Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Random Thoughts October 28th 2008


My grandson has a birthday this week, seven years old on the 29th. I have a picture of him in his first Halloween costume that I’ll share.

Talking with a friend over the telephone the other day yielded an interesting conversation, something about “raising the dead”; except what he’d actually said was, he was building raised planter boxes. We had a good laugh regarding my bad hearing. I’ve heard it said that some pain pills may be responsible for a loss of hearing, “What’s that you say?”

I was reminded this past week about how unstable my back is as a group of muscles started giving me grief. The first time my back ever gave me a problem happened while we were living in our first house on Curtin Street. The phone rang and, as I turned to answer it from where I lay in bed, twisting and reaching over to the night stand, every muscle in my back rejected my choice of movement. When I tried to get out of bed to collect myself, instead of standing upright, I found myself on the floor looking at the ceiling.

Lucy came in wondering what was going on and our dog, a huge Black Lab was curious as well, lying on the tile floor of the bathroom directly across from where I was. The best I could do was pull my knees up to take some of the pain away, still trying to get upright.

I should explain one of the rules regarding Oscar, our Black Lab; “rough housing” was only permitted if I instigated it due to his size. Lucy wasn’t a “dog person” and tearing up the house, wrestling and cavorting in general was on the wrong side of her list of things to do inside the house; outside was marginally acceptable, inside was unacceptable.

While on the floor and struggling to get up I figured out how to get to my knees, only a little more effort and I’d be standing up. Oscar had been watching the whole time and when I got to my knees, grunts and groans from the pain in my back must have been interpreted as, “Now I get it, he wants to play!” Oscar’s confused look changed into a “dog smile”, an exuberating willingness to participate; the short distance from the bathroom to where I crouched over being only a split second.

Oscar’s head pushed in under my chest and as he continued the head on tackle, flipped me over onto my back. I’m not sure how long it took, half a second or so; but the pain was intense, Oscar licking my face for having scored a direct hit was ready for another round.

Lucy came running and got the dog by the collar; poor Oscar had no idea why he was being hauled off to the back yard. “Hey, he wanted to play and all I did was jump in.”

That’s when the x-ray’s found I had a sixth Lumbar vertebrae; you’re only supposed to have five. The nerves going in between get pinched easier and so every now and again the back muscles get a reminder. “Take two of these and try not to operate any heavy machinery.”

Speaking of getting pinched, has anyone been able to figure out the price of gasoline? Yesterday I paid $2.14 a gallon for regular at the local Murphy’s station where I fill up. Not too long ago I was paying $4.14 for that same gallon of gas.

The fellow on the news said there was a 4-5% drop off in gasoline use since a year ago this same time. I never was that good at math; but how does 4-5% figure in with a 50% change in price? My guess would be along the line of, “Sucker”! They will bleed us again later; for now they want us to forget while we go to the voting stalls. “There is no energy issue, there is no energy issue, there is no energy issue…” The price of gasoline is an annoyance; not near as important as national security as long as we keep having to buy our energy from the Middle East; drill here, drill now and get on with it!

Next week we get to find out who the next president, the next batch of crooks in the Senate and Congress, the next local robbers and thieves; is my attitude adjustment knob set on “sour”? I’m not so sure any of these folks would pass the security screening it takes to become a police officer; and here we are turning the whole country over to them.

I read an Obama interview from several years ago, Obama explaining how the Constitution was a flawed document, how the judiciary never has addressed the need for redistribution of wealth; this is the fellow who, if elected president, will place his hand on the Bible (Koran) and swear to uphold that very same Constitution; go figure.

I wonder if there’s a pain pill we can buy at the local pharmacy, one that will make the next four years bearable regardless of who gets to sit in the Oval Office, regardless of which crooks occupy the Senate, the Congress or which thieves float to the surface locally. Remember, Hillary is still out there; Happy Halloween!

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