The Quandary of the House Numbers.

As all of you know, I usually don’t comment on politics or such. Well I have a neighbor who was going on and on about health care. He believes the only channel is Fox news and that Rush is given the word from on high and so on. When he started talking about euthanasia I asked him had he read the bill. He said no. So I printed out the part of the bill he was talking about and took it to him. The next day I asked him if he had read it and he said yes. I asked him did the see the word euthanasia anywhere in it. He told me no, but they had had it in there and then took it out. So I came home and wrote a little nonsense fable for him. It’s pretty simple, but I do like the moral of the story.


The Quandary of the House Numbers.

Once upon a time there was a land. The residents of the land didn’t see it as having North, South, East or West sides. They saw their land as having a left and right side. Some people lived right in the middle and some lived on the fringes of both sides. The land fathers had seen over many years that all the houses in this land had different size numbers on them, and some houses didn’t have numbers at all.

The land fathers decided that all houses should have numbers on them, but they were unsure of the sizes. So they wrote up a contract and put out bids. There were two companies that bid for the contract. One was from the left side of the land and one was from the right side of the land. The contract was put out for the people to see. The people of the left side knew the left side company and felt comfortable with their bid. The same applied for the right side and right side company. There was no consensus because the land fathers were split too.

The companies and land fathers sent out their people to their sides and told the people what the contract said. Oddly enough each company saw the contract differently. The people on the left believed the left company and the people on the right believed the right company. Some of the people became angry, some could see no change and many just didn’t care. It was their companies and land fathers, and since they lived on the left or right sides they felt they had to go with their companies.

The quandary was which side to believe. One man asked his neighbors, “Have you read the contract”? His neighbors replied, “No”. He asked, “How can you decide if you haven’t read it”? They replied “Because my company and land fathers told me so, and they wouldn’t lie to us”. The man shook his head and wondered why would people become so upset when they hadn’t even read the contract. One neighbor told him the contract was too long, it was written like gobbledygook and he didn’t have the time. Even some of the land fathers had not read the entire contract.

The man thought that it’s OK for the people to defend what they think is right. It’s was OK for them to ask questions. But before they made their decisions, they needed to know what the contract said. They needed to become informed.

The moral of this story is just because you live on the left side or right side of the land don’t believe what the left and right companies and land fathers tell you. Look up the contract, read it very carefully and make your own informed decisions.

Hot Spots.

For the last month I’ve been having problems with George. He has never had them before, but he has been developing hot spots. One on his right back hip got so bad I had to take him to the vet. The vet gave him a steroid shot and gave me some spray to put on the area and antibiotics. Well this seemed to take care of it, but I was noticing the other day that George was biting on his back. I looked at it and there were red areas going down his lower back. It’s no where near as bad as his hip, but I threw him in the shower and gave him a good bath (for which my back didn’t thank me at all). Then I got the scissors and clippers out and got all the hair off the area and then started treating it with what I had here. I still have some of that spray left and tried that, but he kept biting and licking his back. So I figured if it’s itching I would put some Benadryl cream on the red spots. So far that seems to help. I figure I’ll keep the area clean and dry and when he does start itching, I’ll put a little Benadryl on it. If anyone has any other suggestions, let me know.

Otherwise things around here have been going about the same.

Hope everyone is going fine and that you are all having a good w/e.

FM

Manual Typewriter.

I hope everyone has been doing fine. I’ve been under the weather for awhile, but I have been feeling better lately.

I’ve been thinking of some of the things that you can look back on and that kids of today wouldn’t know about. In other words, things that sort of make you feel old. Oddly enough the first thing to hit my mind and that seems to stick there is typing. I learned how to type on an old manual typewriter. I wonder how many kids and older people, for that matter, would feel if all of a sudden that they had to put the effort into typing on a manual typewriter. It isn’t as if you are lifting weights or anything as physical, but there is some effort involved. I remember when we switched over to an electric typewriter and thinking of how much easier it was. Now of days typing on a computer instead of a manual typewriter is almost like flying. Well not like flying, but you get my point.

Then there were the inevitable errors. Instead of just backspacing and changing the incorrect letter, you had to go back and use an eraser. That was just on the original and God help you if you had six or seven carbon copies. In other words if you made a simple mistake it could take up to three to five minutes to correct that mistake, depending on how many carbon copies you had.

Another thing that has me thinking I’m getting older – the weather. When I was younger I never did pay too much attention to it. But now of days I can give you a ten-day forecast and even hour by hour if needed. My sister who lives across the street will call me if we have any bad weather approaching. She knows that I’ve been keeping up with the weather radar and can tell her where the clouds are and when the storm will get here. I don’t know why, but it seems when you get older that the weather seems to be more important.

There are a lot of other things that have popped into my head about how things have changed from the early 50’s when I was born up until now. How do you explain to kids about not having computers, or cable TV, or a microwave oven or even movies you can rent to take home? How do you explain about sitting on the front porch in the afternoon and just talking for entertainment? It’s sometimes fun to look back and think of all the things that have changed over time and then to think of all the great things to come.

It’s Wednesday and hump day! To all of you that are working, here’s to a speedy week and an endless weekend. To all of us that are not working – well it’s just another day in paradise.

Take care

FM