Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Thoughts On The Mule

I've been thinking about that Rosh ha-Shanah resolution I made a few years back, straight out of the Bible, that should I happen upon my enemy on the side of the road, and my enemy's mule had tripped, I shouldn't make fun of the mule. Most likely though, what I wasn't supposed to do was kick the mule. I could make fun of it as much as I wanted, which is a good thing, because there's something about a mule tripping on the side of the road that's irresistibly amusing, just so long as I didn't make things worse by kicking it.

I think that's a very fine resolution. I may make it again.

I did go resolution hunting in the Bible this weekend, and the best I could locate was not to get a tattoo. For decades, I've had tattoo fantasies. Nothing garish, just a tasteful rose somewhere or another. There are certain fantasies, well, actually there are a lot of fantasies, that stay just that, and my guess is a tattoo is one of those, so that's an excellent resolution to make. Should be a big self-esteem booster.

"Well, it's true I didn't lose weight and I was grouchy to my mother and wasted enormous amount of time playing Sudoku, but I didn't kick that mule and I resisted getting a tattoo. Boy, I'm great."

I was reasonably busy this weekend, in addition to resolution hunting. The copy edited version of Blood Wounds arrived, and since I was asked to get it back by Friday, I devoted Sunday to working on it (I mailed it off this morning).

Sunday was my mother's birthday, and my brother came up to celebrate it with her. Yesterday, Marci and Carol and my mother and I went out for lunch, and then we went back to my mother's apartment where we had ice cream birthday cake (which Marci was nice enough to supply). Speaking of Marci's niceness, last night I decided I really needed to get my printer working again, and in my effort to do so, my monitor stopped working, so I screamed a lot and called Marci. She calmed me down, figured out every single thing I needed to do, and patiently waited as I repeatedly screwed up. Eventually, thanks to her, I did get everything working again.

I also spent a good amount of time this weekend researching arthritis. My right knee was diagnosed with moderate arthritis, and my guess is my left knee is suffering from moderate arthleftis. Arthritis is a real nuisance, but I figure the more I know the better I'll be able to handle it. So I read a lot about it, and now I know arthritis is a real nuisance. Which is exactly what I knew before.

There is a good thing about arthritis though. Should I happen upon my enemy and his mule on the side of the road and the mule has tripped, it'd hurt too much to kick it.

One more resolution I'll be certain to keep!

3 comments:

Elaine Marie Alphin said...

Sometimes knowing too much about a nuisance like arthritis just makes you feel worse about it.... I agree that the best thing about arthritic knees is that they will make it so much more painful for you to kick that mule that you'll keep your resolution painlessly (almost). And what is it with printers these days? We had serious printer problems resulting in having to transfer documents from one Mac to another to print them out yesterday morning. Major congrats on completing the Blood Wounds copyedited ms. so quickly!

Susan Beth Pfeffer said...

Hi Elaine Marie Alphin!

One good thing about not kicking that mule. It won't kick back.

I'm off to run some errands. Let's hope my knees cooperate.

Anonymous said...

Best to omit the exercycle workout and substitute some type of easy yoga exercise.