Hoist by One's Own Petard

I've lived here long enough to pick up a lot of the slang-God knows why, but I'm still here! And this means-basically-hung by one's own rope. Or, some vindictiveness backfires and smacks the person who planned it right in the face. Or-what goes around, comes around. Karma? What karma?

It hasn't escaped me that, since the things you think, say and do come back to bite you in the ass. I'll just take that for granted and say that I paid my dues for whatever it is I did to get to this point-and that's that. You can bet that if someone did the dirty on you, they'll pay dearly-unfortunately, payback seems to take a terribly long time...

I also love the advice that I got from my grandparents-you all know this one-always wear clean underwear, you never know when you're going to get hit by a car. And then there's: give people enough rope and they will hang themselves with it. And the best of all time-well, for the moment, anyway: set boundaries, let people know where the line is. Always. If they cross the line once, tell them off, and -only if you like them enough-let them screw it up a second time. Cross the line twice? They're idiots. A parting shot across the bow is called for. Cross the line a third time-then you're the idiot if you don't sprint for the exit.

I so wish I had taken all those pieces of advice to heart years ago, I could have saved myself so much grief. But no, I learned the hard way, repeating the mistakes over and over again. You know the definition of insanity: doing the same thing in the same way over and over again and expecting different results. Duh.

I told you the Florence (cleverly masquerading as Lil. What the hell, I'm using real names and if they find out they can sue me) story. I told you the Rob, Tara and Sandra story. And the Terry the Tosser story. So you're pretty much up to date on a few of the weirdos who live in my area. But now I've decided that my boundaries have been set-and crossed. So I say hello if I see the neighbors, but I pretty much keep to myself. That is the way of peace and quiet.

I'm changing the way I look at things, and changing the way I do things. It's been pouring over the last couple of days-so bad that (just for fun) I turned to Professor Google to see how many entries there are for building an ark. Holy crap! There are pages of ark building directions. Who knew? And I went out and walked anyway. Rain, darkness, dusk, cold weather, traffic, uneven roads-all these are warning signs for someone who has no balance system. So, of course, I decided this morning to treat this as a challenge. It was dark, pouring with rain, windy, headlights shining in my face, really uneven roads and pavements-and I just went out anyway. Either brave or stupid, whatever. But I walked for an hour and I was fine. Now I have to be not quite fine enough to be smug, because that's when I'll fall and damage something.

The bottom line is that, after more than eight and a half years, I'm still improving. There's nothing like a catastrophe to increase patience. And there's nothing like a catastrophe to show you just how strong you really are.

There's also Kettle Chips. And Starbucks. I'm starting to wish that I had bought stock in both companies years ago. Oops-missed the boat.

Now I need to start going back to the gym, and start back in Tai Chi class. And start living, because, after all, I'm not getting any younger. And-no more falling over, if that's possible.

In less than a week there will be a vote on Brexit. It still sounds like a disease, doesn't it? I'm avoiding hearing anything about it now, it's just boring, repetitive, and annoying as Hell. People ask my how I feel about it, and I'm reluctant to give an opinion (and you know by now that I have an opinion on just about everything)-because we've got a misogynist, racist, disgustingly orange halfwit in the White House, so what am I supposed to say?

I'm off to Starbucks. See you later.