Fire and Ice: Art of Nature, by Henri Bonnel(Pixdaus)
“I am a jumble of passions, misgivings, and wants. It seems that I am always in a state of wishing and rarely in a state of contentment.” ~ Libba Bray
Thursday evening. Clear and cold. Third day of this migraine.
Is the knot in my neck causing my migraine, or is my migraine causing the knot in my neck? These are the things that I ponder as 2010 comes to a close. I’ve been working on this particular post for two days, maybe three; it’s hard to remember. You see, I choose the quotes based on my mood, which guides the theme for my quotes, my images, and the accompanying music.
I love the David Foster Wallace quote that I am using as the header for this post. It’s not a new quote for me, but its meaning is a constant in my life: the search for that which isn’t, the need for that which has yet to appear, the yearning for that which may never exist in this lifetime.
For the past two nights, I have stayed up quite late and slept into the afternoon, a habit that I thought that I had broken during my stay with my mother. But it’s so cold everywhere—outside in the brisk air that makes my lungs seize up, and inside my brain, which refuses to thaw long enough to create—so cold that I cannot will myself to face the day. And then there is this days’ old migraine. So very tired of the omnipresent brain constriction; I have to wonder what this is doing to my grey cells in the long-term.
And so contentment, shall we say, continues to elude me on this, the almost eve of a new year.
“How did it get so late so soon? Its night before its afternoon. December is here before its June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?” ~ Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel)
By the way, does anyone happen to know a good curse-breaker because there is definitely some bad mojo at work on this family: This morning the police knocked on our door looking for Alexis. Her permanent address is still here. Seems that both of her cars were involved in an accident. Okay, yes, I know. Not the best way to be awakened, but luckily, not bad news in the police-at-your-door vein of bad news.
The good news is that the cars were parked outside her apartment. The bad news is that both cars were totalled by the huge-ass Suburban that slid on the ice and slid into the Civic that my mom just gave to Alexis; said civic was pushed back into the old Civic, which was pushed about 15 feet with the parking brake on. Neither car survived the encounter well.
Oddly enough, that’s how I lost my favorite car, my Oldsmobile Calais, in an encounter with a big-ass Suburban. The right front fender was pushed into an accordion into the passenger seat. The Suburban has a small dent in its bumper. The Calais never recovered.
So I suppose a few lessons can be learned from this experience:
- Buy an old Suburban if you want a vehicle that is built like a tank.
- Don’t count on the fact that you did not slide on the ice as a sign that all is well because other people are out on the ice with bigger vehicles than yours.
- Always have car insurance (which we do), and always be glad when the other driver also has insurance.
So now Alexis and Mike have the onerous task of dealing with insurance companies, adjusters, and trying to find two new/used vehicles, and Mike is due back on site in Northern Virginia on January 3.
So about that curse-breaker?
“Whoever you are: step out of doors tonight,
out of the room that lets you feel secure.
Infinity is open to your sight.
Whoever you are.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, from “Entrance”
The snow is gradually melting. In the past few nights the temperature has dropped below freezing, which means black ice on the roads, something that Brett and I experienced on our way home on Tuesday evening.
We went out Tuesday afternoon while Corey was trying to sleep before having to go back to work for another 11 hours that night. Brett wanted to look for yet another vintage coat at is now-favorite surplus store. No-joy on the coat, but he did find a great hood that fits on his jacket, and it was $10. Excitement all around. Then we went to another store to exchange a couple of presents, which meant that we found ourselves driving home after dark.
The Rodeo has a winter drive mode the same as my old Trooper Izzie did, and it’s a great feature. Just push that button, and feel the traction increase. We did hit one spot of ice but had minimal slippage. Luckily for us as just a few feet ahead of us was a car that had not made it over the patch quite as well and was in the median, which on that particular stretch of road has a dip. State Police were already on scene, but we didn’t see any injuries.
The best practice this week has been to stay inside and off the roads as much as possible. My mother had a doctor’s appointment yesterday, which I was planning to drive her to, but she canceled it as she was certain that the roads would be horrible. I tried to explain that in the afternoon, things were fairly good, mostly slush, but she wasn’t having it, so she has rescheduled. That being said, she drove herself to bingo this evening. Does anyone else notice the illogic that rules my mother?
“Chantez, riez; soyez heureux, soyes célèbres;
Chacun de vous sers bientôt dans les ténèbres” ~ Victor Hugo
(Sing, laugh; be happy, be famous;
Each one of you will soon be in the darkness)
It’s now 9 o’clock, and I began this post hours ago. My headache is getting worse, so I need to wrap things up for now.
I just took some more pain medicine for my migraine, which reminds me of a very troubling and infinitely sad story that Corey showed me on The Virginian-Pilot’s website, pilotonline.com. It seems that in February of this year, a marine who served in Afghanistan was admitted to Portsmouth Naval Hospital for chest pains. The marine, who was suffering from PTSD, was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a very treatable form of cancer, with a 90 percent five-year survival rate.
Twenty-year-old Lance Cpl. Ezequiel Freire never left the hospital. Instead, he died of a drug overdose, caused by too many doctors prescribing too many medications without taking into consideration what treatment Freire was already receiving. His autopsy showed a high dose of Fentanyl and 10 other narcotics and sedatives. This young man died of a toxic pharmaceutical cocktail, the kind of death that is on the upswing in this country because of the rampant use of prescribed narcotics.
Freire survived over 50 firefights during his six-month deployment only to die because too many doctors who were involved did not pay attention. But no firings will result from this tragedy because it’s a military hospital, and no suits can be brought because of that little thing called the Feres Doctrine, which absolves the military and the U.S. government from liability.
The other really pathetic aspect to this story is that some people used the comments section of the story to try to say that this (Freir’s death) is the kind of thing that will happen under Obamacare because healthcare will be government-run. Seriously? This kid was 20; he served his country; he was traumatized so much that he couldn’t enjoy a meal in a restaurant because of the noise, and he was given a potent mix of drugs: “first morphine, then oxycodone and its time-release variant OxyContin, supplemented by Dilaudid. Simultaneously, he was receiving a series of sedatives for anxiety – first Ativan, then Xanax, and finally Klonopin – plus Ambien and then Lunesta for insomnia.”
And you want to turn this horrible situation into a commentary on government healthcare reform? Have you no shame? You people are barbarians.
Enough. More later. Peace.
Music by Mazzy Star, “Flowers in December”
I wouldn’t have taken everything out on you,
I only thought you could understand.
They say every man goes blind in his heart,
And they say everybody steals somebody’s heart away.
And I got nothing more to say about it
Nothing more than you would me.
Send me your flowers of your december,
Send me your dreams of your candied wine.
I’ve got just one thing I can’t give you…
Just one more thing of mine
They say every man goes blind in his heart
And they say everybody steals somebody’s heart away
And I’ve been wondering why you let me down
Lola's Curmudgeonly Musings 