Stuff Always Happens

Why, yes – it HAS been a long time since I posted to this blog.  A lot has happened since last July.  Can that be right?  THIRTEEN MONTHS?  Dang.

Well, let’s recap all that’s happened in those thirteen months, quickly:

• My brother in Michigan suffered a heart attack, and had quad-bypass surgery.
• He had been caring for my mom, who suffered from dementia – she became unresponsive, and passed away in August last year.
• Did I mention these two events occurred simultaneously?  No?  Yeah, that was fun – not.  Spent some time back in Michigan dealing with it all.  The good news is that Tom has recovered nicely, and is back to work.
• My wife and I had our own medical issues.  As of today, three of our four eyes are “fixed” (cataracts and glaucoma); my left eye is slated for early 2021. 
• We also had to replace three of our specialty doctors (and the dentist) due to retirements.  Fortunately, we got great replacements (and young’uns, too, so they’ll be around for a while).
• A plethora of other issues regarding the house, Medicare overbilling (for the insurance, not for specific treatments – that’s been OK so far), and stuff going kablooey around the house (not the new house itself, thankfully).
• Oh, yeah…COVID.  And now forest fires galore in Oregon and the whole west and smoky skies and horrible breathing and…

So let me stop right there.  These are either reasons for not writing here or “excuses” depending on how one wants to at them.  For many months I considered them excuses – I really felt overwhelmed and in no mental state to write in my blog.  Then I realized that writing was sort of cathartic and starting putting “Blog” on my list.  (It is not a “to do” list as I am retired; more of a “possibilities” list).  If I had a nickel for every time I put it on my list I’d have about six or seven dollars by now.  Intentions were good; follow-through was bad.

This is not to say I haven’t been writing.  I’ve written to my Facebook page and even sent out a few tweets.  I usually only respond to tweets, as you can imagine how difficult it is for me to limit my thoughts to 256 characters (OMG I just learned how to LINK TWEETS!).   Goodness knows there’s been plenty to comment on in the world today, but I must admit that more of my time was spent reading others’ posts and hitting the ANGRY icon, which didn’t put me in the right frame of mind to write anything.

But I did write…a book.  A novel, actually.  It’s “just a story” and may not go anywhere (I am shopping for agents and small publishers and so far, nada but I keep trying); still, it felt good to complete it and it gave me a good feeling to do so.  And now that Mona can read again (she no longer needs glasses at ALL), she can read it and probably edit the hell out if it and THEN maybe I can get it published.  We’ll see.

But this week I was determined to do SOMETHING here.  And here we are.  I’d love to say, “I certainly won’t be so long at getting back to the blog” but I hate to promise what I might not be able to deliver (and that’s the secret of running a successful business – or a government – take the hint, Donnie). 

I have a backlog of stuff I think I’d like to put words to paper about.  Believe it or not, I’ve mellowed some in my almost two years of retirement so far, so I won’t be the old curmudgeon that I used to be. 

On the other hand, I still know how to swear, so there still might be an edge.  Plus, the election is less than two months away.  Wheeeeeeee!