Just Thinkin’

I turned 51 a few of days ago and although the day itself wasn’t particular special (just the way I like it) nor thought provoking (gives me a headache), the thoughts have been slowly building within my wee brain since then. And after three days I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s been a very interesting year.

I had abominable abdominal surgery down in Boston, Ma. Woke up with a half a dozen tubes in me. My first major surgery.

Much to my surprise, after using and testing Microsoft OSs and programs for years, I made the switch from a Windows to a Linux based OS. First to Ubuntu and then, after a bit of distro hopping in between, finally settling on Linux Mint. I’m still surprised.

I had to come to terms with the fact that the surgery I had is not going to help as much as I had hoped, that there’s a good chance I won’t be able to become employed again. Sort of an early forced retirement if you will. Considering what has happened of late, I may be too busy for the next couple of years to maintain a job anyway.

Which brings me to the last bit of personal type major events that have occurred during the past 12 months—we had our home ripped out from underneath us by our so-called friend and, as a result, ended up purchasing our own home (well, almost anyway). Something that neither my wife nor I ever thought was going to happen again.

I won’t say it was “just by happenstance” or just by “pure, shit-blind luck” that we stumbled across this new place the same day we received the news that our current home was being sold as it’s been proven to me one too many times during my life that when disaster hits, an opportunity then presents itself. I also learned to never ask questions in these cases, just go with the flow and shut up.

But the personal type stuff isn’t the only thing that’s made the last 12 months interesting. Events in the old USA have been a regular cornucopia of entertainment now hasn’t it?

We’ve had a new president out there turning the government on it’s ear by, for all intents and purposes, doing his utmost best to do his utmost best. Say what you will but this is the first president that’s ever tried and (somewhat) succeeded in taking care of  the problems that exist right here on the home territory rather than just letting them slide like so many other administrations in the past have done. This guy has accomplished more good in the last 14 months than other past administrations have accomplished in decades. Not bad for someone who walked into an absolute mess the first day on the job.

And this set off a whole chain of events that kept my eyes glued to my computer display since I turned 50 last year. I’ll list some of them below that have really made the last several months so interesting for me.

There are those who have called our president a socialist, communist, fascist, Nazi, etc. Of course, those that do call him that are probably incapable of comprehending what a socialist, communist, fascist, Nazi, etc really is because if they did they’d never call him a socialist, communist, fascist, Nazi, etc in the first place.

I’ve watched the once respectable (if such a thing can be said for any political party) Republican party lose it’s collective mind and reduce itself into the equivalent of a bunch of spoiled adolescents stomping around and screaming their heads off because they didn’t get their way. The entire goal of the Grand Old Party has since been redirected to make sure that President Obama fails at all costs—including the complete failure of our own country if necessary. A sad thing indeed when they could have easily been part of the recovery process rather than defying it at every turn.

Then there’s the so-called “Tea Party”. I’m still not too sure what to make of these folks except that it’s formation pretty much came as a result of the “Fall of the Republican Party” as I like to call it. Okay, so people have a right to their own opinion but like most groups of this type, the intelligence level of the individuals involved is oppositely proportional to the number of people involved in the group itself. I mean, their role model is Sarah Palin? C’mon now.

Spitting on; yelling racial epitaphs at; throwing stones through windows of homes and offices of; mailing letters filled with an “unidentified white powder” to; those that voted for the Health Care Reform bill? Acts of extreme violence towards the government, government officials and law enforcement agencies plotted and planned by good, “right thinking”, Christians? Christians?!? Well, golly gee whiz folks, wouldn’t Jesus would be proud though?

Hoo boy, Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey could never have topped this 3 ring circus no matter how many trained elephants, donkeys and clowns they had.

So it’s been a very interesting year to say the least. Never a dull moment as they say.

Now you might think that all this mish-mash of personal and non-personal upset has me feeling a bit insecure about my (our) well being and you’d be right. However, and this may come as a surprise to a few, it’s not so much the personal events that cause me to feel less than comfortable about things in general than it is the non-personal events that give me a profound sense of unease. I won’t trouble my readers with trying to explain though as this post is getting a bit long in tooth as it is. Some of it should be fairly obvious anyway.

You can take the above statement as you will but suffice it to say that I’m very glad that this new place we’re hoping to buy has new roofs, sills, windows, siding, a wood stove and a river nearby.

And I’m certainly not going to wonder what the next 12 months will bring as there’s enough to occupy my wee brain for the next few months as it is. In that light I think it’s best to stop thinking for now and, if all goes well, start thinking again sometime around mid-summer.

Who knows? The quality of my posts might actually go up if I don’t think about them first?