Saturday Slightly Sh----y day

I may get bounced off from doing my blog, so if it's incomplete, I'll be back later when the telephone line into our house, which has been damaged by too d--- much snow decides it can work for a few minutes. It took me at least 30 tries and a lot of bump-offs to get this far this morning.

I've reached one of those points in North Idaho winter when my use of the word which my dad always said, "I wouldn't have in my hand what you just had in your mouth" is working toward a crescendo. We all reach those points from time to time in North Idaho winters, and I'm admittedly experiencing one of my worst this morning.

No particular reason, just sick and tired of everything going wrong, tired of winter, tired of the notion that it will be weeks before we can do anything productive outside, tired of the realization yesterday that all the fencewire we strung last year will need to be stretched again, adding one more chore to the pot of fixing up from the destruction of this winter.

And, when you can't even get the enjoyment of using your antiquated dial-up computer for a little recreational writing because the d--- phone line is semi-destroyed and can't be fixed until the d--- snow covering up the phone unit outside gets down to just a foot, you get a little irritated. Poor Bill. He knows I'm irritated today cuz he's heard that word my dad never wanted in his hand or coming out of my mouth far too many times already this morning.

So, today, I'm going to return to my computer from time to time and note all the reasons to be positive and to refrain from uttering 300 times a day that S-word we don't want in our hand or our mouths.

For starters on the positives:

The wet snow that dropped on us all the time we were walking all over town last night looking for a restaurant with less than half-an-hour wait quit coming down by morning, leaving just an inch of new snow to melt along with the other four-five feet. There are patches of blue sky.

The ice we've been sliding on with virtually every step through the driveway all week due to melt has been covered up with that new inch of snow, so no slipping this morning. That was good.

Back later . . . must run. Mother thinks her cat-bitten hand is better today, and we're going to go see what the doctor thinks.

Later: 1:30 p.m. You get to see lots of folks you know at the ER. At least, it seemed so today. Our neighbors up the road were there tending to their mother. The doc today is our neighbor, Tricia Dickens.

Just got back after arriving down there around 9:30 a.m. Dr. Dickens X-rayed Mother's hand and put her on another I-V antibiotic. She'll do another tonight at 10 and another tomorrow morning. This brings to three the kinds of antibiotics she's had this week and four, the number of doctors she's seen. Today's instructions include soaking the hand four times a day in Epsom's Salts. That's something we all, who live on farms, thought of at the get-go. Now, five days later, we go to the old doctoring methods, along with the I-V's that is.

Good news is a Gonzaga game today at 5. So, Mother and my sisters will come over with pizzas and Epsom's salts, and we'll watch the game. Afterward, we're watching the new version of 3:10 to Yuma with Russell Crowe. By that time, it will be time for Mother to go back to the ER for her treatment.

Good news is that I got online this afternoon, and the good news is a warm sun. So, I'm going outside to enjoy some of it. Haven't said that word that my dad wouldn't have in his hand for several hours now.

Later . . . maybe.