I meant to do this last Saturday but did not have the time. I had surgery on a broken finger. That's known in the community. Trina alluded to it a day or two after my finger was broken at her site. She noted Wally wanted to do a piece at Third.
Wally is of the opinion that my finger was deliberately broken. No. I know the look and if I'd been thinking, I would've extracted my hand and given the person a hug because, though I've never had a finger broken from a handshake before, I have had my hand hurt for a few hours after. This was someone thrilled to see me (me for offline, not for "C.I.") and they wanted an autograph and a picture together and that is more than fine. I really wish my finger had not gotten broken but I realize it was not the intent. After I extracted my hand (too late), I did pull the man into a hug and he went on his way and I have no complaint with him. Accidents happen. This is the point -- as you read in the newsletter -- Hilda's Mix -- if you're a community member, that Wally looks down at my hand and nearly passes out. He also walked the man away, firmly, which I was not aware of the time. I had no idea, my hand was hurting but we had a busy day and I was thinking about that schedule and posing for a picture with another person. This is when Kat comes over and says we need to go the emergency room and I've now spotted Wally walking back towards us and think he's sick from something he ate. At which point I finally look down at my hand and see my smallest finger sticking out at a 90 degree angle from my hand. And I did say, "It's like Death Becomes Her." In part because I really thought Wally was going to hurl and I was trying to make him laugh instead. But we went to the emergency room and got great service and care.
They sent me to a specialist at the hospital who had to pull this thing down from the ceiling and put my finger in it to try to get it to go straight. (It was like the Chinese handcuffs kids play with it but hanging from a long chain.) They had to pull it and jerk it repeatedly but I had six shots in that finger by then and couldn't feel a thing. They wanted to schedule surgery for that day. No.
I hate surgery and I had too much to do that day to make time for it. They were wonderful but I have a wonderful doctor here at home and I called her and asked her to suggest someone. She did. I scheduled the surgery for when we'd be home and speaking in the home area.
I had it the 19th or around there. I noted it in that day's snapshot because, as I said, I wasn't in the mood. I had a plate put in and I don't take pain pills so that I heal quickly. But I wasn't in the mood and I was calling out a friend in the snapshot when I typed "I'm not in the mood."
That led a number of people who read frequently but are not community members to immediately assume: "Surgery? A cancer scare again?" No. And all the e-mails on that to the public account that I saw got a reply from me. If you wrote -- out of fear -- and I read it, you got a reply. The person who wrote, "thrilled you're finally getting what you deserve" -- I didn't bother to offer a reply to that.
By that time, not only did the community know, but Stan had written some about it at his site (more specific than Trina's 'you'll feel guilty right now if you gripe about how long it's taking C.I. to type the snapshots' -- I do type them in August. I dictate the rest of the year to very good and caring friends. But everyone needs time and so I always grab the snapshot in August). Stan had asked if he'd done anything wrong with that?
No.
Everyone can write whatever they want, including about me, and that's fine. I normally don't comment on it and that's my policy -- Write what you want but don't expect me to comment.
Since Stan had written about it in detail, I thought many more would be aware of it. It's Stan's most read post (not because of me, because of his movie review in that post) this year. So with that and Trina's and then Wally's piece in the newsletter, I really assumed anyone who cared knew.
Sorry for anyone who worried or, in the case of being thrilled, "bought a bottle of Jack" Daniels "to celebrate," but it was just a finger.
As Wally noted in his newsletter piece and as Stan noted in his post, Wally was convinced it was on purpose and something to do with speaking out against wars. I don't think so. In 2004, when I was shoved down in a Chicago airport, that was about my opposing war, but I don't think this man was anything but really excited to me someone that he'd long connected with through art. He was a very kind man. But because Wally was worried, I am going around to events with a bodyguard in the background both this month and next (after that I hope Wally will stop worrying -- that's not me attacking him for worrying, he's a wonderful friend and it's great of him to care).
Hopefully that clears up any questions that might have remained.
I do want to reduce the size of the snapshots. I've said I was going to -- said here -- for over two years now. It would have been very easy to use the injury this month to finally reduce them but I didn't. That said, I may move towards it now (Tuesday the snapshots return to being dictated -- Monday there probably won't be one but if there is I'll be typing it).
After I forgot this last week, I told myself I'd include it on Monday. No time, no space. It was like that all week. Point? If you feel like I do not immediately highlight what you want shared, I don't even have the time to take care of what I want to share.
Dropping back to the April 30th Iraq snapshot:
December 6, 2012, the Memorandum
of Understanding For Defense Cooperation Between the Ministry of
Defense of the Republic of Iraq and the Department Defense of the United
States of America was signed. We covered it in the December 10th and December 11th
snapshots -- lots of luck finding coverage elsewhere including in media
outlets -- apparently there was some unstated agreement that everyone
would look the other way. It was similar to the silence that greeted Tim Arango's September 25th New York Times report which noted,
"Iraq and the United States are negotiating an agreement that could
result in the return of small units of American soldiers to Iraq on
training missions. At the request of the Iraqi government, according to
[US] General [Robert L.] Caslen, a unit of Army Special Operations
soldiers was recently deployed to Iraq to advise on counterterrorism and
help with intelligence."
Why are we including that? Although I'm much liked online as me, there's a whole cottage industry that lives to hate C.I. -- including the group in the other country that made sport of my cancer a few years back. So there's a chance that eyeballs who do not normally read us will be steered to us by the blogger who led that earlier attack (that's who e-mailed about getting a bottle of Jack Daniels to celebrate, FYI -- we're not even going to name the ass, we're not giving them any promotion). Fresh eyeballs mean we can again note Barack sent US troops into Iraq last fall.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
iraq
the new york times
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