Lessons Learned from Billy Joel and God

So, yesterday as I left the second-opinion-surgeon's office, in tears, after hearing that my pain has an unknown cause, that I'm too fat to operate on, but I'm "young and healthy enough" for lapband/gastric bypass surgery (wtf? that's way more major than lap cholesystectomy), that I should go to a seminar to learn more, and that I need to lose weight (which is what got me into this pain in the first place), I sat in my car and cried for a good ten minutes because of the pain, because the cold I have is making me feel like shit, because I drove three hours and spent $50 for an appointment that involved the dr taking to me and not even laying a palpitating hand on me, and because pain, long-term pain drains you.

After I got my eyes tear-free enough to drive and I paid for some gas at a ramshackle "El Cheapo" station in downtown Columbia staffed by a coughing hacking rice-pudding-eating Middle-Eastern woman who looked really pissed the entire time I was in her shop to buy an A&W, I got on I-20 and drove home. It was a blustery day in the Midlands. We're at the middlemark of Winter, and all is dead, gray, dreary, and dry. The ground crunches wherever you walk, all feels washed in a tinted-out feel like when you screwed with the tv knobs as a kid, and it feels like the Earth will never Spring up again. I loathe Winter. When I die someday, may it be the end of August when the sun is high, the forest green, leafy, and dank, and the Earth is full of life. O Lord, let me die in an August!

My thoughts on the drive were permeated with twinges of pain from my side since I couldn't take analgesics while driving. I elected to drive in silence, to be alone with my thoughts. I thought, probably the darkest thoughts of my life, that I understood how people in chronic pain could want to end their suffering by their own hand....but that I had too much to live for to ever consider that option.....also that my pain isn't always unbearable (this doesn't hurt anywhere nearly as bad as an acute gout attack). Don't worry, it was an academic exercise; this isn't a plea for help, rather, I felt like God was using someone else's vainglory to comfort me yesterday.

You want an explanation....I know, I know. Billy Joel isn't necessarily a tool in God's hands, but as the old yarn goes, "He moves in mysterious ways." "Come out Virginia" is devilishly catchy as a young man tries to get a Catholic girl to sleep with him, and many of his songs contain braggadocio-type lyrics that go against certain Christian mores. About halway home the silence grew too much to bear, so I turned on the radio, eschewing all the talk radio fiends dickering over anything Obama or Congress may do to fix the soapy economy for some comfort music....first Boston, then "Time of my Life" from that movie where somebody tried to put Baby in a corner, then Billy Joel's "Keeping the Faith" came into my car and the lyrics, while at first listen might seem like Boomer-glory day revisiting came to me as if from On High, the way in November Wyclef Jean might say, "and then my voice comes in Pow!, in the middle of the night, and this is what I told you for Him:"

You know the good ole days weren't always good
And tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems

Now I told you my reasons for the whole revival
Now I'm going outside to have an ice cold [root] beer in the shade
Oh, I'm going to listen to my 45's
Ain't it wonderful to be alive
When the rock 'n' roll plays, yeah
When the memory stays, yeah
I'm keeping the faith
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, keeping the faith
I'm keeping the faith, yes I am
You know I'm keeping the faith, oh yes I am
You know I'm keeping the faith, oh you are


Thank you Mr. Joel & thank you God for reminding me that it is wonderful to be alive, even in pain.
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It's official, I'm getting old.

I just saw a commercial for the latest Kidz Bop CD and I didn't know any of the songs that they were mutilating.
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If I lived within driving/train distance of New York City

This is where I'd be Monday night:

http://www.jalc.org/about/news/2007/pdf/2008-12-18_Jan%2019%20Event%20Announcement.pdf

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/16/marsalis.inauguration/index.html

Wynton Marsalis is a dynamic speaker and a gifted musician. Man, I miss New Orleans during Carnival season.
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Why you want your kid to take the school bus

So, a recent article about schools cutting back by cutting bus service should give you pause if this idea has been discussed in your district.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/01/16/school.bus.cuts/index.html

From the article:

A 2007 congressional report outlined the risks of taking children off school buses. Citing the Transportation Research Board, the report said about 12.5 million students -- roughly a quarter of the nation's K-12 students -- took about 5.5 billion school bus trips between 1995 and 2005.

On those trips, there were 1,368 fatal crashes, only 97 of which killed a bus driver or passenger, the report said.

Other data in the report show that an average of 20 students died annually between 1991 and 1999, and 15 of those were killed boarding or exiting the bus. About three times as many students got to school by other means, but the death toll among those students was almost 40 times higher. See how many died driving or riding with an adult »

"If we talk about the cost of lives, we want to put these kids on school buses," said Dashney, who has 40 years of experience in traffic safety and student transportation.

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Gallbladder Problems

So, for the last two months I've had biliary dyskinesia. I haven't much felt like posting. When I'm my normal self again, not in constant pain, I'll start posting again. Until then, it's going to be sporadic.
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Happy Twelfth Night

Today is the first day of Mardi Gras. We will be putting up our decorations and getting stares from the neighbors today.....I even have C9-sized yellow, purple, and green lights for the house to replace the Christmas lights (which at 7 watts x 100 bulbs x 12 hours a day added about $50 to our December light bill; I got a timer for the Mardi Gras lights).

I miss living in New Orleans this time of year for the weather, for Carnival, and for the good times I had with Layton and Amanda Alldredge, Mike and Kristin Lindsey, Clay & Amy Larson, Matt & Amber Stecher, Gove and Nikki Allen, and Kasey and Brent (when he would actually come and not gripe) Bastian.

Mardi Gras madness, New Orleans
'Throw me something mister,' the crowds all scream

Hail to Bacchus and all his krewe

The party don't stop, the whole night through

Hail to Bacchus and New Orleans!

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Let's Put Paul Coverdell in the Senate and Put Wyche Fowler out

2:15 in is where the old lady sings.....classic stuff.
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"My wife would like that"

FISH SHOULD BE DEAD BEFORE DEBONING

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