Blogging & Medical News

I just love Non Sequitur. So often it shows reality more real than reality itself. I'm laughing at myself, the blogger who, like the unclothed gentleman in the strip, would resort to a loudspeaker on a streetcorner if I didn't have the Internet.

This morning I went to have not one but two orders for blood-draw, one for my primary, who will see me next week, and one for my nephrologist (the oh so exotic Dr. Rai), whom I will see (I will be looking at her more than she will be looking at me) next week also. And then this afternoon I'm going to see my young student dentist for a deep cleaning and a conference about what plan I would like to pursue for my future dental health. I'm not looking forward to this meeting, since they're going to outline some serious financial plans involving implants and bridges. And I'm just too old to pour a fortune into my mouth. What I'd really like them to do is extract all my remaining teeth and build me full dentures. I could live with that, and I'm sure that wouldn't be nearly as expensive as what they want to do. Oh, these rusty years.

This 'n' That

I read magazines from back to front. Always have, always will. I'm not sure why I started reading them this way. It may be that most of them have interesting editorials on the back page. It may be that the magazines I read regularly, Time and Entertainment Weekly, reserve the back sections for film and book reviews. Does anyone else have this same strange proclivity?

God, it's hot. We've lived here for almost eighteen years, so I should be used to the July/August heat. But this summer it just poops me out. Maybe that's because I'm now eighteen years older than when we first arrived.

Tonight, the Olympic opening ceremonies are on (tape delayed, of course), and I look forward to the whole extravaganza. Even the archery should be intriguing with an armless man who shoots with his feet. This month's Sports Illustrated (near the back, naturally) had a bit about how much technology has created improvements in equipment--new Speedo swim suits that fit like skin to make bodies even more streamlined than in the past and custom-fitted caps and goggles, electronic sensors in socks and vests of taekwondo combatants to register blows, a $15,000 lightning bike for U.S. cyclist Taylor Phinney with an extra-stiff carbon-fiber frame, an electronic timing system for track and field races that can slow down finishes to 2,000 frames a second and even down to a millionth of a second per frame. Whoa, that's slow. There are lots more improvements, but you get the drift.

Gun Control

Three letters that say better than I can what I feel about gun control. This from Nigel Reynolds of Prescott: “The horrific shooting in Colorado will cause people to argue about the Second Amendment and to discuss whether gun control is too lenient or ir irrelevant. Unfortunately, things won’t change, whatever is concluded. Incidents like this will continue. Why do more children drown in backyard pools in Phoenix than in Minneapolis? Answer: There are more pools here than there. Why do these shootings occur in America nearly every year but are rare in Europe? Same conclusion: The number and availability of guns here vs. there. Unpleasant bottom line: Get used to it.”

And this from D. Richardson of Phoenix: “I am a gun owner. To be honest, I’m not even really sure how many guns I own—several, from pistols and shotguns to muzzleloaders. I have a loaded sawed-off shotgun right beside my bed. I call it my last line of defense. All that being said, I see no reason why your average citizen should have an AR-15 with a 100-round drum. Or a 9 mm Glock with a 30-round clip. Or any assault rifle. If you want to own one, have it registered and keep it in a safe at a gun range where you have to check it out and then back in after use. How many bullets do you need to defend your house? Or kill a deer? Or a rabbit? Hunting is legal and needed. When I hunted doves, the law said that I was only allowed to have my shotgun loaded with three shells at a time. Three was always enough. Let the military or the police have the heavy weapons. I’m fine with that. And I’m not afraid in the least that “liberals” are going to take my guns. What is going to cause our guns being taken away are idiots like the guy in Colorado who has such easy access to extreme firepower. Maybe possessing a weapon that shoots more than six times without being reloaded should be a crime drawing a minimum of one year in jail. No exceptions. Just a thought.”

And finally, this from Jeff Rovner of Tucson: “When the U.S. Constitution was written, our nation was bloody from battles and massacres. The government had no choice but to allow citizens the right to bear arms and fight for their lives. Today, fortunately but painfully, we have freak accidents and rare occurrences of homicide. I, a 19-year-old, can walk with bad intentions into a Walmart and walk out with a weapon and ammunition. To the United States government: Make it more difficult than that.”

