Moving right along

Gosh that last post is grim.  I apologize, this blog is for small thoughts and not the weighty issues of the world.

I had the vet out to see Maybe, my "young" horse, who turned 21 this summer.  He doped her up somewhat and then removed a sarcoma from her ear.  Ewww!  Good thing DH was there, as her head sank lower and lower, and the vet was disinclined to kneel to reach the tumor.  So far the ear appears to be fine, she is not rubbing at it, and there is no bleeding.  We will need to use neosporin on it for a few days to control any infection, a job I am not looking forward to.  Isn't it amazing what pet ownership (and I count these horses as pets) entails?  And the cost!  Yesterday it came to $300; the cat to the small animal vet the day before came to $286.  My own doctor visits don't amount to that much!

I haven't been knitting as much these last couple of weeks. just in a slump for a while.  My problem is that each day I face the same question - knit or nap?  Ever since i retired I have enjoyed the freedom of taking a nap in the afternoon if I want to, and that seriously cuts into my time to knit.  Decisions decisions.  Maybe tomorrow.

I have been entertaining myself looking at the website "Awkward family photos"  It is a hoot.  Here is the link:
http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/category/awkward-hall-of-fame/  You can waste an amazing amount of time looking at these.

 Bumper sticker for the day:  "You haven't had enough coffee until you can thread a sewing machine while it's running."

What's one way to waste a life?

I came upon a site listing "40 questions you're afraid to ask?"  This question about wasting a life is number 40, and is a question that I have asked myself.

My answer is, predictably, drugs.

And that includes marijuana.  When I lived in California, some 35 years ago, pot was everywhere even then.  You could smell it in the park, in theaters, in the grocery store, everywhere.  One of the people in the lab where I worked was a graduate student in endocrinology, a very very bright guy.  He smoked pot all the time, I think in place of eating(!), and he was a very unflappable, mellow, helpful student, but he couldn't finish anything.  He would, I don't know, lose enthusiasm?  Or maybe just lose track of where he needed to continue?  Despite being well spoken, smart, likable, he never finished his degree, and finally got a position as a salesman for (wait for it!) a drug company!  I think of him now and again and wonder if he married and had kids, and if so, what he told them about pot.  Did they smoke while driving, like he did?

But you have only to look to Hollywood to see the mess drugs make of talent.  Look at Whitney Houston for example.  All that power, beauty, money, gone for coke and heroin.  Or what about Elvis - fighting the battle against age that no one wins, taking prescription meds to get through a single day.  Or thousands more in Hollywood like these two, all stumbling over the same roadblock.  Do we ask too much of them, to be "on" constantly?  Do they fear failure so acutely?  Is it just part of society now, too easy to get and too easy to dismiss the risks?  Do they too support legalization?

See how one question begets a host of other questions...

I know there are other ways to waste a life, maybe drinking is the closest to drugs; in a way it is worse because social drinking is OK.   But laziness alone will waste a life just as easy as drugs or liquor, and so will fear of making the wrong decision, and so not making any decision at all.  Or leaving the decision up to someone else, spouse, parent, teacher, church, all of these and more.  A sad waste of a life.

On a more cheerful note, today's bumper sticker for the day:  "I'll grow my own food when I can find bacon seeds."

OWWW!!!

There I was, sitting on the edge of the bed, I stood up and BLAM! my back shot lightning bolts down my legs.  So completely bent over, 3 days of bed rest, and minimal stair climbing, and I seemed to be on the mend, when I tripped and fell on my back and backside in the middle of the night.  I had to crawl over to the bed to pull myself up.  Now my entire back is one massive bruise.  If it weren't for pain meds I'd still be in bed.  But at least I can now stand up straight.  My back was already a war zone, dating back to a riding accident when I was 24.  I never take walking for granted.

So working on the premise that one disaster cannot occur without two more, our refrigerator is a warm 60 degrees, and everything is crammed in the little fridge we use for soda, water, etc. while we wait for the repairman to call.  What event number three will be I don't know.  Yet.

 Pause...

OK the  fridge is repaired ($$$) but the repair will probably hold for only a short while.  So we will order another one, choosing the features we want.  Meanwhile there is all that food to return to the kitchen...

I wish ordering things online was like it is in the road runner cartoons.  Wiley coyote puts his order in the mailbox, taps his toes for a minute, and there is his order from Acme or wherever.  Instead it is 7 - 9 days, unless you spring for the $20 next day charge, which I don't.  All I have ordered today are some sleep shirts, mine have gotten all gray and tattered but no big rush.  I ordered these in the middle of the night, and ordered the same nightshirt twice by mistake.  The seller caught it immediately (different time zone or an insomniac like me) and offered to cancel the duplicate, much appreciated. 

I heard eBay has spun off PayPal into its own company.  I hope that doesn't mean any significant changes at the consumer level, I am a big fan of PayPal as the way to purchase online without spreading your credit card number everywhere.  I remember when I had to explain eBay to everyone, but even in the dark ages at the beginning of the site, I hardly ever had a bad experience.  The last major purchase I made was last month for $725 for a knitting machine with all the accoutrements, and I admit I was fairly apprehensive, not just because of the amount involved but because the seller had "zero" feedback.  But she went overboard with packaging and speed of shipping, so the two huge boxes came through unscathed from UPS.  Everything was there and more, and she answered my questions completely as I worked my way through it all.  Definitely 5 star.

Bumper sticker for the day:  "In my day we walked to school uphill both ways and had dial-up internet."