Importance of Being Lucky

I am listening to my 3 small children squabbling and at the same time looking at an old picture of me holding a 20 lb. steelhead on the banks of the Deschutes River (two truly mutually exclusive experiences). These things remind me that through a remarkable accident of birth I am able to indulge in these thoughts/pastimes and not eke out a subsistence life elsewhere in the world. We (I) are (am) stunningly lucky to dream about and occasionally even do those things that bring us the most pleasure and fulfillment in life. Mine are easy; fishing, road-biking, reading, cross-country skiing and running (all with my kids). The latter two I am working back into as my heart is not where it used to be ~ but I will get it there. I think I mentioned it before now in this Blog but coming up on two years ago I had my aortic heart valve replaced with a porcine (read, "It used to belong to a pig") valve because I had a congenital defect I knew nothing about. The alternative was, "You have 12 months to live", hence the "Lucky" part. Anyway, I can exercise but the hardest part seems to be getting into good enough shape to assimilate oxygen while exercising. It is simply harder to breathe than it used to be, although I am told that I can work up to it. We shall see .......................A

Depression

I suppose things could be worse, but the thought of four more Bush years has me dreaming of Canada and New Zealand. I have a haunting nightmare of the Red/Blue US electoral map - is it just me or does anyone else see the Union/Confederate comparison here? In my dream Carl Jung is explaining to an audience that, on average, the empirically determined IQ of the red states is 94, while the corresponding IQ value for the blue states is 132. The audience erupts into a kind of an academic riot (I later realize the presentation hall is on the Mississippi State campus). Everything disappears into a fog until I awake with my foot blown off on the front lines of the Civil War of 2005................. A thinks he maybe should start drinking again.