Back to Normal, Sort Of

I'm happy to report that M.P. has been out of the hospital for a month now and is making a good recovery, though still having a lot of pain and moving slowly. The first two weeks I was kept pretty busy tending to him hand and foot, but he has steadily improved, and is able on some days to cook now - his great joy in life - and to drive, very cautiously, to the grocery store. The doctors are quite pleased with his progress, all indications good, though it's not yet certain when he will be able to go back to work. Some days are better than others, but on the whole, he is doing very well, so I am very thankful for that.

Thanks much to all my truckbuddies who have sent kind messages. I will resume posting as usual here, though these days I'm afraid I find very little worth posting about in this nightmare world we are living in.

I'm sure everyone else is as sick as I am of the horrifying headlines that flood the intertubes daily, so I feel no need to repeat all that. I may be wrong, but it seems clear to me that all of Western civilization is sinking into a deep, dark pit from which it may never rise again - an unspeakable calamity - but at sixty-plus, I no longer have the physical or psychic energy to man the barricades. Some wise person once wrote that people get the government they deserve - and if the mass of the population has no good sense anymore, on both sides of the political spectrum, what can I do about it? It takes all my energy to manage my own little affairs, on a very limited income.

So I mostly spend my days tidying up the kitchen, fetching whatever M.P. needs, and doodling around on the computer, reading this or that, and looking up bits of trivial information on topics too arcane to bear writing about. Mentally, just sitting on the porch and watching the mad world go rushing by - a dog who has had his day.

Or to put it another way, a leaf drifting along on the great river of Time, like all the other obscure folks in their millions who came before us amid the rise and fall of great civilizations - unable to change the course of history, swept along in the rushing tide, sinking at last into oblivion. I would have minded that a lot when I was younger - now it just seems the inescapable lot of humankind, and thus not anything to be astonished at. I try to do what good I can for the people close to me, and beyond that my powers do not reach.

Ah well - c'est la vie. Who can tell where the river winds? We live until we die, and after that we rest from our labors - this much is certain. All else is in the hands of Providence.