Bad times in the country, better toe at home

 

I don't write about politics in this space but this is an exceptional time, as in, exceptionally bad, so I will just say:

1. When I was canvassing for Hillary Clinton and the other Democrats in New Hampshire before the 2016 election, I could not believe it when some people said they were voting for Clinton "as the lesser of two evils." We were more supposed to give them information than engage in conversation, but I just could not stop myself from explaining that they were off their rockers. No I didn't say it that way, I just calmly tried to explain the difference. Of course we didnt know exactly how bad it would be. For what it's worth, Clinton did get the state's four electoral votes, and Maggie Hassan, the governor running for Senate, won the seat . This is not to mention (which I just did) the guy who shouted at us from his doorstep that he was voting for Trump and we should get away from his house. It was a rainy day, and my feet and my brain got soaked. After I got dropped off in Northampton, I went and treated myself to a pair of boots that my soaked feet and waterlogged brain needed.

2. After that fateful election night, when I had spent the night at my friends' house for an election night "party," I had to pick Maddie up from my Trump-loving dog sitters (previous baby sitter). I said through tears, "Don't gloat." 

3. In talking to them during the campaign (with Fox News in the background at their house) we had a few words. (I actually love these people except for their politics, and they love my dog so much and take her whenever, I don't know what I would do without them.) They even took the dog when I went to N.H. 

The former babysitter said, "Hillary needs to be in jail" and "Obama ruined the country." When I tried to say otherwise, she said, "You people..." We never talked about it again. I wonder what they think now. I know they also watch "regular" news so they must get some dosage of the truth. 

If it was hard to concentrate before, it's even harder now.

The other day, though, I ran about five miles. It was good to air my brain out. The only way I can run without my glasses getting fogged up is to put contacts in. The contacts are supposed to be "multi-focals," meaning good for reading also. But they just don't work as well as when my eyes were younger and I used to wear them all day. I can't read that well with them so I just use them for running and longer walks. 

I had to wait about a week for the pain in my toe to subside. The biopsy report came back. I really like the young resident who did the work. He had someone call me while he was on vacation because he knew I was worried. The nurse said it was not squamous cell carcinoma or melanoma or anything to worry about. It is, or was, since it is gone, "just" a benign tumor. 

That is of course good except for there is a hole in my toenail. It is actually more like a missing slice. 

I put two Band Aids on it to run.

When I say something gross like this, re: the missing part of my toe, I can hear Alexis saying, Ew, David.

If you have Netflix and haven't watched Schitt's Creek, I'd say to go and do it since it offers as much of a balm as is possible in this time.

The world is a disaster. My problems seem small.

It is hard to blog about certain things when the image of a masked terrorist holding a knife to an American journalist on his knees in the desert is seared into your mind. And now there is another, and they even took a video of it.

It is hard to read and watch and listen to the news, and hard not to, and hard to avoid it anyway because the headlines pop up wherever you look.  It is hard to know that while we live in relative comfort, parts of the world are in the middle ages, and hard to know that we are not so safe as we think we are and that the very city (Minneapolis) where my daughter is teaching ESL (now ELL) to  Somali children is the same city where a Somali neighborhood is a breeding ground for ISIS recruitment of disaffected young people, as reported on NBC Nightly News.

It is hard to hear our once-passionate president say blandly that  "we don't have a strategy yet" for dealing with Islamic extremists in Syria, and to hear him say that "not doing stupid stuff" is an accomplishment, and also to hear him say, as we seek more urgency and reassurance, "The world has always been messy," while as Frank Bruni put it in an op-ed piece  in yesterday's New York Times, "'Messy' is my kitchen at the end of a long weekend. What's happening in much of Syria and Iraq is monstrous."

It's hard for me personally because my friend Patricia is gone. We were blogging partners, often writing on the same topic; one would lob a ball into the other's court and then it would return with something comforting or funny or just the words,  "I know how you feel."

That is basically why I have not written much in the last couple of weeks.

So. I think I see another tiny squamous cell cancer on the back of my hand – just a little raised freckle that looks odd to me – and I will have to make an appointment to go to Boston to have it checked out and probably get another punch biopsy. Ouch, but still.

So. I watch the US Open. I go to USopen.org and watch the press conferences and recaps. I read about Roger Federer's wife Mirka and look at all the family pictures. I watch him float around the court and I remember years ago when I was in the hospital around this time of year and my sister said  that for a good distraction from leukemia and chemotherapy, I should turn on the Open "and watch Roger Federer who does not sweat."

It worked then, and it works now. For a while.

It's cold in here

Got a call from the Middle School early this morning about subbing in a computer technology class today, and I replied, from underneath a pile of quilts, that I would do it as long as I didn't have to answer too many questions.

Then I remembered that I have no heat and need to wait here for the gas company, so I reluctantly called back and canceled the sub job.

Given all the devastation from Hurricane Sandy, I can't really complain. Still, it is pretty cold in here. I am wearing a shirt, a sweatshirt and a fleece vest. Maddie will have to wait for her walk until the problem is resolved. This has happened for no apparent reason.

I am still on a high from election night. Joe and I watched together, all the way to 2 a.m. and Obama's incredible speech. We stood and applauded. What a moment.

There is a "good" side of the couch where you can lie down facing the TV, while on the other side you have to sit up or displace the dog and lie sideways.

Joe started out on the good side, and midway through the evening I got up and switched while he was out of the room. He practically freaked out. Obama was starting to win in the battleground states, and Joe said that if we changed I would jinx it and it would be my fault if Obama lost.

I suspect he just wanted to stay on the good side, but I wasn't taking any chances. Somewhere around 1 a.m., I pushed Maddie off and lay down on the "bad" side and dozed.

I had been eating grapes, and I asked if it would thwart Obama's momentum should I stop eating them. Joe didn't think so. You can only take these things so far.

I had my own superstition. For weeks, I drank out of my Obama mug, figuring that it would be bad luck if I switched. Then I worried that I might drop the mug and bring on bad luck.

Now I am drinking out of my I "heart" NY mug.

My hometown needs all the love I can send it.

Running around

I was going to break out and try running today, but instead I walked to the Common for the South Hadley Columbus Day Fair. I ate a baked potato with sour cream and cheese, bought a scarf, talked to people and then walked Maddie around the lake with two friends. Then, I ran to buy a chair to take advantage of a Columbus Day sale.

I also spent a lot of time on the Internet making arrangements for when I join Katie in Seville on Dec. 17. We're going to travel for 12 days; I haven't done much except get my plane ticket and reserve a room in a B&B in Seville, and now all of a sudden the trip is drawing near.

We are going to spend a few days in Seville so she can show me around, and then go to Granada, Barcelona and Paris. After I settled on a place to stay in Paris, I looked at a map of the surrounding area and saw the hospital. Oh, the hospital! Not Oh, the Eiffel Tower. I wonder if there will always be that little voice that says, "Just in case."

Anyway, it's very exciting to be realizing I'm actually going.

But first things first.

The election is maybe taking up too much space in my brain. I "have to" watch the MSNBC politics shows and I have to read the New York Times and on-line sites. On one of the news shows, a panel was debating whether the good jobs report on Friday – unemployment dropped to 7.8 percent – would give Obama a bounce that could neutralize the negative effect of his poor debate performance in Denver. Some thought that it could, but one panelist wondered how many people actually felt that the lower number made their day.

Well, I was one of those people. I heard it on the radio driving down to tennis and immediately felt buoyed after actually being depressed by Obama's lackluster performance. I went on to play some decent tennis.

Meanwhile, I hope that tomorrow I will get that run in.