Letter writers, well said.

Late July

Really humid today with big puffy clouds trying to rain on us, never quite doing it. The monsoon season is about half over, just the rest of July, all of August, and part of September to go. Then – WHAM! – Halloween, Thanksgiving, and here we go again, Christmas. Fleeting time.

I went to the wound center for my every-five-weeks checkup. Matt, my podiatrist, said he thought my hole was looking much improved. I was glad to hear it. Nearly three years. Wow, that’s a long time to be tending a wound. Driving there, I listened to Aaron Copeland’s Appalachian Spring. I hadn’t heard it for much too long. I think it may be my favorite piece of classical music. And our new car is such a joy. A cherry-red Kia Optima. Why did we wait so long to get it? I don’t know. I guess we both once thought we’d live forever. Now we both know better.

After I got home, I went to the Beardsley barber shop and waited patiently for Rose, avoiding like plague the new guy on the end. I made the sorry mistake a few months ago of sitting in his chair. He never met a silence he didn’t feel compelled to fill. I think he may have become a barber just for the captive audience, poor unsuspecting schmucks trapped in his chair and forced to listen to his barber babble. The sign over his chair should read “Babble Bob.”

Haboob, Open, & Bone by Bone

Hot and sticky today after our last evening haboob and thunder storm. Dust storms are so peculiar, this wall of orange stuff moving across the landscape like some big beast about to swallow up everything in its path. And sometimes, if it's followed by much rain, one can find yellow mud everywhere, especially in one's swimming pool.

What an odd conclusion to the Open, with Ernie Els shooting a decent round to win by one over a fading Adam Scott, who shot a final round 75. How sad for a really nice young man. And Tiger just couldn't get anything going, especially after triple bogeying the sixth hole. He finished in fourth at minus 3.

I'm in the middle of a really interesting novel by Carol O'Connell, Bone by Bone. Instead of one of her Detective Mallory novels, this one is a stand alone about two brothers, Josh and Oren Hobbs, one of whom goes missing in the woods when he was fifteen. The older brother, Oren, has returned home after twenty years in the army because someone has been dropping bones on his father's front porch and the housekeeper Hannah has summoned him. A really interesting set of characters.

Introduction

I've decided to start a new blog, this one just for me. Like the tomcat in the title, I'll be able to howl as loud as I want on any subject I want.

The country, the world, is again confounded by what happened in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. What causes someone to do that? What makes otherwise normal human beings as well as misguided terrorists want to kill people, any people or what the terrorists think of as infidels? I look forward to the day when we can fix crooked minds like his before their crookendness lashes out. I don't think it will be like Big Brother infringing on our civil rights. I think we will have then achieved enough medical knowledge to fix all human problems, both physical as well as mental. I won't see that day but I hope my children or their children will.

The wind is up, and the arbor vitae are rocking and rolling. And it's hot. The forecasters keep saying we'll get rain each of the next four days, but they're wrong so much of the time, I won't count on any rain falling. Too often we get virga, a term I'd never heard of until we moved here. Virga is rain that falls but evaporates before it reaches the ground. Sometimes I feel like virga, falling but not quite reaching the ground. That reminds me of my fall when we were in Mobridge. I'd crossed the street in front of Doris's house to sit in the park for a forbidden cigarette. When I came back, I stepped onto one of the rocks acting as park curbing, not a big rock and not very much above the road surface, no more than a foot. But it was set at an angle, tilted slightly toward the road, and when I stepped off, like a dead man, I went down on my left knee and sprawled out, catching myself on both hands just before my head smacked into the asphalt. How stupid. How foolish I felt as I pushed myself upright and checked to see if anyone had seen me fall. Just like the time I was up on a ladder at the back of our house in Lakewood, New York, the ladder foolishly standing on an icy back deck. The ladder slipped backwards on the ice and I came down from eight feet flat on my face. That time I also checked to see if anyone had seen my fall from grace. I was more embarrassed than injured, just like this fall in Mobridge. I had a skinned left knee and two skinned palms, but nothing more serious. But at my age, I could just as easily have broken a hip or knee, broken one or both wrists, or suffered a concussion or even death if my head had hit the roadway. Lucky and stupid , that's me.