Tale of a Shooting Star…

[begin rant]

I fail to understand why “mental illness” is not treated like any other medical problem. It’s typically caused by an imbalance in brain chemicals. To me, this is the same as having a problem with your thyroid or having to take insulin because your body doesn’t produce the right amount. Or the more popular, having to take some sort of proton pump inhibitor to help limit acid production in your stomach because you experience too much and/or too frequent heartburn. We even have over the counter medicine for this now.

Heck, we plaster commercials all over TV about medications to help men have “a more quality sexual experience.” But my suffering from depression is something that’s not mentioned in polite company. EXCUSE ME?!?!?!?!? Since when (and why, for goodness sake) did it become more socially acceptable to suffer from erectile disfunction than from depression?

I think our culture and our medical community have their priorities screwed up…

[end rant]

We had an interesting time outside today. It’s still WAY hot, for starters. I wanted to clean out the weeds underneath the clematis trellis so that we could get some good photos of this season’s blooms (see my landscape photos in my gallery).

Terry gets the weedwacker in as close as he can without endangering the clematis stems against the trellis and then we both crouched down and started pulling out clumps of grass and weeds. So, we’re more than halfway done pulling things out directly under the lattice when a little mini bumblebee decides to buzz around me and then close enough for to feel its wings on my neck. Of course, I squealed, which sounds a little loud once it bounces off of the woods. I was mildly embarrassed. Odd that a bumblebee was that aggressive. So, I keep on going and pull out a huge clump of grass, roots and all, that came out way too easily. And before I know it, there are 3, no 4, bumblebees. At this point, I backed off and stayed really still. And as I’m looking at the ground where I just pulled out the grass, where the bumblebees are swarming, I start to see more of these pint-sized fuzzy fliers coming out of the ground.

Did anyone else know that bumblebees nest in the ground? Because I sure didn’t! Anyway, we ended up leaving those little guys alone for a while.

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Okay, truth time. I’ve been running off of a borrowed 19″ LCD monitor for the past couple of months and I just really felt it was time to buy my own. I’ve been scoping out flat panels for a while, looking for something better than the standard 25 ms response time, which is pretty lame for gaming. A little while back, I found the Acer AL1914 on buy.com for less than $300. I had saved it to my wishlist, but was balking at even that extraordinary price, thinking I didn’t use my home computer enough to warrant it. Well, with last month being an extra paycheck month, plus our profit share check month, too, there was just no reason not to…

I went out to buy.com’s site a couple of nights ago, opened my wishlist and proceeded to add to cart… no wait, it says it’s no longer available from the manufacturer – NOOOOOOOOOOOO! Crud, I waited too long. And it had a lovely 12 ms response time and 600:1 brightness (which isn’t too bad) for that price, too. Now what? Well, I looked some more, found out that Acer actually sells the same model in a 8 ms response time version, as well. Found it at newegg.com for $330. Okay, so they don’t do free shipping. Add another $12. Still not too shabby. Ordered it and two days later, it’s here!

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Once upon a time, there lived a woman who had a maddening passion for baked beans. She loved them but unfortunately, they had always had a very embarrassing and somewhat lively reaction to her.

Then one day she met a man and fell in love. When it became apparent that they would marry she thought to herself, “He is such a sweet and gentle man, he would never go for this carrying on.” She made the supreme sacrifice and gave up beans.

Some months later her car broke down on the way home from work, since she lived in the country she called her husband and told him that she would be late because she had to walk home.

On her way, she passed a small diner and the odor of the baked beans was more than she could stand. Since she still had miles to walk, she figured that she would walk off any ill effects by the time she reached home.

So, she stopped at the diner and before she knew it, she had consumed 3 large orders of baked beans. All the way home she putt-putted, and upon arriving home she felt reasonably sure she could control it.

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Even if you aren’t a skier, you’ll be able to appreciate the humor of the slopes as written by a New Orleans paper:

A friend just got back from a holiday skiing trip to Utah with the kind of story that warms the cockles of anybody’s heart.

Conditions were perfect…12 below, no feeling in the toes, basic numbness all over…the “Tell me when we’re having fun” kind of day.

One of the women in the group complained to her husband that she was in dire need of a rest room. He told her not to worry, that he was sure there was relief waiting at the top of the lift in the form of a powder room for female skiers in distress. He was wrong, of course, and the pain did not go away. If you’ve ever had nature hit its panic button in you, then you know that a temperature of 12 below doesn’t help matters. With time running out, the woman weighed her options. Her husband, picking up on the intensity of the pain, suggested that since she was wearing an all-white ski outfit, she should go off in the woods and no one would even notice. He assured her, “The white will provide more than adequate camouflage.” So she headed for the tree line, began lowering her ski pants and proceeded to do her thing.

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Last night and again tonight, I had the pleasure of watching a fat little (?) bunny in our backyard. While I didn’t stop to watch him as much tonight, I enjoyed the show yesterday. He was placidly sitting on the grass, picking a blade and slowly nibbling it away, like sucking in a piece of spaghetti. He was the perfect specimen – pleasantly round, mottled brown with a fluffy white tail.

The part I really had to laugh at was watching him groom himself (or herself?) thoroughly before hopping a little further away to sit down to dinner. It was like a cat grooming itself. He would bring up one long back bunny foot, lick it and then scratch his ears. Then he turned his head around and licked his back, etc.

It’s funny just how much pleasure you can derive from the simply act of observing wildlife…

Sally was driving home from one of her business trips in Northern Arizona when she saw an elderly Navajo
woman walking on the side of the road. As the trip was a long and quiet one, she stopped the car and asked
the Navajo woman if she would like a ride. With a silent nod of thanks, the woman got into the car.
Resuming the journey, Sally tried in vain to make a bit of small talk with the Navajo woman. The old woman
just sat silently, looking intently at everything she saw, studying every little detail, until she noticed a brown bag on the seat next to Sally. “What’s in the bag?” asked the old woman. Sally looked down at the brown bag and said, “It’s a bottle of wine. I got it for my husband.” The Navajo woman was silent for another moment or two. Then speaking with the quiet wisdom of an elder, she said, “Good trade.”