutes before 11.

Nine months earlier, they met at an Italian restaurant in New York; five months earlier, he introduced the mystery woman publicly as "my girlfriend."

That morning, July 3, she saw that he was holding a small box. He opened it. She smiled.

With a word — Yes! — Carole Rome became Florida's first fiancee, the curiosity of a state.

Roslyn, N.Y., is picturesque suburbia, sandwiched between Manhattan grit and Hamptons glamor. Strip mall marquees have gold-leafing. Fancy restaurants look like Grandma's house. Even the liquor store has charm.

Roslyn was home to writer Michael Crichton and former Vermont first lady Judith Steinberg Dean.

It was home to Carole Rome, now 38.

She was the last of five babies born to Bob and Margaret Oumano. Carole was a sweet child with pretty brown eyes who toddled around in pink sundresses. She was doted on, captured in photos her older sister showed off at summer camp.

"I was very proud of her," said Michele Oumano Powell, 51.

Bob Oumano operated his father's gag gift business. He loaded boxes and crunched numbers. He pitched hooting owls and whoopee cushions to novelty shops, hoping they'd carry his stock. His kids helped; tales swirl that a young Carole drove the forklift in his warehouse.

He brought home samples — the girls especially loved plastic Hope diamond rings. But at home after his long commute, Bob had little energy for banana peel slapstick.

"We used to call him the unconscious comedian, because he'd make jokes when he didn't even realize," said Carole's sister. "He wasn't really the practical joke type who was testing out new products at home. He worked hard."

At Roslyn High, Carole cheered for the varsity squad in her sweater vest and shoe poms. She made honor society. She had big bangs and 1980s power curls.

She wrote cryptic notes under her 1987 senior yearbook picture — WOW!WhatATrip! RHShasNEverSeen Such A WildBunch!... Mom&Dad:Thx4Evrythg-URThe Best!LY!

She left for Georgetown University, unsure what to become. She earned a business and accounting degree, graduating with honors. She moved to Manhattan to start her career, and in 1993 married Todd Rome, now president of a private jet company, Blue Star Jets. Three years later, they had their first daughter, Jessica. In 1998, they had Skylar.

Carole juggled family life with work. She was an auditor at an accounting firm. She didn't love it. She worked in high-end real estate. She didn't love it.

Her father, ailing from heart problems, wanted Carole to run the family business, Franco American Novelty Co. She was dynamic and high energy. She was the baby. She could carry on the legacy.

Bob Oumano died in 2000. Before, he gave the family his blessing to take the company in a new direction, focused on costumes.

Carole dived in. She invented a slogan: "Where Fashion Meets Halloween." She designed figure-flattering costumes, including a red goddess dress. A sequined child's devil outfit became a top seller.

Dressed exquisitely in suits, she strutted into the company's modest office in Glendale, a quirky Queens neighborhood surrounded by cemeteries. She got her hands dirty, unpacking boxes. Once, while feet of snow fell outside, she stayed overnight working out finances.

"She'll get you motivated," said David Arce, Franco's warehouse manager. "On days that were real hot, she'd say, 'Go get ice, get sodas, get water. … Get the air-conditioning on, buy fans.' Anything to keep the morale going."

Under her lead, the company turned in record profits.

Her life outside was lavish. She and Todd Rome owned homes all over New York City. They built a townhouse on Manhattan's exclusive Upper East Side. They had a 10,000-square-foot vacation home in Southampton. Carole decorated it with a palette of pale blue, white and silver.

The couple threw fundraisers for the Red Cross and other charities, raising thousands of dollars by auctioning trips, cruises, jewelry, paintings, a Gucci bag, a diamond bracelet.

Carole hobnobbed with Tommy Hilfiger, John McEnroe, Patty Smyth, Kelly Clarkson, the Hilton family. She appeared in the society pages wearing flowing baby doll dresses she designed with Erisa Dilo, design director at Franco.

"She loves custom-made dresses," Dilo said. "She loves Roberto Cavalli, which is also my favorite designer, which I think is why Carole and I click. That's why when I design for her, she loves it."

