Quotation Recycled

 September 24

Vote Yourself to Death

     He registered to vote in his new district, and the clerk asked him if he wanted to cast his vote early.  So he did.  In addition to choice of President, there were 3 issues on the ballot, one about auto repair, another about marijuana, and the third about doctor-assisted suicide. Neither he, nor I, had considered that an issue to be decided by popular vote.  State by state, I gather.   Even if the option is defeated, as it well may be, the fact it is on the ballot predestines that it is a subject that will most likely continue to reappear.
    I'm sure there are sound arguments to be made for the passage of such a bill, but I'm terrified at the thought of any doctor I know making that decision.  It's not like the good old family doctor so invested in you that he would struggle gallantly to abide by your wishes in case of extreme circumstances.  The doctors I know kind of recognize you when you sit across from them in their offices, though some have your picture pasted to your  file so they can identify you.  The only time you cross their minds is during their appointment times.  And they are to be designated as your suicide assistant.  Word is that elderly and ailing women should always apply their makeup and have their hair done before they see the doctor.  A spray tan might help, and if the nurse asks if you feel depressed, deny it vehemently.  Of course, never go to the doctor when you're sick.
        Now if the ballot asks us to vote on assisting doctors in their suicide, that would be a different question.  Who would be  better qualified to vote on a doctor's expiration date than his patients? 

BOOK WEEK--A LITTLE LATE

"You promised Jonah extra security!" Mr Wizard raged at the hotel manager, who had gotten out of bed to apologize to this very important  guest.
     Book week activity  is to turn to page 52 of the book nearest to you, and copy the 5th sentence.  My excerpt above is from Book Two of "One False Note" in "The 39 Clues" series.  Maybe not the heaviest reading I've ever done, but definitely the most exciting.

Doctor Who the Hell

"If,"  says the dermatologist, glancing through my file, "your previous doctor thought the lesion was not malignant, why did he biopsy it? Was he looking for early retirement?"   My answer, if it could be called that, was that while my previous  doctor hadn't thought it malignant, he might have suspected it was.  But the comments persisted, "We usually don't biopsy unless we THINK  there is a reason."   I let him have the last word.  After all, I don't know (or really care) what  my previous doctor's agenda might have been, but he did retire, though how early it may have been I couldn't say.  On to the procedure---my second cryosurgery.  As before, some years ago, my head explodes with blinding pain.   The doctor tells me that the pain will be gone "by the time I walk to my car."  I think this is another way of saying, "Don't let the door hit you on the way out."  (I should have become a doctor; I hate people enough by now.)

A Trivial Pursuit or Swiffer This

I came home just in time to rescue the Swiffer WETJET from the trash.  He who now mops the kitchen floor said that refills in the original size are no longer available, and therefore our Swiffer was obsolete.  I couldn't believe that P&G would allow such planned obsolesence to occur in just a few years, so I called Customer Service.  The rep was Carmelita, probably in the Philippines.  I told her the problem, that the new-sized  refill container would not fit in the original Swiffer.  She said it would; he said it definitely would not, as he'd tried it and it was too large.  He brought the Swiffer in from near the trash can, and tried again.  Lo and behold----it fit.  Carmelita, still online, asked me if it fit.  I said yes it did, and she said, "See, I told you so."  I said thank you very much.  I have no pride left, if I ever did have any.

Alone

Too late the Trapper Keeper.  Everyone has fled my binder.

A whole new world

Miracle invention----the 3D Printer.  Who can take  credit for developing that technology: let us give credit where credit is due.

Bound to be of help

I have only a single binder full of people;  if I ever need them, I'll let them know.

Not even debatable!

Candy Crowley and hair extensions!   We're going to have to call a halt somewhere.

New Standard of Practice

The pragmatic approach is not only alive and well, but growing.  In consumer affairs, at least some, forget all the record keeping, warranties, agreements, and misconceptions: concentrate on moving ahead, starting from NOW.  We received an incorrect billing  statement from our communications company.  I had the paperwork to back up the correct amount according to the contract, the company knew it was in error, but instead of attempting to unsnarl the ball of twine, the customer service rep politely suggested we simply start over from today.  He offered an even better rate.  I accepted.  We forgot about the interdepartmental screw-up, and we're all satisfied.  Now on to our tax return........

