Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Heights and other phobias...

Funny how we all are afraid of something’s, and if you say that nothing frightens you then I won’t believe you! So there, and now I am sticking out my adult tongue at you!

We all know that snakes are big on many people’s fears’ lists; as well as flying, and heights, speaking in front of a large group and on and on...

Some small children are scared of the dark or monsters in the room at night…

But what we must realize that most fears are unjust in the ideas themselves, since most people will always tell you why, which usually interprets as not as logical reasoning as they may think, hmm?
Avoidance is the way most of us with fears deal with them, or me, yep sure I got them, but not the ones that you may think.
Although, I may have mentioned some on occasion here but I will be darned if I can remember; an hour go and I will go on as if… this is new news…I know; what did she say?
Compared to old news, bud dump bump; besides it’s all new to me…this discussion…

Any-who, sure I mentioned my fears of getting worse with my illnesses, who doesn’t worry over that, dying, is the worse from any ill, but I am talking irrational fears…
Like my fear of falling into the Grand Canyon, yet when I was there as a fifteen year old it never entered my brain. But Daddy said don’t get too close to the edge and I looked down and it was really far down… but I did get to ride a mule/ donkey/burrows/jackasses, whichever those four legged working equestrian carrying critters are, that made the trek all the way down into the cavern with me a willing passenger, wow what a nice remembrance, then why do heights frighten me to this day? I do know I fell off of a ladder while washing my windows in my mid-forties and broke my leg, but I had gotten back on that ladder again after.
I loved horse back riding as a child even though while taking a lesson the horse decided to lie down but I got off before he rolled over on me, quite high up there since he was sixteen hands high, but nah that can’t be it.
I have flown so many times that I have lost count, and no problem there, except with turbulence, yuck and oops…

So I still don’t get it?
I love all animals especially dogs and I have been bitten three times in my life, from pure stupidity.
Once at the age of five by a Chihuahua when bending down to pet it and telling it how cute it was. To the doc for a shot, dog put in quarantine.
The second time I was a preteen visiting my aunt and her door was open so my Mom her sister and she yelled hello, no answer and I went into my Aunt Lilly’s bedroom and her cocker spaniel named, Count, were lying on her bed and I thought I would say hello by petting the dog, forgetting that 'Count' had a notorious reputation of biting people, including her whole family of men, my uncle and my two boy cousins but never ever my Aunt Lilly! Growl and snap! Second bite accounted for. To the doc for a shot, dog put in quarantine.
Third was my fault I still believe and I suppose the others were too, since neither dog had good reps. The first I didn’t even know and the second I knew, but thought I was invincible and to be fair her reputation was only on assaulting/ biting men, and so I thought I would be in the clear.

And the third was with the collie/Shepard mix that was our younger son’s dog, Andrew, a victim of that hurricane of the same name that I gave to him for company in college, which he lived in an apartment not a dorm and he gave him back to me five years later when he went into the Navy!
Maybe that’s what made Andrew, Andrew, all the confusion, anyway the day he bit me was when I was writing those five novellas back in the late 1990’s and editing through the early turn of this century.
Any writer knows once in the zone they can all relate being in that zone.
In those days I chained smoked and chain drank, coffee friends, that’s all… well… Hubby was up in Tampa a hundred miles away for a hurricane conference and it was a Sunday afternoon and I still had on my jammy’s and had not entered the shower, which meant I was on a roll with my thought processes and no one and no thing could stop the flow!
Until, in my excitement I got up to refill the java cup and rolled back into Andrew lying directly behind me!
I must have gotten his tail since let out a mighty howl to put all others that you may have thought of in your past experiences, even worse than wolves at bay, whatever that means, always wondered, any-who he was hurt and Mommy did it!
And so I bent over to see if he was OK, what would any of you do, huh?
And he went berserk when I asked the rhetorical question, “are you all right”, and his answer was an enormous engine grinding, ‘GRRRR’ and rip roaring chomp! Yep, forty stitches worth, shot, Augumentin and dog put in quarantined although we had proof of all his shots including his rabies shot. I drove myself to the hospital after I washed my falling off upper lip off in a quickie shower so I could dress; the insurance was there for me then.
Even so they called in a plastic surgeon that apparently was at barbecue and so it took him five hours to show up…and when he got there he nearly refused to stitch me up since he tried bartering with me to quit smoking before he would touch me!
Some might remember me telling this story but for those who did think of this as a reprise.
And I have never ever once not had a companion that I did not love of the four-footed persuasion and others too… quite a menagerie at times here or wherever we have lived.
And some might say you should be afraid very afraid!
But nope, just heights and causing too much expense to my family with all my ills but that’s it!
We live in our third ranch style home since we have been living in Florida and so the heights thing rarely if ever comes up, but one never knows, does one?

If you analyze your fears perhaps they will not be so scary too…who knows, what’s the worse that can happen?
Sure we could die, but don’t we all eventually do that anyway?
Be fearless and I will try to too!

On that note of do as I suggest not as I do; please allow me to be the first to wish you all a very happy good night and to ask you to kindly count all those blessings and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear?

PS thanks for reading!

Speaking My Mind: Which way will the war go?

Speaking My Mind: Which way will the war go? :   My eyesight is going again... in case you missed it... Netanyahu snaps back against growing...