If you didn’t read It’s Hard To Run With An IV In Your Arm that link I posted is your chance to catch up. You won’t find me talking about the Yiddish class I took in high school or the time I spent with my grandfathers listening to them talk Jewish in the backyard or at the Farmer’s Market.
And by the Farmer’s Market I am referring to the one in West Hollywood which apparently has a website now.
Anyhoo, that piece was actually written before my liver biopsy and reminds me that I had more time with doctors in ’25 than I wanted.
Reminds me again that my furriest child crossed that rainbow bridge this past November and how after almost 16 years it is strange not to see him wandering the house.
Sometimes I wonder if he had prescience and somehow knew that he would be needed in early October.
My son says that when the paramedics came from me the mutt was infuriated by their presence and wanted to protect me.
I appreciate it not just because he was all of 23 pounds but by that point he was on the tail end of his journey. We got six more weeks with him before he said goodbye.
Sometimes I wonder if he is out running with the Big Lug and if maybe one day I’ll get to see them again and we’ll run together like we once did.
They didn’t cross paths in this world, the mutt and the Big Lug but I imagine if there is something after that they’d somehow recognize each other. They’d make a hell of a pair, 23 pounds standing next to 120.
There is a deep bruise on my left forearm but I can’t see anything that makes me think there is a full tear of my bicep or more than a bad strain.
I have good range of motion and minimal pain but it either of the dogs were still with me I’d have to use my right arm because if they made a decision to go chase something they’d pull harder than the left is prepared to deal with.
But if you asked me how much gas is left in the bad arm I’d tell you quite a bit. That is one of the lessons I learned from my post midnight visit to Baylor Scott and White in Grapevine this past October.
It was a bad way to confirm that I can lose half my blood and still keep moving. A bad way to learn that I have reserves I can call upon that I suspected but never knew existed.
I don’t recommend you try to find out for yourself. Nor do I recommend you injure yourself so that a doc can tell you that you must have a high threshold for pain.
All of this irks me in ways I can’t tell you because the point of last year was to establish benchmarks in my health that I could use to improve things.
And for the most part I have.
Dad and I watched Gladiator together just before my eldest was born. Whenever I watch it I think of him, it is one of those movies alongside The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, Shane and a few more that make me think of him,
This ending scene has been on my mind again as I have replayed the moment in the bathroom where I saw Dad and my grandfather standing behind a door.
I think about how I tried to open it and he refused to let me through. I think about how his refusal to do so infuriated me and how that led to a surge of adrenaline that I used to get up off of the floor.
Now when I think of him I often see him as he was behind the door, where I watched him age backwards. Now when I see his face in my head it is a much younger man, one I knew when I was little.
Took a little while but I finally realized it connects to George Strait’s song, A love without end, amen.
Edison Was Right
Sitting here stumbling through old posts and thoughts it feels like somethings keep popping up and somethings go away.
Could roll down that road with Some Stories End So Others Can Begin or tell you about Silver Springs playing as part of a YouTube mix I have on.
But I’ll stick to Edison’s quote above and tell you to picture me shaking my head in disbelief at the staggering amount of stupidity I have come across in a variety of places.
The general idiocy of people who don’t read or engage in any sort of critical thinking. The moronic mewling of people who buy whatever fits their preconceived political narrative no matter how ridiculous it is.
The purity tests one side imposes on their leaders & the impossible standards are matched by the utter depravity and immorality of the other side and their fealty to felons.
It’s not the timeline I would have chosen to be born into or live through but we don’t get to choose. So we make the best of it and I am.
A good chunk of my forties were very tough and for the most part my fifties have been pretty good, far better than the previous decade.
I could argue that time prepared me for some of the crazy crap of this time because when you walk through hell covered in gasoline you learn a few things about life.
And I know plenty.
That is all I have for you for the moment other than my reminder to live and love hard because it can all disappear in an instant.
I know it from experience.
If you can’t get enough and must read more you can click here if you wish and find links to past work.
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