undone

Somebody said that what we regret most are not the things we did but those we didn't do.   I am full of regret there.

Trips never taken, trips never taken together because I thought I couldn't go, events unattended, movies unseen, books unread, words unsaid.

She asked me to teach her to play chess.   Once this year.   I didn't.

I learned to ride a bicycle because of her, actually.   She bought an old Schwinn Varsity at a police auction.  It sat there for several years and finally I got off with it and took it apart.  It was when she told me a son bought a bunch of bikes at an auction and they were all riding that I decided to learn.  So I learned.   And we rode together twice only.  I didn't encourage her because I worried about her getting hurt.  My bones don't break, my bruises don't hurt; hers did.

I wanted her to play golf, got her sets of clubs twice.  The first set diasppeared, borrowed by someone.  The second sits nearby.  Once we went out into the yard for 5 minutes to swing at whiffle balls.

She wanted a child, and undertook a costly and dangerous regimen of hormones.  I was often not there at the critical times.  We never had a child of our own. 

So often and so long I was not there.  I was not even half a husband.

She should have married someone rich but caring.  Instead she got me.  

The last time I saw her alive, at the airport leaving for vacation, they were late for the plane and fussing with baggage and children and I did not hug or kiss her.   I waived, when I thought she looked my way, but she didn't see.   I did not speak to her again.

Should

It should have been me.   I wish it were me.  I want to die.   I don't know how much longer I can stand this.  

hard

Its hard to lose your only lover, confident and friend, that you were married to for 26 years and knew for 27.  She told me I was her rock, her anchor, her best friend.   I was a poor one.  But she was my only anchor to reality.  

If

Had my wife been alive today, she would have jumped up and clapped her hands as the Supreme Court decision was announced.  She was unable to get coverage, being in a high risk group, and has she lived this would have enabled that.

I wish there were a way of turning the clock back just a few days.  She need not have died.  All this was preventable, by her and by me.  Not permanently preventable, but delayable.   I survive alone and I bear the burden alone.

Part is guilt, the fact of things unsaid and undone.  So many.   And in not preserving the life of my beloved, I failed her one more time.  All I had to do was insist she see a doctor about her heart.   That she take a glucose meter and use it.  I could have done this from afar.   Her phone is full of my unanswered calls and text messages. 

Everywhere in my life and my environment are her footsteps.  Places we were, places we walked, things we said.  There is no escaping them.   They are there but she is gone.  

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I'd hoped I'd not live to see this day.

I was told that chances were I would.  I didn't believe it and didn't want to think about it.

Death is just around the corner, for each of us. 

Now the better part of me is gone.  The light of my life is gone.   There is no hope and no future.

Another Day in SNAFUville

Temperature and thermostats...

Ever wonder why in this day of expensive energy the thermostats of buildings are set so low in the summer that those working in them must wear more clothes than are appropriate outside?   Lot of times you'd better take a sweater to be inside even if the temp outside is 90!

Why?   I think it is because appearance -- Style! -- is everything.  You want to keep offices cold enough in the summer that men can comfortably wear a suit with coat and tie.  So that women can show off their woolen wardrobe at any time of year.  Damn the cost!  What price ostentacion?

Summer or two ago for the first time a passenger staying in my parked vehicle for a few minutes who insisted on the motor being left running to keep the air conditioner on!   I've seen that but never experienced that particular craziness before.  Totally insane!

For myself, I can drive seven hours in 100+ degree heat without an air conditioner, no problema.   A pail of ice, cold drinks, a little hot air flow and I'll be fine.  

The human body was designed to adjust to variations in temperature.  In my poor opinion, it is insane to expect to live out our lives in a narrow band of temperature variation hovering around 70 degrees F.   The human body is especially evolved to cope with cooling in hot temperatures. 

Of course I like to sleep in an unheated room in winter, and the colder it gets the more comfortable I am, down into the 30s at night (I can't breathe trying to sleep in a warm room in winter.)

It is crazy when the weatherperson on TV warns us about spring heat waves into the 90s or warn us about going outside when temps are below 20.   Do they think we are stupid?    Well...

All this unnaturalness is killing us of course, at the bank and otherwise.     I pity the bubble-baby children growing up today.  "It's too hot to play outside!"   "It's too cold to play outside!"  Which is true of half the days of the year.

This is one of a number of reasons why I think our species is headed toward extinction.

Polydactyl Cat

Gentle and obliging soul that I am, sucker that I am, I have been feeding cats, including some strays that show up hungry and abused.  I won't say how many, but the number is far in excess to what the law allows.

Few months ago a little black long haired cat showed up.  Very shy, wouldn't let me approach much less touch it.  I'd throw it food and it would run, being used to having objects other than food thrown at it.  No clue as to gender.  As far as age it has grown a bit since it has taken up residence here.

Anyway, I finally got close enough while it was eating to see there was something unusual about its front paws.   It's polydactyl, with a furry thumb on each front paw.  Which I am very happy about because it means I can probably place the cat.   Just took pictures though it is so shy I don't have good images of those front paws.  When I start to focus the cat looks up and thinks I am planning harm and runs, though I have actually gotten close enough at feedings that I can brush its fur before it runs.

Polydactyl cats may have originated at Boston, Massachusetts.   In any case they appear to have been spread from Boston via ships that took them on as ship's cats.   But before sailors got the idea polydactyls were lucky at sea or more skilled at climbing the rigging or latching rats, landsmen in Massachusetts descended from Puritans killed polydactyls believing they were the work of the devil. 

I posted in an earlier blog that I appear to be descended from William Towne, a 1637 immigrant to Massachusetts three of whose daughters were accused of witchcraft in 1692, one of them an infirm lady in her 70s who was removed to prison from her sickbed and tried and hanged along with one of her sisters.

It is well to remember that our Puritan forbears were more superstitious and foolish than even the sailors who cherished polydactyl cats instead of killing them, and that even Cotton Mather, touted as one of the most highly educated men of his time, was little more than a superstitious fool.