It is part of human nature to take things into granted. So in the greater scheme of things, if you want individuals born from the fire of misery and despair, then instead of making rich people that way, you should try and find those kind of people in places like Iraq. Bring them up right, and they’d be good fighters and allies.

If human nature was different, if we could change people’s character and natures as easily as we could fix an electric generator… then we wouldn’t need to go out in the rest of the world for what we need. Which is basically challenging situations and character building tests.

Hard to find those in a Western culture.

I remember playing basketball at school and landing on my right ankle at pretty much a 90 degree angle from a jump shot. I do believe I remembered the *Crack* sound that made. I thought to myself, uho that could be bad, right before the pain paralyzed my entire body and mind.

Usually pain is good enough to hit you hard enough to make itself felt but not hard enough to make you nearly unconscious. Probably to give you time to make recompense for mistakes made. But when pain goes crazy and sadistic, then it gets problematic.

The thing was, after a month or two when I thought it had healed up and I could walk without pain, I tried a small jump to look over some obstructions. And boy, did I regret doing that. It seems it hadn’t fully healed up yet, and jumping on torn ligaments is not a good idea unless one is a masochist.

Still, it seems to me that if you are cold and your muscles have not been stretched, then jumping up suddenly might indeed pull something in your ankle. Especially as one grows older, and exercise and stretches become more important.

When the AC goes out, so does the fan. You can open a window, but that rarely brings down the heat, even at night. Opening a window also allows the humidity to rise. Try sleeping in that!

Sorry, but I am spoiled! I want my danged heat when it’s cold, and my AC when it’s hot, and the fan when I by-golly want it!

I sympathize, Ma’am, I truly do!

We sure do. Being a former Peace Corps volunteer, and call me Mr. Dichotomy if you want for being a former Marine Corps volunteer too, I recall the luxary of returning to the States and getting my first hot shower in a long time. In a bush village you pull water from a well with a bucket and rope, wet yourself, wash, then rinse yourself. I would switch lights off and on just to see them working. Briefly I marveled at the summer’s heat compared to the cooled interior of my home thanks to air conditioning. On my first day back, I probably went to the fridge 20 times just to open it and look in at the preserved food and the abundance of food. I had lost alot of weight in the bush due to the heat and a protein deficient diet. It seemed like heaven for about a week, then that wonderful feeling just went away. The luxary of hot water became mundane and boring and soon I didn’t even notice electrical lights and the fridge, etc. I think this is human nature though because when the power goes out now, I am about as miserable as the next person is. We want ease and convenience. I was asked any number of times why I had left the good life to come to Africa and live without it.

Not having access to the internet?!!?! No TV? What on earth could I possibly do!?!?

We’re surrounded by trees as well and have lost several parts of our fence this year. I’m sure we’ll lose more as the year goes on. A neighbor had a huge piece of tree fall on their roof. Mudslides are everywhere, even closing down part of the freeway one morning.

But I still wouldn’t want to live anywhere else! 🙂