My Last Thoughts

So I don’t know anyone who likes needles stuck in them. I suppose that those on the giving end don’t mind them, but those of us on the receiving end don’t like them at all. Over the past two months I have been having lots of medical testing done and have had blood drawn (two times), a CAT scan where dye was injected ( took 3 people 6 tries to get a needle in a vein), a PET scan (one needle done by a very talented lady) and a colonoscopy which took one needle ( by another very talented lady).

So that is 10 needle sticks. I am a bit of a wimp when it comes to medical things but needles looking for veins is one of worst fears. I fear the needles almost as much as my veins. The little suckers (veins) hide, move, go flat and generally avoid the needles. When I had my second heart attack, it took nine people (two tries each) to get the blood to confirm that it was a heart attack. The last try was on one of my feet and that hurt like hell. They got the blood and confirmed the heart attack.

To make matters worse, I have been taking daily aspirin for over 15 years and that makes me bleed like a waterfall when the needle comes out. As you may have guessed, I had blood drawn today with a needle. We have reached the point where blood draws are taken from my hands and so I will have needle dreams tonight.

Yesterday I discovered that a young person whom I mentored back when I was working had died. She was only 52. She had many times had brought a smile to my face. This has me bummed out and I have no idea how she died. As it happened in 2011, I’m not sure who to contact or if I should contact. I would hate to bring her memory back to focus for those who were close to her.

I’m not sure if I will continue to look up people from my past as this was totally unexpected. This is going to take some time to process.

So a few days ago I was bidding in an online auction and won a loose pink sapphire. It was 8.17 carats and looked pretty good in the picture. I’ve bid and won things before from this auction house so I was not worried about the purchase even with the no return policy (unless they made a mistake or something like that).

I had been wondering what to get my wife for valentine’s day and this was it! I could not wait till the 14th so I gave it to her and she has been floating around the house in between looking at it and trying to decide what kind of setting to use.

I think I did good which makes me happy and that is it for today.

Keeping busy

With Covid 19 still in full swing here and like everywhere else, the vaccine is mostly unavailable and I have yet to go some place other then the doctors office. I even had a tele visit from one of my doctors so I could avoid going out. It has been about a year since I was able to go do some shopping or out to dinner.

As I have been retired for awhile I’m used to being home a lot. Unlike lots of folks I have land and I can do things around the house and as long as the internet works I’m somewhat content. I do wonder about folks living in high rise buildings and the limited choices they may have to keep their sanity.

On TV I see terrible lines of people waiting to get some food as they have lost jobs and maybe even their homes. All this is awful. Then I see our congress fighting over whether there should be assistance checks and extra unemployment money. This is just wrong. Congress should get those checks out yesterday.

We have many problems that are long over due fixing. We need to get busy.

OLD FRIENDS

Recently I went on the internet and tried to look up some old friends. When you get old, apparently you become curious as to what happened to old friends from your past. Upon starting my search I decided to look for an old friend from high school. His goal was to become a lawyer and live in a small town. We double dated one time and he was with a new girl whom he later married. I found that they were now married 50 years last month.

They had three children, one of whom died in a work accident on the same date of my birthday. One of the other children was now living in Texas and I did not find anything more of the third child. My friend and his wife were now living with their daughter in Texas and I wondered how that came to be.

Turns out my friend had become a lawyer and while he made a living it was not as lucrative as he had hoped. Still he had done good enough. After I searched some more I found that towards the end of his career he had a client that had some large savings and he was caught stealing the client’s money bit by bit. He had to sell everything to pay back what he had stole and his law license was revoked.

Left with nothing, he moved in with his daughter. He and his wife appear to be fine but I’m sure it is not the ending he would have wanted. I am amazed at what you can find out if you just take some time and phrase your search questions correctly. I searched for more of my old friends but I’ll save that for another time.

We never had snow when I was a kid. It was something that never happened where we lived. Today I watched a video of pandas playing in the snow. It was too funny. It reminded me of the time in my 20’s that friends and I built snow men and had snowball fights in Spokane. Now that was snow, lots of snow.

Now each year my wife sings a snow song, hoping for at least a few inches. It hardly ever happens. One year we did have a freak storm (early signs of climate change) that dumped 23 inches on us in about two days. It was fun! Our only problem was the dog, a large Rottweiler, did not think much of the snow. He would go no further than a few feet from the door to do his business and then quickly return indoors. We had quite a mess to clean up after the snow melted.

Currently it has been raining here for two straight days. Light rain mostly but still rain. Offspring (our son) lives in New Hampshire and is getting snow measured in feet. My wife would like to go visit him but with Covid 19 and such, it is not going to happen. It is true that a round of a few inches of snow can pull you out of depression and put a smile on your face. I hope everyone will get the chance to play in the snow in their lifetime.

My thoughts today included thoughts of my parents. They have been dead for over 25 years and my son never got to know them. I was sad about that as he has very little knowledge of them. I don’t talk or think about them or my childhood very much as I was mostly unhappy. While they probably did the best they could, I left at 19 and moved on with my life. Germany was my home for a few years so going to visit was not very easy. After Germany I moved to the Pacific Northwest and only went to visit two or three times and for the funerals.

My sister who was 4 years older also left early and moved away as well. She died in her early 60’s and we were not very close. As she died a horrible death, I did not go to see her as I wanted to remember her in her better days. She had a blood disorder that destroyed her face and neck.

My brother who is 9 years younger than me is still alive and well, but we have always been like different family as the age gap is quite large. He was raised as an only child and everything is always about him.

I have always wondered how some family’s can stay in the same town they were born in and be best friends for life. Maybe I am wondering what it would have been like if I had stayed in my home town. But then I remember things like bugs, snakes, hurricanes and humidity, and know why I left ( I did not like the people of most of the South). But sometimes I wonder….

Used to be a question about if a tree were to fall in the forrest and no one were there, did it make a sound. Well you could hear this one from quite a distance. I was really sad to see this tree being down but its base was rotted out by squirrels living there. The wind brought it down and now I will have to deal with it. It was a very old tree. I think around 80 years old looking at the rings but not totally sure.

This tree stood proud for the 30 years that I had come to know it. It provided the forrest and the animals with something that made them happy. We all will miss this tree, but this is natures way.