Coping

Coping with the news. First of all, I’m not going into a news blackout but only watching the CBS evening news. I know it isn’t complete but by itself it is alarming enough. I’ll be dropping the New York Times…. Don’t need all that news all the time. If I want an in depth story about any particular issue I can find it on line. I’ve identified 4 things to focus my energy and resources 1) contributing to organizations that focus on protecting the bill of rights and voting rights 2) contacting appropriate people in congress to express concerns on a regular basis by phone. I guess that works best though I have sent emails. Thought about twitter. 3) limiting my exposure to alarming news and views from either side. I can’t live in a constant state of upset or outrage which comes from that. 4) practicing love and compassion in the community in which I live. It includes a majority of conservatives. Listening and not trying to change minds. That’s going to have to do it for now. The other thing I might do is to find some way to be involved in getting out the vote and making sure people vote in the mid-term elections or working for the election of democrats because the longer this goes on the more difficult it will be to reverse the backwards direction that our self-serving leader and his cronies are taking our country.

Life at Palmdale…. Don had a surgical procedure called tympanoplasty in which the surgeon made an incision behind his ear and placed a skin graft on the inside of his ear drum last Tuesday. Today he is getting his stitches out and hopefully will be cleared to play golf and return to all of his regular activities as well as remove the cup that he has had to wear over the ear to protect it all week. I will describe the cup by reporting the feedback he got from some of his more creative friends. Someone suggested that he had his dust mask on the wrong place. Another friend wanted to know why he was wearing some kind of bra on his head. Another helpful friend said he would get him an eagle feather to put in the band. Someone else informed him that wasn’t the place to wear a cup. Someone else wanted to know if I had slapped his ear. Most people just wanted him to tell about the procedure. It will be good for him to have something else to talk about. Now that the roads are finished, there isn’t a lot to talk about though.

Sparky took advantage of the new roads and posted a sign, “Sparky’s Miracle Mile Toll Road” and tried to collect tolls from those who walk by. He did get $1600 Canadian dollars printed on paper napkins and 75 cents in US change. We will turn all of that into the association on behalf of Sparky. We seem to be doing very little of anything. I continue to read whatever novels strike my fancy from the park library. We play 500 on Tuesday afternoons. I’m now doing the 4 mile walk aerobics a couple of times a week and continue with line dancing. I have a partner now to go to the aerial yoga class over in Harlingen at least once a week. That’s a pretty full life. We are beginning to work on getting our new car set up to tow and think about the route we will take when we leave her in April… East and then north and west back to Minnesota.

 

Don is now free to resume all his normal activities and can go golfing and fishing again though it will be another 6 weeks until we know if the surgery is good and he can wear his hearing aid again.