Thoughts on the Big 60 Birthday

So now I'm into my next decade.

I guess its no different being this old.

All my thoughts of doing something fell to the wayside when I woke stiff and sore, from carrying that cat tree from the car around and along the back yard of those Lebanon folks freshly bought house, up some steps and manhandling it inside the relocation cage set up for those three cats.   I can barely move today.

So I've been mostly in bed and when I walk, I moan and groan.  But I hope to be feeling better soon.  I knew there might be repercussions from carrying that thing.  I'd meant to put the hand cart into the car, then drove off without it.

I wish things were different, that I had girlfriends who'd take me out on the town or something on my big milestone birthday. And I them on theirs.  Like you read about, or see on TV.  I don't know if that really happens in the real world.  It is what it is.

  I've meant to move out of this valley.  I've not been able to form connections here.  Moving is difficult and expensive and I'll likely never leave the valley at my age and income.

So it is what it is.

I think facebook has made life even more isolated. It's just my opinion.

I can't even get up the motion to clean the cat yard litter boxes yet.  They're not out there using them so its no big deal.  Rain again here, lots of it.  Wind, too, but nothing like they said would hit unless it happened while I still lay in bed, not wanting to make the painful moves required to get out of it.  I spent the hours reading, and waiting for Aleve to work.

I enjoy reading in bed.  I read by flashlight.  Always have.  Never did get a reading light hooked up.

There's a break in the rain.  Birthday or not, bad back or not, I better get those litter boxes cleaned before the rain starts in again.

Story of my life:  cleaning up shit.

She sure was good at shit removal, they'll say, once I'm gone.

At least I was good at something, I'll scream back from beyond the grave.

Ha.

I don't have any regrets over my life.

Despite my poverty and the harshness I've encountered I've had some great experiences.

Like:

Living in the shack up on a bluff in Alaska.  Plastic tarp roof.  Wood stove from the dump.  A town drunk, a town psycho, and an insecure short fat bald man helped me find that shack to live in and the wood stove at the dump.   My heroes!

Climbing mountains and backpacking alone in Alaska.

Trip with my brother to a Jimmy Buffet concert, now that was fun!

Laying on my back out on the tundra, watching northern lights and listening to wolves howling back and forth across the vastness.

Hearing Jacques Cousteau speak.

Trip to Hawaii with Julie from Brownsville.  Sure, we split immediately, but I then slept on the beach, snorkeled alone, ended up swimming and free diving with a pod of dolphins, boogie boarded for the first and perhaps last time in my life for over six hours, until I had to crawl out of the ocean.  Some kid told me I needed to rest and I told him hell no I wasn't going to rest because I might never get to do this again.

Paddling my raft at Waldo Lake on a 26 hour vacation....

I've had some good times and no regrets.