She frequented Nobu, a New York restaurant co-owned by Robert De Niro, and Pink Elephant, a bar that offers Krug Clos du Mesnil champagne for $2,100. She had her long, wavy hair styled on Madison Avenue.

• • •

The governor and his fiancee sit for an interview in a comfy poolside room on a private island south of Miami Beach, where the sand is imported from the Bahamas and caged toucans squawk under a giant banyan tree. You can reach Fisher Island only by boat, helicopter or ferry, and according to the 2000 census, its 1,400 residents had the highest per capita income in the United States.

Carole Rome has a 3,690-square-foot, $4.1-million condo.

She moved from New York to Florida with her children in 2006, when her marriage was in trouble.

"In a million years, I never understood why she wanted to move out of New York, except for what she said, which is, she wanted a simpler life for her children," said Carole's friend Jill Zarin, a cast member on the Bravo reality series The Real Housewives of New York City. "She wanted to slow down, which is funny, because now she's on a treadmill."

In their Florida divorce file, Todd Rome alleges that Carole took the kids to Miami without his blessing, lured him to Florida to work out the marriage — and then served him with divorce papers.

He says Carole became inexplicably unhappy with their $6-million Upper East Side townhouse. She wasn't happy with any of their homes, he says.

"No sooner was a new home built, bought or rented, but that defendant became dissatisfied with it," Todd Rome says in the records. "In the first 11 years of our marriage, we lived for an average period of one to two years in a succession of no less than five apartments and three houses. … We also have had a total of four vacation houses in the Hamptons."

Todd Rome, who is now engaged to be married, did not return calls for an interview.

As news of the divorce spread through society circles, so did whispers that he couldn't abide Carole's spending. The society press delighted in the rumor.

"That's just gossip," said Zarin. "The truth is, I like to shop, so do you; everyone likes to shop. She gives a lot of money to charity. … She doesn't just write a check. She does a lot of the work at these events. Carole Rome has no problem rolling up her sleeves."

• • •

Florida's wedding of the year will most likely be in the spring. The newlyweds will divide their time among Fisher Island, Crist's rented condo in St. Petersburg, and the Governor's Mansion in Tallahassee. Carole and her former husband share custody of their children, according to Todd Rome's lawyer. They go to a private school in Miami.

"The girls are wonderful," Crist said, "and I think the world of them and I look forward to spending a lot of time with them."

In the hourlong interview on Fisher Island, Crist and his fiancee never stop touching. He rubs her hands and her back and her shoulders. She squeezes his thigh and stares at his face.

"We just kind of hit it off from the get-go," he says. "It was classic."

They met in late September, when mutual friends got them together to talk about GOP fundraising at an Italian restaurant in New York, a romantic place called Campagnola, on the Upper East Side. They sat next to each other.

She thought he was handsome and sincere. He thought she was beautiful, sweet, smart.

They talked about politics and sports. They hit a club after dinner and listened to music. They ended the night with a kiss. She gave him her number, told him to call.

The next day, he had to deliver a lecture at Bill Clinton's Global Climate Initiative, but he couldn't get the woman out of his head.

Crist was faced with the most human of challenges: How long should I wait before I call?

He saw her again that Friday, at a fundraiser in South Florida.

There was an immediate connection.

"I felt it," he says.

"I did, too," she says.

"She was so friendly, so sweet, and so knowledgeable about a lot of stuff," he says. "It was very nice to find someone so beautiful, so brilliant, and so sweet as well. So I fell in love."

"I find him to be the most handsome man," she says. "I just so enjoyed his personality, his charm, his grace, his goodness."

They began seeing each other more regularly, and the news media eventually caught on. But the girlfriend remained mostly a mystery.

• • •

"We're not identical," the governor says, "but I've never met someone more like myself in a woman than Carole."

This from a man known for eating one meal a day, a man who rents an apartment and carries no credit card debt, a man whose entire net worth — $457,262 — might not be enough to buy him a nice condo in any of the neighborhoods his fiancee is used to living in. Is this a case of opposites attracting?

"My parents were very simple people," she says, "and always instilled that in their children, and I always valued that. And that really is my core and my roots. Meeting Charlie, and seeing the life of a public servant and somebody who's so selfless and is not driven by material things and by money, and is so simple and so humble and so pure, was really something that was very attractive to me, and it reminded me very much of my upbringing."

