The Update

Sure, we're supposed to update blogs at least once a week, maybe more. Here's why I've been such a slacker:

Emergency surgery to remove a gall bladder with some minor complications; Nature Girl's car losing "Ice Dancing" competition with an SUV during one of the recent ice storms; brother-in-law dealing with fatal health issues, trip to Michigan; father with some eye surgery (just one, thanks) and that's just since the last post.

I even have a photo of the offending organ before removal. Taken in the gut, so to speak, by the laprascopic camera, but Nature Girl was horrified at the thought even though there's no way to trace it back to her. Send those cards and letters of thanks to me and I'll be glad to pass them along to her. Someone has to be a conscience of good taste, right?

Overall, I can say my mind is now at peace knowing I met my health care deductible for the entire year by January 2nd. As a prize, I've been awarded the "stay at home, watch TV and surf the web" posting on the couch. Some observations flavored by pain-killers:

If your neighbor's kids were throwing hundreds of rocks at your house all the time and the cops did nothing, what would you do? Would you eventually toss them back? Would you take those kids to the woodshed on your own? If the kids with little rocks live in the Gaza Strip and you live in Israel with bigger rocks, what then? Seems to me answers across the hedge hold sway with the troubles across the ocean. Shouldn't any talk of peace start with a promise to put the rocks down -- even the small ones?

Still on the Middle East: anyone else think Hamas is like organized crime in owning the tunnels from Egypt to Gaza? Smugglers use to get goods and guns, charging tolls and getting their "vig"? It's enough to make even a Soprano green with envy. Imagine owning the highway, getting a piece of every shipment AND operating as the Toll Authority. Just why the hell do all those people still live in such deplorable conditions?

In Washington, the city quivers...as do the commentators who can't wait for the coming. On New Year's Eve I heard a commentary from NPR's Daniel Schorr equating Barack Obama to the Greek god who would swoop in and fix everything. Dan begs for cosmic help; "it's the only answer we have in this age of anxiety." As if the entire pull yourself up from the muck American spirit has been destroyed by the dumping of our net worth (or maybe just Dan's) the past three months.

Understand that it was our own grand American impatience to have it all without paying for it that finally caught up to October and November, 2008; time to pay the piper not for working hard to build wealth, own a home and put the kids through college but instead not working at all but expecting loopholes pushed by lenders, politicians and special interests to front load the American dream payoff without a penny of sweat equity.

Where's the next Ronald Reagan to point to American perseverance as the answer to working out of our problems? Where's the next FDR to note the only fear we have is fear itself, and maybe in today's age the only greed we should fear is our own? Are there no Teddy Roosevelts? As Obama tries to lash together fast action even his own Democrats seem uneasy, and you could almost feel the resentment with O's promise that earmarks wouldn't be tolerated. Now is the time for bold action, decisive leadership and to hell with tradition.

Schorr's was the last commentary I heard before my gall bladder screamed to be pulled from my body. Maybe the bladder has ears.