1-800-Say What

If you dial 1-800-GOT-JUNK,  you expect to reach your party by dialing the standard number of digits, right?  10 + the 1.   But if you call Time Warner, the number for Customer Service is
 "Call us anytime at 1-866-321-CABLE"    It seems that you can get through that way, most of the time, but might we not expect something a little more logical and efficient from a communications company?  An extra digit is not all that insurmountable, just seems rather foolish.  After all, it's not dial 1-800-JUNKY. 

Mad Cold World

Went to church and I was kind of nervous.
No one knew me.  No one knew me.
Hello, Preacher, I just heard your sermon.
Look right through me.
 Look right through me-ee-ee-ee-ee.

Nah, I don't think so.

About that doctor who claims that while he appeared comatose, he was actually spending time in the afterlife, I wonder how much experience he's had with drugs.  As a medical professional, he must have benefitted from a number of sensory-altering painkilling drugs in his lifetime; wouldn't you think he would at least suspect that while he was being treated for such a devastating affliction, he would be loaded up with a variety of drugs that would cause him to hallucinate, especially combined with his own body's attempts to respond to the trauma he was enduring.  I myself have had very limited exposure to drugs of any kind, but I do know that they affect your sense of reality, because in actuality you are not in the same dimension as before.   You wouldn't know that if you were truly unconscious, or comatose, but at that stage in between, you're not living life as you knew it pre-drug, but you're certainly not dead either, and therefore not entitled to join the afterlife.  In the last few months, I've been under some degree of anesthesia on three separate occasions.  Each of them brought a sense of altered reality, a kind of afterlife, if you will.   One drug  administered allowed me to ascend above  the norm, and restructure the universe, using all my talent and wits, with the world being my own, and I the great benefactor and beneficiary of all that I managed to bring about.  I would  prefer to think of that feeling as the afterlife I'm destined for, but I think that would just be a self-indulgent ego trip on my part. 

Ingenious and diabolical

   I don't watch crime shows anymore, nor follow real life trials, but If given the chance, I think I'd have to tune in to the coffee-mug murder.  I remember the Hitchcock story of the woman who murdered her husband with a frozen leg of lamb, then thawed it and served it to the investigators who, during the meal, were stymied as to what type of bludgeon could have clobbered the deceased so effectively, and yet was nowhere to be found.  The coffee mug was not quite so neatly disposed of, though I understand the recently widowed woman cleaned up all the pieces and shards, bagged them, and offered it to the police, who declined it at the time as not necessary for an accident investigation.  Not until the medical examiners removed the pieces of mug embedded in the old man's skull did they suspect he couldn't have fallen 10 separate times on the lethal mug.  I can't help but wonder what the couple's last breakfast conversation was about.  I do understand  that tennis referees tend to have the last word.....and it probably was not "love."

When is the last time...

........that you heard someone died of "natural causes?"  You don't just die of old age anymore, do you?  Old age is not considered a scientific cause of death, albeit age-associated illnesses and conditions do contribute to death in older persons.  If the "unnatural causes,"   homicide, suicide, accident, or yes, legal execution, did not cause Gary's death, why is the media, enmasse, quoting he died from natural causes, not from complications of surgery, heart attack, kidney failure, Alzheimer's, MRSA, chronic alcoholism,  or contaminated steroid injections.  At the age of 74,  the heart stops beating, and you exit this life, as simple, and natural, as that?    Well, maybe that's how he, or his family, wanted the obit to read.   At least it didn't say he died "surrounded by his family."  That term  never fails to conjure up an image of suffocation. 

"Life Was Good" memories

I remember those good old days when suffering was a part of daily life, and hardly worth a mention.  Kids with whooping cough did not make the news; all of us kids had  it, and measles, mumps and chicken pox as well.  We lived near a bridge and it was a common sight to see a child, always a boy, carrying a sack of kittens weighted down with a rock to drop off the bridge, on the orders of the parents.  A box of abandoned kittens would not have made the papers at all.  We at one time lived near an abandoned country schoolhouse which was the site of regular dropoffs of kittens and cats.  If a dog bit someone, or otherwise misbehaved, the owner would shoot it himself or have a gun-owning friend do it.  No one would have thought of reporting it, even if they knew where to do so.  One local farmer, conceding to modern times, bought a tractor, and so dug a very large pit, lined his docile old  team of horses up at the edge and shot them.  The scene was witnessed by my aunt, and she said the first horse was easy, but the second one went berserk when he saw what happened to his longtime partner.  No story there either. Child battering was pretty common then too, and nobody thought too much about it.  Schoolchildren, again always boys, were sent to the principal's office and would return to the classroom crying so hard they couldn't do their classwork, having been disciplined by a 6-foot principal who had a stick and a military background.  Nobody reported it, not even the kids to their parents. There was a boy, who was probably gay, though nobody, probably not even he himself, knew what that meant.  He was regularly  de-pantsed (meaning exactly that) in the school bathroom.  I think everybody must have known, but again, not newsworthy.  Too bad today's local TV reporters don't have such a wide variety of atrocities to choose from.  Then we wouldn't have to be bombarded by the images of a puppy missing its toes. 

