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+