“Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.” ― Groucho Marx, The Essential Groucho: Writings For By And About Groucho Marx

It's Thursday, March 5, 2020, and, I open today's blog by letting everyone know that I am aware of what some of you have been saying behind my back. I do know these things. I cannot tell a lie. I am becoming more and more attached to Mr. Bentley. There. I said it. Yes. It is true that I went into this deal with a proven track record of not being an animal person, dog lover, and all the rest that I wasn't. One year and two and one-half months has changed some of that. I can't deny the obvious. I was never against people and their animals, I was just typically against us having any after the boys grew up. Reality has a way of updating your resume. Mr. Bentley can be a pain. He is about as spoiled as they come. The other day I told the wife I was thinking about giving him a nickname, SBD for spoiled brat dog. If you are in your recliner minding your own business, don't recline. He will come over jump up on the chair and rearrange your legs until he has the exact spot he is looking for. He doesn't really mind too much if your arthritic legs are somewhat contorted. Once he curls up he will put his head on whichever part of your body that will be the most uncomfortable. Like maybe your knee or your ankle. While you are still trying to adjust to the intruder he might just be offering up some snorts and snores to let you know he would prefer for you to be still. The same for when he deems it is time for his early morning ride. He will come and indicate you need to take him outside. I say, "Go outside?" He just sits there staring. He wants to go outside but not for the normal routine purpose. I might say, "It's too early for your ride." He just sits and stares. Finally, I get up and go and change out of my pajamas into my jeans. He is turning cartwheels. He wins again. I suppose at some point and time I will need to issue some type of formal retraction, but, I'm just letting you know how it's going at this time.

One good thing about being able to vote in our own neighborhood is how they always use older folks to run the operation. I'm not sure what the average age was this past Tuesday, (Super Tuesday), but, my guess is most of them were in their mid-70s or beyond. Some, way beyond. I couldn't find out exactly what they were being paid to do this service, but, I did find out the Election Judge who is in charge receives $10.00 per hour. I would suspect the other folks working as election clerks make less. At any rate, it appears they do a really good job if everything goes according to plan. If your ID matches the information on file things move along nicely. If it doesn't they then go to plan B, C, and who knows what else they do? On the phones mostly. I was there when an elderly couple had trouble with their paperwork. Oh my! They were nervous and the assistant judge was trying to get through to the county folks to get assistance. The boss lady was trying to get everyone to keep moving. You know. There's nothing to see here, please move along folks. The elderly couple had that look on their face as if their citizenship was being questioned. Sadly, there are, across the fruited plains, some voting precincts where citizenship certification is no longer considered to be needed. Oh well, we did our duty and voted for our choices to become the nominees in the November election.

Meet: Leticia Maldonado, RN, BSN, MSN, FNP-C Pulmonary Medicine.

I am trying not to have a foreboding feeling about my meeting with the nurse practitioner who will be talking to me about my in-home sleep study. I have a pretty good idea of what foreboding is all about and to tell you the truth it's not a very pleasant outlook. Okay. For you purists, I looked it up. Here it is: "fearful apprehension; a feeling that something bad will happen." Now that I know exactly what it is, I will do my best not to have it as my mindset. You do know I'm just messing around here. When they made my appointment they sent the confirmation along with a profile photo of the person I will be meeting with. Kelsey Seybold does that a lot. I was trying to figure out why they do that. You know. Like when you look at a house online before you get there so you will know that is the house you are looking for. You don't do that. I do. Therefore, maybe they want me to check to make sure the right person shows up. So there will not be any mixups. Or, maybe, if she were to go missing suddenly I could help them look for her. I do know some of their photos are really dated because when I meet the person I immediately think they must have put up a photo of them right out of medical school. When I look at all those earned letters after her name, it is impressive. I just hope she doesn't run out of the alphabet before she is finished. But, as they used to say back home, we will know when we know. They were pretty smart. Don't you think? May God be with us all. Amen. ....More later.