Word-Out Grammar

...I just don't like the word "famously."   If it's used as a synonym for excellently, that 's OK, as in "We ate the famously prepared salmon at Pierre's restaurant."   But the word's use as something widely known at present as the result of a previous action seems wrong to me.   When used as  in "Patrick Henry famously said give me liberty or give me death,"  or "Marilyn Monroe famously sang Happy Birthday to JFK,"  we know the adverb famously is meant to modify the verbs said and sang.  But the definition could not have applied then, as the action had just recently been performed.  The quote and the song are famous now, but certainly not then.  If I should say something today, and it becomes widely known in years to come,  have I said it famously?   Maybe there's still hope........

News Break

A la Jimy Fallon:    Thank you, Bennington Banner, for reporting the best story in this bleakest of weeks:  a 63-year-old woman was arrested for indecent exposure for harassing a family while wearing no clothes.  A nine-year-old boy was present, and though he evidently did not view the full monte, he was traumatized into  tears.  The family called the police, who, after an ongoing struggle, succeeded in handcuffing her and placing her under arrest.  As she was being hauled away, she turned to the victims, and said, "You've  got it coming now."

Field of Dream

3 pitches, 2 swings, 1 out.    Better than last time.

Exploit October

Her we go again.  It's October and every organization  wants to get in on the action.  The medical research foundations release the usual stories of "promising new findings  in the battle against breast cancer."  The stories are always announced in October, and relate possible findings that after the studies  may possibly, and  eventually, be approved for clinical trials, but even  IF they are approved, it would be years and years after that before they would be available to the public.  But life relies on hope, so those little self-promoting tidbits can be excused.
      More heinous is the blatant drivel put out by companies who, if they had even elementary knowledge of the disease, would know better. Of course, the truth is always negotiable when income depends on it.   Ebay posts a link on Facebook advising of their efforts to help fight the dread disease, a noble endeavor to be sure:  "Learn tips on prevention and early detection of breast cancer in the Hope Chest..."  TIPS?   TIPS?      Tips are what one gets at the racetrack, or in women's magazines on how to clean your refrigerator.  It is insulting to the legions  of breast cancer patients, including those who will lose their lives to it this year, to be informed of "tips" that could have helped them avoid their fate.  Oh, by the way, I have a hot tip for you readers;   Don't forget to get your mammogram, and Uh, don't buy bananas by the bunch anymore.

The Guessing Game

    When he left the house yesterday, at dawn, he was warmly dressed against the morning chill, sweater, fleece, hat, the works.  He returned as usual a few hours later, after the school bus had picked up  the kiddies. A little later, he was off to Stewart's. When he returned, after eating breakfast, he left for the post office, came back, waited for a time and then went up to see his brother for another while.   I, on the computer, heard his car in the driveway, but he didn't come in right away---maybe going to mow the lawn, I thought, or move the deck chairs inside.  He makes his entrance through the kitchen door, barefoot, wearing only his underwear, no other clothes anywhere in sight.  "Guess what happened," he says with a smile on his face.  ???

Ugly Coyote

  So the neighbors find the remains of a ten year old cat in an alley or someplace, and the proposed  theory  is that the cat  might possibly have been killed by a coyote.  A person interviewed, a longtime resident, of course, says she "has never seen anything like that."   So the comunity is on alert, watching out for invisible coyotes that could prey on their pets or small livestock.  Personally, I have never seen anything like an old cat being found dead either,  and I am a longtime resident.  I think I hear something howling in the distance: I need to go find my cat.

