And a nice windy day it is too! (Well, yesterday, I'm having too much fun to write a whole post in one day!)
In the good news department my wife had her surgery on the 2nd and seems to be doing fine even if she is in some pain. She broke her ankle just a bit over 2 years ago and had it operated on then. Unfortunately that surgery didn't work and now she is having it done over again. She came out and basically feels ok but she is going to be in a wheelchair for at LEAST 6 weeks! So Don is getting his exercise doing stuff around the house including pushing that chair. With any luck at all I won't poison us both with my cooking. Lots of fun but if it works, that will be great.
The surgery day was kind of nasty I must say. We live in the boonies so we went to Vegas on the 1st and spent the night in a hotel. We were told she had to shower that morning, not the previous evening, so we were up at 04:00 am to shower and get to the hospital by 05:30 to do paperwork. Yeah, special! Of course we then waited until the surgeon showed up about 07:45. She got to go in to her hospital bed and I got to sit in the waiting room. They have a special room for people waiting for people getting 1 day surgeries but I must say I was there more than most of the other family members. It was 11:15 by the time the surgeon came out and told me the surgery was successful and she was in recovery. It was shortly after 1 pm when I got to see her and by 1:20 we were loading into the car to come home. There were 2 nurses helping me get her situated in the car so you can guess that getting her out when we made it here was LOTS of fun! But we managed it (by 3:20 pm) and she's been holding down the recliner, her bed or the wheelchair ever since. She's got quite a bit of pain and tons of pills but who knows what is going to happen. I'm sure I'll be talking about it here.
We live in a weird world. We live in Nye County. In our county it is legal to possess fireworks and there are 3 large sellers of fireworks and a couple smaller ones. However, it is illegal to use the big fireworks in Nye County except in a designated area and for a few days around the 4th (https://pvtimes.com/news/officials-urging-safety-this-4th-of-july-144905/). In Clark County, where Las Vegas is, it is not legal to possess fireworks. So every year around Independence Day there are large signs put up saying 'Do not take fireworks into Clark County'. And others saying 'Do not buy illegal fireworks'. Of course people ignore all that. Just this week some guy from Las Vegas came into one of our large stores and bought $500 worth of 'safe and sane' fireworks. The problem is that Clark County does it's own testing and that stuff hadn't been tested so the the stuff was illegal. He was stopped as soon as he entered Clark County, the stuff taken away and he's gotten a fine. How did they know he was carrying fireworks? There was a cop in the store observing him! What a deal.
So now for the bad news which is, of course, that the Big Bill got passed and that's going to be nasty for lots and lots of people in this country. I have no idea what something like my wife's surgery will be costing when the bill goes into effect. But the real people I feel sorry about are in two categories: very poor and immigrants. I heard that children born here of immigrant parents may not be legal citizens. Well, I don't have any problem making a choice like that for children being born today or tomorrow but to force that on some kid who is 15 or 18 or even 30??? From what I'm reading the kid loses his/her citizenship automatically if the parents were illegals. Really? That's just wrong.
And, of course, there are the people depending on Food Stamps for dinner. And now they are in limbo. The federal law is being changed; the states laws are going to be changing; it's a unknown world. I feel for those folks. I read where $350 a month is the average benefit. That's just over $10 a day; and Smith's Food and Drug is offering hamburger at $5.33 a pound. Don't forget toilet paper at $2 a roll. If you've got a couple of kids they'll take care of that $10 a day quick enough!
Enough! Sorry I'm in such a happy mood. Have a great weekend; try to stay away from the fires and storms and crazy folks. And keep those hands clean!