She says Crist has changed her. "Maybe it's more accurate to say I'm getting back to my roots and my solid foundation of who I really am and what's really important in life," she says.

So was hobnobbing with the rich and famous insincere?

"I don't have any regrets whatsoever," she says. "I think in life it's important to experience all things. But at the end of the day you need to come to terms with who you are and what really fulfills you and inspires you, and I have found great inspiration and fulfillment through Charlie."

She says she loves St. Petersburg. She loves eating shrimp salad at Fish Tales and dining at Fred's at the Vinoy and going out on Crist's boat on Tampa Bay.

"I find it to be the most beautiful, wholesome, wonderful community," she says. "I love St. Petersburg."

"Can't beat the 'burg," Crist says.

Crist has heard skeptics say his wedding proposal was politically motivated. He has heard the speculation that he's marrying to make himself a more appealing vice presidential candidate. He says those people are wrong.

"It's all about being in love with Carole."

They stand, hold hands, walk outside near the pool. Pausing in front of a bougainvillea, they embrace. Then, as a photographer snaps pictures, they kiss.

Visiting A Doctor For A Follow-Up Appt. Riding In A Scooter in Our Neighborhood Area.

Yesterday, I went to see my new doctor, Dr. G., in South Daytona for a follow-up appt.  Dr. G. suggested I should walk more time.  He told me the water kept flowing down into both of my legs and feet inside cuz they keep getting swollen increasing and decreasing repeatly and I sit in the chair too long.  I didn't know how the water got into them.  I don't understand it.  The water should be back up into my body.  My legs and feet should be squeezing when I am wearing a brace and walking with a walker.  This morning, I noticed my legs are about getting better but not my feet yet.  However, about my brace that I wore yesterday, Dr. G. prescribed me to get my brace replacing cuz it's too big and heavy due to weight loss.  I drag my leg when I walk and sit on the bed.  It's hard.  Either of my family members help me to move my right leg to get into the car when I get in it.  I will have an appt with the brace people in Daytona Beach on Tues. Sept 23rd.  I will ask for a lightweight.  Anyways, Dr. G. is so funny and tries to learn a sign lanugage from me little bit.  He talked to my mother more than me.  I am confused by what he said to my mother.  And then we left when we finished discussing with Dr. G.

Joe and Mom wanted to stop by at a health food store on the way back to home from a trip to my doctor's office.  I waited inside the car and read a book while they shop.

I sometimes go out in riding a scooter in our neighborhood area.  I had a fun.  I feel better.  Before I moved into a madison a month ago, I felt trapping stay inside my apt cuz the doorway has a step.  There was no way out.  It's hard for me without enjoying outside when the weather turns pleasant.  I guess I was indisposed.  But right now, I find my way out successfully. 

One Sunday last week, while I was riding in a scooter outside, I spotted a turtle on the curb behind some trees.  I was dismayed to see what a turtle is doing.  I figured it's dead as if it can't be movable at all.  I noticed his left arm looks like a stiff, maybe it's broken but I don't know.  Both of his eyes look wide as a frozen.  Poor turtle.  I don't know what happened to it.  I also noticed many insects like tiny ants may be hungry for it as if they smell a food.  I guess the turtle was about getting out of the curb into the road but he stopped traveling anymore.  I don't want to touch the turtle cuz it's a dirty and it could be a germ.  Yuck!  This past week, I was searched for a dead turtle as my parents' car passing by but I figured it already disappeared.  Somebody took it but I don't know what he or she is doing with a turtle.

Surprise! A 1945 Newspaper Photograph of My Late Uncle, Richard, As A Young Boy Scout.

Now I finally have time to show you a 1945 newpaper photograph of my late uncle, Richard, as a young Boy Scout.  Yes, Uncle Richard was a celebrity back then.  My S.F. cousin, Jeanne, sent that picture to us in an e-mail after she and other relatives found it while going through Richard's memorabilia.  I told you about Richard in another blog 2 months ago, remember?  This picture was taken at the funeral of FDR in Washington, D.C.  Jeanne was told by Richard, her father, that he was worried that this black woman was in such grief that she was going to faint or fall and he moved up close, ready to hold her up.  See it below.