"Statistic" of Disgust

    I'm sick and tired of the  repetitious so called facts delivered as public health announcements, or pronouncements.  Every year as flu season approaches, the media subjects us to information that is supposed to help us keep healthy.  For example, how many times have we been alerted to the presence of fecal matter on grocery shopping carts?  Are we to believe that there is an ongoing survey and capture of poop on shopping carts, or are all these reports citing the findings of a single study?  And will those reporting please  share with us how the fecal matter likely got there?  Do these same fecal studies extend to restaurants, post offices, water fountains, medical offices, or libraries?  I suspect that the fecal matter study might be like the myth of lemmings throwing themselves off a cliff.  The  film clip, from a Disney movie no less, of a group of  the hapless creatures fulfilling their death wish, has been cited so many times that the public  assumption has been that all  lemmings are drawn  to  a suicidal plunge off a cliff.  Later, biologists disputed lemming suicide, but the myth is firmly entrenched in the public eye, never mind the facts.    Bah, Humbug---crazy lemmings,  crappy shopping carts---let's just throw them all off a cliff.

Shedding

  I've scheduled  next week as the time to clean out my closet.  I plan to start by counting the number of garments that are there in the closet's narrow recesses.  My guess is that there are about 100.  The man who built our house probably owned 2 pairs of pants, and 3 or 4 shirts, so closet space was not much of a consideration for him.  The closet is not only small, but also narrow, so anything hung on a wider hanger, like one of wood or heavy plastic, or with padding,  hangs at an angle, and since the doors are the awful double  wooden sliding type, the hangers are constantly obstructing the opening and closing of the door. The clothes don't like it either: that's why I don't put anything in there that  I plan to wear and don't want to be a wrinkled mess. The closet is totally unsuitable for coats or winterwear, so they have never been an issue there.   Moreover, both ends of the little closet are blind deadends;  you can't see what's stuffed in them.  Advice column organizers say to get rid of anything you haven't worn in a year.  I have a suspicion I may find maternity clothes in the far reaches of that  closet, as well as a few peasant dresses and mini dresses from days gone by.  In the last year,  I've worn probably only  half a dozen things from inside the closet.
  Now that I'm not doing much of anything else, my strategy is to take every item out of the closet, and make those 3 designated piles: one to keep, one to throw away, one to donate (or maybe eBay's vintage listing!)    But as I take the clothes from the closet, the only place to put them is on the bed.  (I live in a miniature house.)  If I do that, I'm afraid I'll never see the bed again.  I feel stymied.    (But hopeful)

Trilogy of Terror

It can't be true.  First Justin Bieber, then Kelly Ripa and now Sherry Shepherd --all succumbing to illness.  I think it's likely they'll all pull through.  I don't exactly take pleasure in the misfortunes of others, but particularly  in the case of Kelly Ripa, I sense a certain degree of poetic justice.  She is extremely protective of her health, and rightly so, as her body is her instrument, as has been said.  But her herculean  efforts to wipe out any potential contamination from the throbbing masses, the great unwashed, the germy commoners is well documented.  Even  today, gallantly rallying from what might seem a minor indisposition to some of us, she is baffled by how she could get sick and is ascribing it to germs her kids brought home from the new school year.  It does not occur to her that she could be manufacturing her own germs; they have to start someplace.  (And by her own account, her fastidiousness seems to be impacting her youngest child. Seems obsessive at such a young age.  Lesson learned; even life in a parallel universe can't protect you from everything. 

Carpet Bag-it

    He has already closed the pool for the season, so today he went out to take up the carpeting that is on the deck.  He came back into the house, on this damp and chilly day, clad only in his underwear.  Seems that when he got to the end of rolling up the carpet, it retaliated and flung him into the pool.  He's okay though because he landed on the big pillow that keeps the cover in place, the only casualty being bent eyeglass frames. And, oh, now that we look closer, quite a scrape  on his forehead  where he hit his head on the deck post as the pushbroom sucked him into the pool. Details are still forthcoming.   I'm telling you, dangers lie in wait. 

In Jeopardy

It's the same dream, or more like a nightmare.  I'm on a quiz panel of some sort, probably akin to my Charm City days, and I have to answer a question.  A lot depends on my answer, for reasons that are not clear.  I feel really inadequate and unprepared, because much like the late Spaulding Gray, I only know twenty things, and what are the odds that, out of millions of potential questions, one will be in the category of the twenty things I know?

Sock it.

You can't fool your feet.  When my feet get cold at night, and I'm already in bed, I try to warm my feet by wrapping them in the sheet, then the blanket, and finally all the bedding at once, even the comforter.   It never works; I still need to get up and put on a pair of socks, which never fails to bring instant comfort.  You'd think I'd have learned, after all this time, but I still live in hope that if I can pile multiple layers of cloth around my feet, and  wrap them snugly enough, that my feet will get warm.  I don't really understand why not.