The Little "Stuphph" of Life

I really need my annual haircut. When even a ponytail is looking ratty and nasty, it's time to get it all chopped. Of course, I don't get around to things too very quickly. One year I got my annual fall haircut in January.

You know little girls are growing up when they begin to have need of grown-up undergarments to wear under their shirts. But it's really weird when the little girl is still enjoying Blues Clues, Teletubbies, and Mr Rogers.

I am stunned and saddened by an article on a friend's blog about a
sting operation when the govt went after farmers who were helping people obtain raw milk. You know something is wrong when the govt can't tell the difference between heroin and a healthy food that's been drunk for millenia. We can't see the whole picture of things anymore, but instead look at tiny little segments of problems, and then come up with "solutions" that just create more problems. In this case I'm talking about public health with regard to pasteurization, but the same thing applies to tax policy, prescription medications, education reform, environmental issues, crime, campaign-finance reform, etc.

My finger has healed enough in the last four days to begin to pin down exactly where the pain is located. There's still numbness in one spot just off to the side of the fingernail, where the cut is the deepest. But the numb spot has decreased in size. The ultra-painful spot has decreased in size too, so that it's no longer the tip of the finger, but now is just a few spots near the numb place. I no longer melt in a puddle on the floor whenever I stupidly forget the canning-jar explosion from earlier this week, and do something dumb like try to use my hand. So things are moving in the right direction!! I even got brave enough to try playing piano today, and it was manageable, though not entirely comfortable.

Gary's helping Maggie with her jack-o-lantern. I'm not doing it this year since it's been amusing enough to try to figure out a way to chop onions or cut zucchini for dinners. Sure does make a person appreciate (at gut-level instead of just in a head-knowledge way) how incredibly adept Katie is at doing things with one hand.

We found a message on the answering machine this week. The funeral director in town had called. He had needed help in the grocery store, asked one of the employees, and received excellent service. He went to the service desk to compliment this "polite young man" who knew how to "treat people with dignity" and asked who this "Paul" was. When told the young man's last name, the funeral director said, "Of course! I should've known! With parents like that, who teach manners and respect, how else would anyone expect that boy to turn out?" Wow! Not only did the man compliment Paul to the boss at work, but he also called us to give us a pat on the back too. Wow! Paul turned 15 shades of red when his dad asked him to listen to the message on the answering machine. When we asked Paul what awesome thing he'd done to help this customer, he said all he did was just fetch the soupbones from the back room ... and be polite. Wow!