Friday, February 05, 2016

5053 Got the blahs

Friday, February 5, 2016

First you have to figure out who you are.
Then you have to like who you are.
Then you have to be who you are.
That's where strength comes from, and all else follows.

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Yesterday it was very warm, close to 50 F.  Nugget came to visit, and we went to the town hall (pay taxes), the bank (deposit some checks), post office (buy stamps), and a sub shop (feed Nugget).  She was wearing a light jacket, I wore no jacket or sweater at all.  She tried to get me to put the top down, and I might have, except that I'm still full of phlegm and don't want to tempt fate.

The snow from the previous storm had been steadily melting, and yesterday the last little bits disappeared, even in the shade.  It was a nice feeling.

So this morning I was surprised to wake to the sound of a snowplow going down the street.  There's a manhole cover near my driveway, and when the plows hit it, they make a loud bang.  That's what woke me.  I got up and went to the window and found about three inches of snow on the ground.  What?  Oh, come ON!

But it's near 50 again, and it's melting fast.  That means ice overnight, but it should all be gone tomorrow.

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I've been reading this blog, and adding tags.  I started near the end of 2006, I think, and I'm now into late 2008.  I can't believe how much has changed.  

Before I moved to New Jersey, I was going out for lunch or dinner with friends three or four times a week, sometimes more.  I went to performances, fairs, shows, movies, auctions.  I read a lot.  I walked a lot.  I was, in short, very active and social.  I was involved with Mensa, and Meetup, volunteer groups, and the dance stuff.  I had a lot of opinions, some even passionate opinions, which became blog posts.  And, of course, there was The Man.  I really really miss the fun we had, back when it was fun.  I miss that version of him.

Then I moved down here (late 2010, early 2011), and almost immediately had the kidney thing, which put the skids to so much for so long.  The local Mensa bunch, the folks within travel distance of my current location, anyway, isn't to my taste.  Local meetup groups seem to emphasize booze and bars, which doesn't interest me, plus I don't understand most of the people I'd met at the few functions I'd attended.  They seem so, uh, New Jersey shallow.  And racist.  (Becs, resist the urge, I have enough negativity of my own right now...)  There are no auction houses.  I checked into volunteer organizations, and they don't do anything much around here. There doesn't seem to be any easy way to find out about activities, lectures, happenings, and the few public events I have discovered --- the crowds and traffic were discouraging.

So my world has been getting smaller and smaller.  I go nowhere, talk to no one.  I'm turning into a hermit.  As to opinions, I almost never turn the TV on, except for a very few shows I watch and then immediately off again, and I never watch the news.  I resist exposure to the news because a.) they never cover important stuff, and b.) what they do cover tends to just anger me.  And there's no point in saying anything about it, because nothing will change.  Nothing will ever change.  It's about to where I don't care anymore.  What will be will be.

So, reading old posts is reminding me that once life was fun.  

 But the elements that contributed to the fun don't seem to be here.

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The Aberdeen township sent out an email saying that ALERT! a pit bull who had bitten three people has been diagnosed with rabies, so they need to know of anyone who had contact with the dog.  If you or anyone else blah blah contact blah blah immediately.  A very long email, detailing what rabies is, mentions of past animals in the township with rabies, what animals to avoid (raccoons, stray cats, skunks, etc.), blah, blah, blah.  

Nowhere in that whole screed do they describe the dog other than that it was a pit bull, nowhere do they mention what neighborhood, and this is a long narrow township.  They also don't advise anyone to check their cats for damage, most of which run loose and are not taken in at night.  (That's where some indication of neighborhood might come in handy.)

Around here, about every fourth dog is a pit bull.  Nobody trains their dogs.  They might try, but they don't know how.  People seem to think that their dogs speak English, so yelling "Hey, you, get over here!" should have meaning to the dog, and they get mad when the dog doesn't obey  I suspect few people get the immunizations.  I know just by looking that almost nobody neuters male dogs, especially the pits.

What does surprise me is that you almost never see dogs running loose.  Too many guns around, I guess.
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1 comment:

Becs said...

No, no, no, I AGREE with you!It's almost impossible to have a real conversation here. My neighbors all hate me because I never go outside and whatever else. My friends are all Internet or long distance friends. Thank God the people at work are all intelligent and have a sense of humor.