Yeah, okay - I fess up.

I think I might be depressed.  Not clinically gone.  Not even close to needing a shrink.  Definitely not in need of meds.  (Though a generic loritab - left over from my knee surgery - might offer a brief respite of I can clean the house in ten minutes kind of relief.)  Speaking of meds, what is it with narcotics anyhow?  I can't take codeine unless I want to vomit until I dry heave, I don't tolerate aspirin or ibuprofen or anti-inflammatories, so the only choice left for me in "painkillers" are narcotics.  Addictive!  And since I object to taking drugs due to logical, moral and health reasoning, it's ironic that I should enjoy those narcs so much that I have saved a few even though it meant toughing out some pretty bad leg pain.  I mean: I never even took acid or speed cause I like to be in control (of myself).  Given the proper excuse (head injury, broken bones, etc.,) drugs are, uh, okay.

I built this funky fence out of chair parts, wood turnings and left-over board and such.

I have a bit of fun adding seasonal decorations... do ya like my giant carrot headed bunny?

I'm stoic.  I tolerate pain very well.  I'm tough and I'm a survivor of four emergency room dashes, one of which included a speeding ambulance ride (fractured skull) to get there.  Another time I drove myself there with a broken shoulder - and I had a five speed stick shift!  One time I had keep from passing out long enough to prevent the hospital folk from cutting my custom made field boots off before I went for x-rays.   But that was all back when I rode fearlessly on unpredictable horses - and I was, of course, many years younger.  I bounced back.

Now I don't bounce so well.  The fall I took last September has permanently damaged my left knee, which was my best one (a horse having fallen on the right one - and I was once dragged by that right leg too on a horse named Lucky, of all things).  In a riding "accident,"  there is a kind of glory. There is pride in the retelling. Falling in a puddle of water on a cement floor is without glory.  There's only the mortification of knowing several people witnessed it and it was caught on video.  After seven months, surgery, cortisone shots and some kind of lubricant injections, not to mention crutches, cane and limping - and several weeks of physical therapy, my right knee and my right hip are now inflamed.   When I walk, I can't decide whether to limp right or left or just shuffle - kind of like Tim Conway as the old geezer.

Sigh.  I return to the awful part time job this week on "light duty".  This is literally adding insult to injury.

Spring.  Bloom.  Leaf.  Grow.

So, as my lack of postings here where I am normally wont to revel, wax poetic (about my kittehs) and philosophize  illustrates: I am rather down.  (Now that was a hard-to-read sentence!)

But I still have my sense of humor, my kitties and kittehs still amuse me, and my geriatric dogs and horses are doing tolerably well.  I'm even growing a bit of a garden. Soon there'll be tomatoes and sweet corn, potatoes and squash - and I picked my own greens grown from seed last eve for a stupendous salad. One needs things to look forward to even if one must create them.

My salad?

Black seeded simpson lettuce
bibb or buttercrunch lettuce
red leaf lettuce
spinach
black olives sliced
red seedless grapes
tomatoes
thin sliced baby carrots
celery bits (cause I need to use it up)
Vidalia onion (just a bit)

Balsamic vinegar (just a drizzle) and then ranch dressing on top...  Yum.

If you haven't tried grapes in your salad as a replacement for - or in addition to - tomatoes, please do so!

I feel better now.  Thanks for listening.  I think I'll plant some nasturtiums for a zesty salad addition!

Gracie.  Just look at her perfect eyeliner...