Dr. M, the podiatrist, removed the last stitch from my toe this week.  My goodness it takes a while for a toe to heal.  Im just grateful I don’t have Diabetes. A friend of my daughter lost her husband because of a toe.

Remember the poem…

“For want of a nail a shoe was lost, for want of a shoe a horse was lost, for want of a horse a rider was lost, for want of a rider a battle was lost, and for want of a battle a war was lost. For want of a war a kingdom was lost, and all for the want of a nail.”

My mother recited that poem, and I have little idea why. Perhaps it was because I stepped on a rusty nail…I went barefoot in those days and frequently did something to my feet.

Perhaps it was something larger.  Mom was always quoting something. Another favorite of hers was Robbie Burns…”Oh what God the giftee gee us to see ouselves as others see us.”  She would do it with her version of a Scottish accent.

Dad was always citing something in Latin.  As I grew up, I had little idea of what they were saying. Working on my family tree, I discovered that Dad’s mom was a high school Latin teacher in Milwaukee. He probably learned those expressions from her, although he had many years of Latin himself. And of course I took Latin as did most college-bound kids in the 1950s.

Senior portrait, University of Wisconsin, Grandmother Edna

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I’m about half way through Steven Brill’s Bitter Pill: money, politics, backroom deals, and the fight to fix our broken health care system. A Time Magazine reporter, Brill writes well.

 Of one thing I am convinced, that we should “mend and not end” the ACA, mistakenly called Obamacare by the ignorant. While the law is flawed, beginning again would be a mistake even without a divided Congress.  As you might expect the big Pharmacos and big Labor had too much input into the creation of the law. Insurance companies seem the least culpable, although they get much of the blame for the rising costs of health care.

I bought a couple of other hardback books for my wintertime reading.  Daily migraines, if I am on the computer for very long, require I divert my eyes to paper.  I like the ebooks, but they don’t like me.

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David totaled his car about a month ago, and he tells me this is the last year he will drive. This means I am doing more of the driving, including trips to Trader Joe’s which is not nearby. Okay, as long as I can drive.  We used a grocery delivery service for a while, however, I paid more for groceries, so I stopped using it. I still get bulk items from Amazon, like dog food, bird supplies and coffee, which arrrive in big boxes every month.  I am a PRIME member so the delivery fee is negligible.

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My DIL sent the card below.  She tells me the nighttime scene is San Diego. What a pretty city. By the way, my youngest grandson models kids athletic clothing, in case you wondered.