Hi again, James!  This is a continuation of my previous message to you:

AH>  ... there are various ways of accomplishing tasks which
AH>  need to be done without shopping for sympathy or dumping
AH>  them on somebody else.  If my body objects when I persist
AH>  in doing what I've always done without devoting much
AH>  thought to it, a closer examination may be in order.  :-)

JB>  That implies that we shouldn't ask for help at all. 


          Au contraire.  Sometimes it's difficult for eldest/onlies to ask for
help when they need it... you may be in the same boat if you're the first-born
male in the family.  After years of being told (not by my parents, but... as I
now realize... by later-borns) that I must learn to fend for myself, and after
years of having to fend for myself because nobody else I knew had been where I
wanted to go, I'm slow to recognize when (or how) to solicit aid.  People will
often crawl out of the woodwork exactly when I need them most, however, once I
have acknowledged in my own mind that I'm feeling quite overwhelmed.  And just
as my Latin teacher used to say, necessity is the mother of invention....  :-)



JB>  When there's never been any forthcoming from past
JB>  attempts to procure it, some say it is insane behavior
JB>  to ask again expecting different results.


          Hmm.  IIRC I was hesitant to post that long diatribe about the young
bucks who think the way to eliminate a mature stand of weeds is to chop up the
roots & conceal the evidence under half an inch of topsoil, or the middle ager
who brags about her genius-level IQ but doesn't see any significant difference
between a message from Ardith to herself (typed in Fidonet format) & the notes
handwritten by a third party on grocery receipts, fragments of junk mail, etc.
Such people make more work for me, not less.  I guess I should be grateful for
those who seem to have good intentions but don't follow through... [wry grin].

          In my attempt not to be too wordy I probably left out some important
context clues.  Dallas & I know a family of four, for example, where everybody
takes turns being sick.  Whoever is sick doesn't have to lift a finger... with
the apparent result that they're unmotivated to get better.  It's not my style
... it's not your style... and it's not practical under the circumstances.  We
take turns shovelling snow etc.  Dallas helped lengthen the chain on a ceiling
light fixture once the idea had dawned on me that I wouldn't be able to get at
it easily within the foreseeable future & I now ask him to hang up a few items
such as the 13" frying pan which I dropped on my foot, but apart from that I'm
trying to find solutions which don't put too much of a burden on him.  In this
household all of us have some degree of disability... in yours there is nobody
else on call.  Either way, being sick doesn't enable us to avoid work....  ;-)



JB>  BTW, I heard on Dr. Oz that alcohol and peroxide type
JB>  cleaners are too good at cleaning wounds. The bad stuff
JB>  *and* the good stuff gets cleared off the table.


          Could be... I've heard much the same about antibacterial soaps.  :-)



JB>  Well, there's the irrefutable truths which everyone "should"
JB>  do for their health *if* they want to live a long life.


          Glad to see you've put "should" in quotes here!  You may recall that
the same folks who are so keen to tell others what they should do are probably
not looking very far beneath the surface & are almost certainly not looking at
*you*.  Their idea of "common sense", however, is difficult to refute....  :-)



JB>  When every day hurts, it can be a struggle to floss the teeth
JB>  every night to prevent a heart attack. (Or thereabouts. |-)


          Yup.  On average, people who do (or don't do) xxx may be at a higher
risk for yyy... but if either of us was average we probably wouldn't be having
this conversation!  When faced with unusual circumstances we must think beyond
the sound bites du jour & arrive at an independent cost/benefit analysis.  :-)



JB>  I have a new (old) fridge in my broken down van. Once I get the
JB>  hardwood flooring cleared from the landing and from in front of
JB>  the old fridge, get the old fridge out of the way and the new
JB>  (old) fridge in its place, then fix the charging system on the
JB>  van; I'll get right back to ya. 


          Wonderful wonderful!  Stay as sweet as you are... [chuckle].




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
 * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)