Too Many Downs

I have been soooo tired lately that there has been not lone iota of energy left over for a blog post.

Friday night was almost devoid of sleep entirely because the Happy Homeless next door decided to get into a fist-fight. I heard a brawl and ignored it, but when I heard a woman's screams I thought I'd better get up, head for the window and call 911 at the same time.

Sure enough, I could see the male beating the female's face with all his might, like she was a punching bag instead of a human being.

Needless to say the entire neighborhood came out for this one, and most of us stood around and vented with each other for the next several hours. As well has having to give statements to the police and everything.

But of course the upshot will be that the female won't press charges: she only has him for protection on the mean streets, if you can call a busted cheekbone a gesture of protection, and her last words that I heard as he was tearing off down the alley with all their worldly goods on a shopping cart in order to avoid capture by the police were, "Do you mean you are leaving me?"

Well, that's how I feel about the world anyway, sometimes. A certain amount of face beating is an acceptable trade-off for the part where things go right and I feel safe and protected.

There are a lot of downs in this life. I don't really like to call a spade a daisy. But the other day I ran into one of those 'positive viber' people at the physical therapists. There was a mishap with her paperwork, there was no sign of her account much less that she had pre-paid and could have her appointment on time, and on top of it, when the nurse called over to the doctor's to have a copy of her file sent down, they had lost it on their end.

"Oh no," I commiserated, "Now they've lost your file, too? Isn't that just typical of the medical field?"

"I try to think positively!" she quipped in a snippy, lofty yet repressive tone.

Hmmph. I told her, "It's a little too late for that, isn't it?"

Because really, sometimes it's just too late to be positive!

And then there is football. Talk about a lot of downs! Do they really need so many downs in the game? Couldn't they have some UPS and some Downs? And as if it isn't bad enough that they are constantly having downs, they always have to call them FIRST downs.

Now, I don't know what part of outer Slovaniakia you are from, but here in America, something labeled FIRST usually means it's the first of Many, but there is only one thing called FIRST. After that , it becomes second, third, fourth, and Another. But in Football, it's just one First Down after another. Once in a while they will have a second down and a third but after the 4th down they start right back over with First Down again.

Me, I just want One Down and then no more downs for a while. I'm going to think positive and figure that witnessing the woman-beating will count as my Down and there will be some UPS now.