.Here is a picture of Uncle Richard as a young Boy Scout and a black woman:

LOOK magazine printed it in 1960.

If you are planning go on a vacation in Washington, D.C. in the future and on a tour at FDR Memorial site, that picture is on the display there.  Surprise, huh?

See a link, "In The Memory of Uncle Richard 1st of Part 3" if you wants or miss reading this July blog.  Uncle Richard passed away on July 15th, 2008.

At The Madison. Sorenson VP. The Program In My Computer.

I finally have time to do blogging the subject.  The reason I haven't doing it is that both of my legs and feet are swollen and needed a prop up and rest first.  The medication my new doctor, Dr. G. prescribed me is not working so I am going to see him tomorrow morning for an appt.

My oldest brother, Joe, kept changing my doctor's appt twice.  I don't like that.  Last week, Joe promised me he won't be changing it again.  I hope.  If Joe did it, I will going to be mad at him.  Mom understood how I feel about Joe's changing plans.  He's always to do that alot.  That's who he is.

I feel I am almost ready to invite my own guests over to my bedroom.  It looks much better but it's not finishing yet.  My bedroom closet is straightened out by a help from Joe's male employee, Kenny, today.  Thank God.  Whew!  It was so MESS before!  I can't do them all myself cuz I am disabled.  I could be wiping out if no one is helping me!  Some of furntiure were moved out of my bedroom cuz the space is not enough for me to move around and too crowded.  I don't need them.  My new bed looks huge than I had in my apartment before.  It looks like a queen but somewhat a king.  Previous owners gave it to me.  It's including beautiful bed items.  It's very comfortable.  Also, a new white dresser with mirror and bedside table and a couch.

Soon, Kenny will build some ramps for me at the madison.  Some ramps should be building at the living room, outside the front doors, and at the window door in my bedroom on the way to the swimming pool outside.

I did go swimming at our pool on Labor Day but it was late in the afternoon.  I had a fun.  I wanted to go back swimming last Sunday Sept 14th but it's too late in afternoon cuz Joe had to take a nap first when he returned from a trip to church and I thought the weather outside looked like it's going to rain but I was wrong.  I like going to swim early.  Mom knows that.

I am still waiting to hear from Sorenson Videophone.  I contaced it in the website yesterday late afternoon so that company will send an employee to help me with my videophone.  I am ready to get someone to reinstall it for me.

I need ur help, please.  I am confused.  I have problems with videos and sideshows in my computer.  Do u know what those are?  Videos and sideshows in some websites look blank since my computer fixed a month ago.  I don't understand what's wrong with them.  I can't figure it out.  I tried Flash Player 9 but I still have it and it doesn't work (Sigh).

I am thinking about going to buy a different antivirus program.  The firewall in my old program don't work, NOT in Window XP.  I don't like firewall cuz it's bothering and confusing me if a person knows how to use it with high IQ.  I wish an info in Firewall could be an easy for me to understand if I am a deaf.  Firewall have a program including with antivirus and spyware.  I will get rid of an old program when I buy a different one.

Deaf Club

I had a wonderful time last Saturday.  I left home that middle afternoon when my bus arrived to pick me up on time.  Thank goodness, I needed to get out of house.  Before that, I felt boring and had nothing to do.

