Today, in culinary news, E took a recipe idea and totally aced it.  She made a spaghetti squash ‘lasagna’ with spinach, served in its shell, and it was a success.  It tasted as good as it looks, and it’s very filling but healthy.  I’ve promoted her to co-chef—hey, makes my life even lazier than it is!

I’ve been sick so long, in a NyQuil fog, that it’s hard to tell what day it is.  It seems to have settled down into a bronchitis-like state.  Now isn’t that more like my depressing old self?  😉  Happy Erev from the netherworld.

The furnace died, the apartment is getting colder, and my sickness is getting worse!  How’s that for whining and bitching?  BUT—in theory I’m losing weight, if that infernal scale would get over itself and work right!  So it’s not all bad.  How’s the real world, those of you who are in it?

Over the holiday weekend, when veterinary hospitals and specialists were unavailable, I know of at least two separate friends whose animals had cataclysmic medical emergencies, and outrageous bills once they were finally addressed.  I’m talking unbelievable costs, thousands of dollars’ worth, the kind that would set anybody back for a long time if it happened to them personally.  In both cases, the pet owners really can’t afford it.  I don’t know what to think of this phenomenon.

I know of many people (ourselves included) who can’t absorb the high cost of their own medical needs, and must go without.  Then factor in pet bills that sometimes rival human ones in this country.  How does anyone manage it?  We really want to have a couple of small pets one day, when we can afford it, but now I’m questioning whether that’s even realistic.  It seems the vet industry, not to be outdone by its human counterpart, exploits animal misery for its own profit.

This gives me mixed feelings.  The fact that so many citizens can’t even afford the most basic care, never mind their pets, doesn’t seem right.  But for some people, their pet is really their only family, either by choice or necessity.  They  wouldn’t consider putting it down any more than they would a human loved one.  So the greedy industry gleefully jumps in to take advantage of their distress.

Does anyone else have thoughts about this uniquely American dynamic, of pets requiring medical care that sometimes far exceeds what their humans can even afford for themselves?  It just seems out of proportion, unless people are equating their animals with children, for whom they wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice anything and go bankrupt if it came to it.  It just seems strange to me that people are compelled to make such impossible choices.  Is it just me, or is something wrong with this picture?

This generic NyQuil is dangerously effective.  Do not take without supervision, and do not attempt to do anything like remaining vertical or conscious.  Have a bed or surface handy to collapse upon.  This stuff is killer.  One drop of it would do the trick; one full dose is instantaneously incapacitating.  I would not recommend it as a habit, but for the occasional desperation of extreme cold/flu misery, go for it.

(It took me all night and morning to wake up enough to write this.  Well, and some of my sous-chef’s excellent soup experimenting.  My evil scheme to be a lazy-ass and do nothing myself is working!)

It feels like I haven’t been out of this apartment in a week or something.  Being ‘retired’ has its benefits.  When I think of the years I spent working outdoors all winter while sick, just to keep a low-rent roof over my head, this does not suck.  But if I were on my own, which is what I had to look forward to, like so many of my counterparts, and only had my tiny SS retirement income, I’d be screwed.  Here, we share the low rent and expenses, and can’t complain.

Well, that’s all I can squeeze out of my drug-addled brain right now.

So, back to our regularly scheduled drivel, compounded by the creepy crud that won’t die.  It took a new turn for the worse, just when I thought I was getting better.  The good news is, I’m keeping to my weight-loss goal by not being able to eat, period.  Blah.  Well, back to being sick, TTYL.  I won’t even dignify this post with a photo.  :/

Well, unsurprisingly that approach got a rousing response of…crickets!  Perhaps it was the missing whiny bitchy element?  How about: “WTF are you doing to leave this world a better place, BITCHES?!”  No, I didn’t think so.

OK, I get it.  We’re all too busy just surviving and getting through another day to be bothered by Meaning or Purpose.  Bills are clamoring, kids/oldsters are crapping, etc.  The answer to Life The Universe And Everything is not our immediate concern.  Or 42, alternately.

Probably it was a rhetorical question, that I’m asking myself all the time, as I watch myself fritter away whole days doing nothing much for anyone to make the world better, save possibly in my own small, humble situation.  I HATE killing time, as I repeated ad nauseum in the Vortex.  In my fanciful daydream I’m some social justice activist or artist or some such delusion, but in reality I’m just a boring old retired person on a tiny fixed income, just glad I have a roof over my head and enough to eat and pay the bills, thanks to my fellow survivor from a much rougher past than myself.  She fought her battles, in some cases still does, and is just happy to finally get a break in relative security and seclusion.  I can’t blame her.

So what can someone like me, who wasted much of my life making stupid decisions, and living with the consequences, do at this late date to make up for some lost time and make a difference?  I guess that’s my real question.  I don’t expect an answer.  I think my current isolation and circumstances give me too much idle time in which to question my purpose and relevance.  Most people are too busy living, being hounded by their goals and expectations, to spare a moment to speculate.  I guess I’ve just always questioned being born simply to exist, struggle, become irrelevant, and die.  Not very original, but still valid.  I’m sure someone else out there wrestles with this, when they have a moment to think.

I’m a frustrated Aquarius, what can I say?  At least I’m using my Upper Case, for a change.  😉

So, here’s a different question: what shall I write about?  Seriously, suggest anything, however outlandish, and I’ll give it a stab.  I’m not much of a writer, like my brother and son, but I love to write and obviously need more practice.  I’ll still keep blabbing anyway, so might as well write about something someone wants to read.  Otherwise it’s amateur photos of boring Ohio life, to cure your insomnia.  You decide.

Here is a rare sighting of YT:

WordPress assures me that all that whining and bitching I did in the VOE (Vortex Of Evil, a.k.a. NJ) was much more interesting to my hypothetical audience somewhere out there, than the more mundane trivia of being put out to pasture in Ohio (go figure), and I might want to revert to my former style(?!).

So I’m going to try something a little different.  GIVE ME FEEDBACK (however critical).  In fact, your feedback will make this exercise much more effective.  So fire away.

For my first installment, I pose this question.  Please answer honestly.

What do you personally do in your life to feel like you are leaving the world a better place?  Or is this even a consideration in your daily life?  It can be as mundane or as idealistic as you like, as long as you’re being honest.  Be as brief or elaborate as time allows.

Ok, your turn!  I warn you, I’ll go back to boring food and nature photos if you do not respond.  That is a threat!    (Actually, I probably will anyway.)  😉

PS: Bonus Question: Can you guess what’s different about my editing? (Hint.)  New tricks.

Here is the original X-marks-the-spot, permanently enshrined in our Museum of The Pizza Planet.

starting to feel more human around here.  has the outer world made it to 2016?  we’re kind of out of it.  happy first erev, from Skelly and co.  here is a pecan orange lemon quick bread i made.