The end of a life well lived and the end of a blog

This is sunteam's son, J writing to let everyone/anyone that is keeping up to date with this blog, that unfortunately on the 12th of April she was crossing the road and was hit by a car. She died shortly afterward. D and I were shocked to begin with, but we are learning to cope.

There will be no more posts on this blog.

I know mum would use this as an emotional outlet sometimes, and I am glad for that.

J

Quite unique arrgh!

Unique is an absolute, like pregnant.  Either is or is not.  Like pregnancy there may be a period of time in which the condition is unknown.  In the first few days no one knows if a baby is on the way, no one knows whether the something exists elsewhere or has been done before.
If you want to modify pregnant or unique (because you aren't certain of the situation), use likely, possibly, probably.
Quit quite! 

10 commandments revelation!

I'm teaching Sunday School at our Presbyterian church this month. (several of us take turns to teach for a month at a time throughout the year at different age levels.) I decided to look at the Ten Commandments with my 5 to 8 year-olds.  Most of these children would have met the commandments in the preschool class but I thought that would be good to get them to think more deeply about them. 
I wanted to show them that different wording can be used to convey the same instructions and prohibitions.   In preparation for this I looked up the internet to get different versions, Imagine my horror when I saw that Catholic versions have mucked around with them! No. 9 is not the prohibition against lying.  I avoided those ones and just picked versions that were compatible with my Good News version.
In further preparation I borrowed 'Salt and light' by Mark P. Shea - it is a paperback on the Commandments, the Beatitudes and a joyful life. Just the ticket I thought as I plucked it from the library shelf, and it is!
Chapter 1.5 bought me great relief.  Catholics have not deleted commandments, they are all there.
The original Hebrew didn't enumerate them, so we can count not making idols and worshiping them  as separate from No. 1: worship only God or we can include it in.  Likewise coveting your neighbour's spouse can be separate or included in with coveting your neighbour's belongings. 
The Catholic church chose to divvy them up one way, Protestants another, no big deal.

Title: Every day

Title: Every day
Author: David Levithan
Year: 2012
Publisher: Knoph

'A' is a sort of spirit, he has no body of his own: each day he inhabits the body of someone his own age, a different body each day.  Sometimes a boy, sometimes a girl.  Obese, beautiful, bullied and a bully, blind, athletic, a varied life, but  'A' is always aware that it is borrowed.  'A' is honourable and careful with the bodies, knowing that others will have to bear the consequences of anything that is done.  Then he falls in love with the girlfriend of the current body he is in and he wants to stop moving on, to stay the same, to be with her.  Totally original book, will appeal to anyone who loved "The time-traveller's wife"

Poisoned thumb

Whilst levering the nut out of a macadamia shell I must have trapped some nut meat beneath my right thumb nail.  The thumb became odd looking and painful.  Foolishly I went to the local chemist, showed the sales assistant my thumb and was talked into buying fungal treatment and told that it might take a week or more to work.
My thumb got worse,swelling and turning grey at the end.  The merest touch would make me shriek with pain and it throbbed in a tedious manner.  Paracetamol barely took the edge off the pain enough to let me sleep.
Fortunately I got an appointment with a doctor first thing on Monday morning.  Not my usual G.P. but by then I was contemplating cutting my thumb off, so a competent and empathetic doctor was a good choice.  She quickly diagnosed bacterial infection, removed some of the pus, bandaged me up and gave me prescriptions for pain relief and antibiotics.  Oh the relief!
I went back to the surgery every couple of days to have the wound drained and re bandaged (each nurse has a different technique to bandage a thumb).  It took more than two weeks to clear completely.  Just as well I was on annual leave, visiting the doctor so often takes time.
Lessons learnt:  Roast macadamias, the nut just falls out of the shell when cracked.
                          Don't muck around with infections, they are most likely to be bacterial                                                   Look after my thumbs, it is difficult to do ANYTHING when the right thumb is out of action,oppose-able thumbs make us independent humans.
                          Zombies walk around, grey skinned and with arms outstretched and moaning because they are in great pain.

driving ettiquite

My son has just achieved his restricted driving licence - this means that he can drive alone or with us, with a curfew of 10.00pm.  The testing is very tough, I suspect many drivers on the roads today would not pass the practical.  We are both a bit critical of those on the road who are not up to standard with their indicating.

Two commandments apply to driving - be kind and be informative. (They also apply elsewhere in life)

The kindness is in letting cars into a stream of traffic, particularly if they have been sitting at the exit of a side road for some time, giving lots of space and time for a learner driver to complete a manouvre, letting a vehicle coming the other way through a smallish gap first....

black dog versus troll

Some depressives describe being followed by a black dog.  This metaphor doesn't ring true for me at all.  both the black Labradors that I have known; Bronson and Leroy have been cheerful and comforting personalities.  My depression metaphor was a troll, an malignant presence who stole my contentment.