I went back to the deaf club at Easter Seals in Daytona Beach again since last winter.  I had a meeting there that Saturday afternoon.  I was glad to see deaf people and a hearing interpeter again.  Some of them haven't noticed my hair changing!  I was shocked that nobody said anything about my new color hair and haircut.  We were discussed issues and events.  During the meeting, I noticed the Pizza Hut deliveryman had just arrived there on time early and I had to get out of the room and talked to that delivery guy.  I am the one who ordered the pizza before I left home but actually, Dad called Pizza Hut for me at home and checked out how much cost the pizza is.  I wrote down the paper that tells him what I want.  What I wanted is a medium pepperoni with topping pineapples pizza.  The reason I ordered it is that Dad can't bring supper to me after the meeting cuz he's an old man.  Anyways, I paid the pizza myself and gave the guy a tip and then went back to the room.  I can't wait to eat pizza until the meeting is over!  I did eat 3 slices of pizza after the meeting.  Yummy!  I felt so good eating them.  When I decided eating enough them, I shared 5 slices of pizza with other deaf people but through out the night, there were only 3 slices of pizza leftover so I took a box of pizza to home after the game is over.  After I finished eating some of pizza, I bought a small plate of 2 chocolate chips cookies and went outside cuz the A.C. made me cold inside the building of Easter Seals.  That bothered me but I forgot.  Anyways, I enjoyed eating cookies outside.  Those cookies taste so good.  Yummy!  Several minutes later, I went back inside to sign in and pay the game.  We were playing Bingo through out the night but I did not win.  And the door prize but I did not win again.  Dad picked me up on time early after the game is finished.  I found out my bus service is closed at 6 pm cuz of the location when I called it on my TTY 2 days before.  I can't believe it.  That's why I moved to a new home in another area.  And then I went home with my Dad.

Hurricanes. The Printer. My New Doctor.

Hello!  Sorry, I have been busy.  I had one setback.  Few times Joe, my oldest brother, wanted to use my computer for typing letters and e-mails to people he have a business with.

I hear Hurricane Hanna is passing by my hometown now but good news that storm is staying away from the shore.  I am seeing the wind outside my house.  It's coming from Hanna.  I can tell that.  Rain all day.  Beaches have a big problem for city leaders.  Hanna will head to Carolinas when it upgrades.  There is another hurricane on the way, Ike.  Ike is a powerful and dangerous.  Also, it will may go to Key West.  Good news is that Ike keeps changing the path from north of Florida to south.  Hopefully.  Cross my fingers.  Residents of Key West will get bad news when they hear about Ike.  Florida Governor Crist declares a state of emergency.  Josephine, another hurricane, is still in Atlantic Ocean.

I had one setback.  My printer that is connecting to a computer broke last Wednesday morning.  It was 4 yrs old. The movable paper stopped as it was about finishing.  I didn't find out what's wrong with my printer until yesterday when Joe and I went back to the repair shop where my computer was at before.  After we stopped by the repair shop, Joe and I went to Office Depot in Ormond Beach for buying a new printer cuz Joe wanted his documents to be printed immediately.  He wanted those badly.  Joe used my computer to type letters to few people he knows last Wednesday night but he didn't know my old printer was not working.  Anyways, we were having a hard time to find the right, HP printer until I went to get an Office Depot employee for helping us to find it.  We found the right, new one.  It looks cool and different than the old one.  The number of my new printer is different.  I am happy to receive it.  Last night, I installed the brand new program.  I was so busy to figure out but unsuccessfully.  I was so wiped out!  Joe stepped in to help me and did it successfully.  Thank God.  Whew!  My new printer works.  I love it.

I still have no pains in my stomach since I took Imodium pills on Aug 12th but I've decided stop taking them anymore few days later because those pills made me very sleepy.  Also, the massage helps to prevent me from having more pains in my belly.  I am regaining my appetite.  That's good news.  Whew!  I did see a new doctor named Dr. G. in South Daytona on August 27th about my swollen feet and stomach.  I just learned the wife of my new doctor was hearing impaired.  I was surprised to find out.  He forgot ASL since his wife got a cochlear implant.  He have to practice ASL all over again since I am his new patient.  I've finally found a smart, wonderful doctor.  Thank God.  He's so good.  My new doctor knows about a deaf culture and 2 of my friends from deaf club.  Wow.  The new doctor suggests Mom and Joe should take a sign language class because all of my family members don't understand me and are confusing by what I said something to them personally.  It's due to our personal arguments.  My family also don't communicating with me much.  I get mad at them sometimes.  The new doctor suggests I should do exercises to get my feet swelling down and do in the swimming pool.

Tomorrow afternoon, I have a meeting at the deaf club at Easter Seals in Daytona Beach and then later that evening, our deaf club is going to play Bingo.

Have a good weekend!