kidneys and oz and tv's, oh my!

You know, its been one of those weeks.
I think I have had a nervous breakdown but I am just too busy to bang my head against walls and drool. I am talking to myself and forgetting everything.

My aged cat and my 7 year old daughter both have not completely identifiable kidney problems which means the cat is pissing on all manner of weird objects: a jewelry box left on the floor, the clean basket of towels—ok, they are all square with absorbent surfaces, ok maybe it could be a litter box…..and the kid is going every 15to 20 minutes.

This morning I forgot an important first thing in the morning meeting because I had to get son to track practice (oh my god are there any more spring sports????) and get a FIRST MORNING URINE MIDSTREAM sample out of a 7 year old. You have to really love your children to let them piss on you before you have had your coffee in the morning. Really love your children. Yes.
Then I had to race the specimen to the lab, since it had been stressed that freshness was critical to a proper diagnosis. And when your kid is going to the bathroom 40 times a day you want them to tell you what is causing it. You want someone to make it stop. Please.

And its only Wednesday.

While racing to the lab, I discover my car is almost out of gas—I am trying this experiment and only putting in $20 bucks a week and just not driving when I am out of gas. Some days this is not a good idea.
Every week $20 fills up less and less of my tank. I think the oil execs just wake up every morning and throw darts at a board with prices on it and decide, ok today gas is $3.59 a gallon. Every time I fill up the price has gone up 5 or 10 or 25 cents. I don’t know about you but the run on gas prices is messing with my head. It reminds me of the Wizard of Oz. When you are little and you first see the film, ok the flying monkeys give you nightmares. But when you are a little older the most distressing thing is the scene where Toto pulls back the curtain and you see that the Wizard is really just a lost pathetic man, and there really is no one who will give you brains or a heart and you have to do it all yourself. It’s the end of innocence, and the Anti-cinderella. No handsome prince will rescue you and get you out of the mess you are in. I wanted there to be smart people running the place, but I learned the hard way when my dad died right before I was a teenager that sometimes the people in charge bug out on you, but hope springs eternal that there is someone up the line who is smarter and wiser than me and they are running things....

I feel like that kid watching the Wizard be unmasked now. There is absolutely no one in charge and the people in Power have messed this up so bad that no one can fix it. The President, the congress and Lord God the messed up Judicial branch are all sad little lost men with good special effects. I wish I knew how to tap my ruby slippers and get myself outta here and back to Kansas.

And its like ten days to Earth Day and I am trying so hard to live sustainably. In my world that means buying less stuff (good idea when you are broke, right?) which means owning less stuff which means storing less stuff—you get the picture. The problem is the whole economy is going to hell in a handbasket because its built on us idiots buying lots and lots more stuff.

So now we aren’t buying enough (because our real incomes have actually gone down in the last few years and the boondoggle of using our houses as cash machines came apart) so the latest government brain fart:

Make all our tv’s obsolete.

Hit us where we live, in the boob tube. Does anyone have a concept what millions of tvs in landfills is going to look like? On February something next year all our pictures turn to snow.

A brilliant evil plan cooked up I am sure by Sony, Panasonic and LG. They will have banner first quarters next year as we frantically replace 30 million tv sets.

The heartbreaking thing is that no one is going to replace the sets of those who have been left out of the digital revolution: the poor, the infirm and the developmentally disabled, for whom tv is a major connection to the world.

I just can’t see nursing homes in my state, which came in 51st in the nation is caring for the developmentally disabled, trundling out replace their myriad sets that have been donated over the years—not when they can’t find or afford decent direct care STAFF.

Next Christmas, when you are looking for something charitable to do, donate a converter box or two to your favorite sheltered worksite or group home………