Wednesday

[chochiyo_sama]

Well, another extremely busy day.  I got a lot accomplished today, so I feel pretty smug.  Haha.

Today my plan was to get up early and be in Kasson by 9 am or so.  I had a couple of prescriptions to pick up, then I figured I would head to Rochester and get my hair cut--and possibly colored too as I am beginning to look a little ratty.  Then I figured I might have time to zip over to Walmart and pick up a few things before heading to Perkins to meet Ben for lunch.

Well.

This did not happen.

Because I could not fall asleep until after 3 am again, I apparently turned off the alarm I had set for 7:30 am and fell right back to sleep.  I woke up to my alarm's muffled sound at 9:30--which is my secondary alarm.  I was lying on top of my cell phone which is how I know I turned it off and went back to sleep.  It had been sitting on my night stand. 

So, I got up, got dressed, grabbed my Walmart bags and purse and headed out.

Since I saw on Facebook last night that my sister had to have my niece's horse put down, I called her while I was driving.  Apparently Rose had some sort of infected abcesses under her hooves.  Tammy has spent thousands of dollars on the horse already, attempting to make her well, and the vet said the only thing left to do was to give the horse some sort of operation where they kill the nerves that run down the front legs so she would not feel the pain any more.  This seemed very inhumane as the horse could do all sorts of damage to herself and not know it as she wouldn't feel the pain.  And the issues with her hooves would just keep deteriorating and deteriorating until her feet basically rotted off. 

So, Sadie, my niece, is furious at her mother for "killing" her horse.  But as Tammy said, Sadie doesn't do the daily chores for this horse.  She hasn't even been out to see her for two weeks, and the horse was going down a little more every day--and she was miserable.  Tammy said she made the decision when she saw the poor horse clenching her jaws so hard against the pain that the veins were all standing out in her face and neck.  The vet said she made the right decision. 

I advised her to take Sadie to the vet and let the vet talk to her about the level of pain the horse was in.

I love my niece, but she is a bit spoiled and self centered. If she had more empathy, she would see how badly torn up Tammy was about having to do this.

I talked to Tammy all the way to Kasson, where I picked up my prescription, then all the way to Perkins in Rochester.  There was no time to get my hair cut or go to Walmart prior to meeting with Ben since I had slept so late.

Ben and I had a nice lunch--Erin (brainfart--can't remember her last name)  and Brooke Reinsvold happened to come in and came over to chat a bit.  It was good to see them too.  Ben and I had a serious conversation about life and frustration and the feeling of hopeless despair that sometimes grips people  intelligent enough to realize that the world is going to hell in a handbasket.  We talked about writing too, and our mutual feelings of needing and wanting to write--but somehow not writing.

Hanging out with Ben and talking made me realize once again how much I enjoyed his company and his intellect.  I love all my students, but there are some that have personalities that just *click* with mine, and those, I hate to lose track of.  Ben is one of those. 

After eating and talking till 2:30 pm, we decided that we would make the effort to get together every two weeks or so and just keep in touch and talk.  I think it will be good for both of us.  In many ways, being a highly intelligent and sensitive person is a curse.  Ignorant, insensitive people do not know or care about things that strike fear and despair into the hearts of the intelligent.  They are unable to process things and "see" where things will undoubtedly lead if current events continue in the path that they are presently on.  Anyone with two brain cells to rub together should be able to see the hell that we are in for if Corporate America continues to manipulate the strings of politicians who in turn manipulate the strings of the population, using religion, xenophobia, and fear to bully and push them into supporting things that will ultimately devastate the entire nation, leaving a very small class of very very rich people and the rest of us who will be, basically, slaves to them. 

Yet, I still feel hope that this can be turned around.  That somehow the basic goodness of people will push past ignorance and greed and ethnocentrism and our "better angels" will win out.  Sometimes hope is the only thing we have to hold on to.  I'm not letting go of it.

After Ben and I said our good-byes, I got my hair cut.  I was tempted to color it too, but it was so late in the day and coloring it takes so long.  Also, it is very expensive.  So I settled for a quick cut and then went to Walmart where I bought two halloween themed neckerchiefs for a dollar apiece.  I intend to turn them into doll clothes.  One is all skeletons in a variety of positions and candy corn.  The other is very intricate and cool with black cats, witches, and spiders.  All of their school supplies and stuff was on sale, and I picked up a pencil holder thing with little drawers that slide out for paper clips and thumb stucks. and so on.  They had really cool small notebooks on sale for a dollar, so I bought one.  There were several varieties, and I was tempted by them because they were very unique and attractive, but I really don't need paper.  And I prefer to write on the computer where editing and rewriting are so much easier. 

I also bought a pink file crate which was on sale for $5.  It was  so cheap....and it was PINK!  I have a lot of files that need to be dealt with, and I figured that would perhaps hold some of the files that I have kept that I don't need too much but which I want to keep, like my notes on Chaucer from Harold Guthrie, my favorite college English teacher. 

And finally, I bought some food.  I bought two "loaves" of E nglish muffins, a bag of potato chips and a bag of puffcorn, a carton of prunes, a bag of Pecans, a bag of miniature peanut butter cups, a bag of Hershey's kisses, a bag of miniature KitKats,  and two bags of Mounds  candy bars                           

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And.....this is where I fell asleep ad woke up several hours later, covered in my own drool.  Time to sleep, I gues.  I deleted the long rows of Bs, Ls, Ks, and so on.  I thought it would be funny to leave them on, but it took up way too much space and was annoying.