Day Twenty-six

Today has been productive! Thus far, I have

Rearranged my living-room furniture, which give the cats and mu church more room to move around and much less chance of me tripping and falling. I was able to accomplish it because I finally got rid of the humongous couch that too up so much space.

Little Girl investigating a folded card-table sitting temporarily where the couch had been.

Sugar beneath a side table that had belonged to my now-closed church that is newly placed in the living-room. The LP & DVD on the floor had been on top of the table moments before.

Alex enjoying the sunshine, meditating on growing Pet Greens, and avoiding the antics of the 2 female cats.

I was able to replace the broken vase that held my walking sticks with a rack that I purchased almost a year ago but had no place to put because of the couch.

 The finally-used walking-stick rack

All of the above took place this afternoon. This morning I was on the telephone with the VA billing people attempting to keep them from confiscating $100 plus from my next Social Security check. This stuff isn't easy for me, as you'll note from the video below that records only my part of the conversation. The video begin after I spent 12 minutes on the phone trying to be connected with a human being rather than the computer robot with whom VA wanted to interact.

I hope that this video will be a demonstration of what we elderly, disabled folks must endure is order to survive in today's America.

Some final photos:

Alex discovered some catnip in a sealed jar and demanded that I give him a pinch of it.

Alex ten minutes after he ingested the nip.

Day Twenty-four

Yesterday a grocery clerk commented on this walking stick that I purchased in Berea, Kentucky, about 20 years ago. She asked if the woodcarver used me as a model for the face. I don't think he did; however, I did stand outside his shop watching him through the window as he carved this walking stick.

Seventy-two years ago today, Leon Trotsky died of wounds received the day before from a Stalinist assassin. Trotsky's last words were reported to be: "I will not survive this attack. Stalin has finally accomplished the task he attempted unsuccessfully before." 

Trotsky's grandson has given an interview to The Guardian  in London of his memory of the assassination. 

Leon Trotsky has interested me since I first read of him almost 50 years ago. An intellectual activist all of his life, he was a mitigating force between the revolutionary forces of preBolshevik Russia.

Trotsky played a crucial role in keeping the Bolshevik regime alive. He saw himself as Lenin's heir-apparent, but his intellectual arrogance made him few friends, and his Jewish heritage may also have worked against him. When Lenin fell ill and died, Trotsky was easily outmanoeuvred by Stalin. In 1927, he was thrown out of the party. Internal and then foreign exile followed, but Trotsky continued to write and to criticise Stalin.  ~ BBC History 

Had Trotsky followed Lenin as leader of the Soviet Union, I am certain that the horrors brought to Russia and the world by Stalin would not have occurred. 

.

Today Little girl has bitten one nose (oxygen) hose in two and put a dozen holes in another. I can't continually replace the hoses so I have used duct tape to repair the damage. Still, I am not receiving the oxygen I need through the repaired hose, so today I'll call for a supply of replacement hoses.

I still have to convince Alex that there is a better way of getting on top of my desk that leaping on my thigh.

5 25' oxygen hoses have been delivered. Now I can walk around and breath, too. I must keep Little Girl from biting these hoses. I note that when I loudly yell NO she stops and runs; but I must see her for that to work. When I get some money I shall purchase Tabasco sauce or Bitter Apple.

I finally got rid of dreadnought-sized couch that Anne found for free. I now feel liberated from the damned thing.