Feelgood Post

Here at Curmudgeon Compound entropy has gained a beachhead. I’m fighting back but it’s still a shitshow. It’s been like that most of the summer. I’ve had to attend to more important matters than the mundane. They all took priority over daily tasks. That’s OK; these things happen and important things had to be resolved for better or worse. Mostly things have gone as well as I could reasonably hope for. This includes a certain amount of grace (my dog) for which I’m ever so thankful. For other sorrows (some of which I haven’t described) I reflect that while we are all mortal it is the life well lived that matters. As for the lawn… it had to wait.

I described some of it here (1, 2, 3, 3.5, 4) and also I explain an unwise personal decision that stacked the deck against me here (1, 2, 3) but you can just read the Cliff’s Notes version below:

I fret a little over the “lost month” but it is what it is. Perhaps the whole point was to “let go”. I’ll never completely know. Predictably, as soon as old issues were shifted from my shoulders, new ones started accumulating. For example; I have a memorial to attend for the man who died on “day 1”. But I have a better perspective.

Also, I need to go fishing. It seems important.

Of course “letting go” means things “go”. The homestead is a disaster. There are no chicks this year. No piglets. The lawn is feral. I’ve somehow accumulated a few broken home appliances and a leach field plumbing issue. In the grand scheme it doesn’t matter. It was a hard spring but it might be a good summer.

Whoops! That’s a long & maudlin intro to what I titled “Feelgood Post”. But that’s why I identify so much with this otherwise silly story.

Pasco first responders finish laying sod after man suffers heart attack:

“A group of firefighters and paramedics in Pasco County are being praised for going “beyond the call of duty,” to help a man after he suffered a heart attack.

Gene Work was laying sod in his yard in Pasco County over the weekend when he started experiencing symptoms of a heart attack…

…

As Work faded in and out of consciousness, he was begging his wife to figure out a way to lay down the sod, “because he didn’t want it to go to waste and die,” she said.

…

…seven firefighters and paramedics jumped out of the vehicle, rolled up their sleeves and got to work.

“They came back!!! They saved his life, dropped him off and then cared enough to save our GRASS!!”

Outstanding!

If you read the story you’ll hear a story of a family has had several setbacks. Sometimes these things cascade and the fellow in question was desperately trying to manage his lawn under conditions that had put him behind the eight ball. Finally a heart attack took him out of the battle. Who among us could have tried any harder?

Helpful folks that got him to the hospital recognized his plight and helped out. They went beyond the call of duty. They were real heroes. (You thought you only got to be a hero for slaying dragons? Bullshit. Sometimes a hero is the one that keeps the lights on when we cannot do it for ourselves.) Certainly a man who’s just had a heart attack could use the hand. This handful of firefighters and paramedics reacted like the best of humanity and they all deserve applause. Good for them!

As for me, my homestead is a shambles but I consider it less a “failure” than a “tactical retreat”. Things are looking up.

A.C.

P.S. Hat tip to Daily Timewaster and Weasel Zippers who linked to the main story.