I recall a while back writing about the snow that fell on Atlanta.  Now, we have turned into WaterWorld, and it’s really no fun.  I’m beginning to wonder if we really are messing up the weather patterns!

Oddly enough, I can’t find anything online that indicates how much rain we’ve had over the past few weeks, but I know it’s a lot.  It’s reached the proportions of a real natural disaster.  And, people are still doing dumb things.

Lots of folks have gotten their cars stranded on flooded roads.  One explanation I heard was that it was dark and the water didn’t seem that deep.  But, see, if it’s dark, you can’t really tell how deep the water is, right?  So, it probably would have been better to take another route, wouldn’t it?

There are people without power because falling trees have taken out the power lines.  There are people without water because mains have broken.  And, when they do get the water back on, it must be boiled before using.  There’s even one neighborhood that is completely cut off due to the roads flooding.  No one in or out.  The only thing moving there are the water bottles that other neighbors are trying to shot put over the raging torrents of water.

The poor hummingbirds are pathetic looking little things these days.  Their hair is sticking out all over their heads.  If another bird comes to challenge their seat at the feeder, rather than the usual airborne dog fight, the seated bird will just flap his wings a few times and the other one usually defers.

Besides all this, those of us who aren’t dealing with some true disaster are just getting grumpier all the time.  We moved south to enjoy the sun.  We haven’t seen any in several weeks, at least it seems that way, and we’re all a bit depressed and lacking in Vitamin D.

A group of us were discussing the lousy weather the other day, and one woman made the ultimate fatal mistake.  She said, “Think how much snow we’ll get this winter if this level of precipitation keeps up!”

Of course, we had to shoot her.

I’m talking about the Health Care system.  And, I would think that since most of you reading this blog are also self-employed, you’d feel about the same way.

I don’t often use this blog as a soapbox, but I’m making an exception today. 

I have about had it with our exalted elected officials and the Health Care Reform issue. 

The cost for my health care coverage has risen 168% over the last five years.  And, to keep a lid on the costs rising even more than that ridiculous amount, I’ve raised the deductible each year, and it is currently at an almost idiotic level.

When the pundits say that they’ve taken a poll and that the majority of people in the U.S. are happy with their health care coverage, I have to wonder who they are asking.  I’ll wager they’re not asking people with individual policies or people who can’t afford insurance.  So, the first thing all our leaders need to understand is that the health care system is broken.  Really.  Notwithstanding any of those silly polls you take that can be interpreted however you want them to come out.

And, what’s all the panic about a government option?  The Congress uses it.  I’ve heard officials say that it will move us toward a single payer system.  Is that their heads talking or the special interest groups? 

As far as I’m concerned, the result of a government option would be some real competition in the industry.  And, I’ll wager prices would come down.  And, besides that, think about the fact that not everyone who is eligible for Medicare uses it.  Many people have other alternatives – some sign up for Medicare supplement policies.  So, if Medicare hasn’t resulted in a single payer system for seniors, why should we think that every American will decide to use the government option?  It’s just silly.

Sillier still is all the panic about the proposed plans.  Who came up with the theory that there was something floating around that would pull the plug on Grandma?  Scare tactics.  One senator on a news show cited 2 or 3 things that the legislation might contain (but probably didn’t), and if you took those things – and twisted them beyond recognition and then stirred them back together - you’d end up with someone pulling the plug on Grandma.  And, the senator said that his constituency was scared.  Good grief.  Talk about mob mentality.  What have these people seen in the fabric of this country that would lead them to believe we’d suddenly start killing off old people???

A few years ago, Blue Cross and the only hospital in the “Southern Crescent” of Atlanta where I was living, got into a big fight.  Blue Cross decided that they would remove the hospital from their provider lists.  The hospital said that was OK with them.  It was a lot like two little kids facing off in the school yard.

I wrote more than one missive to the heads of both organizations, with this message:  I don’t care who did what to whom.  I don’t care who is being unreasonable, or who won’t compromise.  The bottom line is that neither of you can meet your burden to serve the public by continuing this disagreement to the point where you eliminate your agreements to work together.  You’re both highly educated, capable people, and you can find a resolution to this – you just have to decide you want to.

So, I now say the same thing to our elected officials in Washington.  The health care system is broken.  I don’t care if the Republicans think the Democrats are being bratty, or the other way around.  You all have a duty to the people who elected you to use your brains and common sense to finally find a way to fix this problem.

I expect you to work together until you come up with something reasonable in a reasonable timeframe. 

Blue Cross and the hospital I cited earlier ”suddenly” found a compromise position, and lo and behold, there was no interruption of care in the Southern Crescent. 

I just pray our elected officials can pull themselves together and be as successful.

If you’ve ever had a cat, you may have noticed that when they’re young, they sometimes chase their tails.  It’s cute, but it also looks rather silly - we all know their tail is attached, and they’ll never really be able to do much with it, even if they do catch it.

My cat Joey was no exception.  He was a master tail chaser.  He could leap into the air, and circle around a couple times before landing with his tail in his mouth.  Of course, once caught, his tail did lose some of its allure.

And, oddly enough, even though he’s no longer a kitten, he still chases his tail sometimes.   I would have thought he would have outgrown that, but I recently discovered why he does it.

Actually, the end of his tail isn’t really connected to the rest of him.  That may sound odd, but I’ve noticed that the very tip of his tail swishes back and forth all the time.  It doesn’t mean he’s about to pounce on something.  The end of his tail just seems to have a mind of its own.

So, I can understand why he sometimes looks around, sees this thing swishing behind him, and decides to take action.

This point was brought home to me the other day when I noticed that he was just laying down for a nap, and the end of his tail was still going.  In fact, it seems that wherever his tail ends up when he finally falls asleep – well, it just stays there.  So, the fact that he considers it a foreign object kinda makes sense.

As you can see in the photos below — if his tail is in the “up” position when he finally falls asleep, that’s exactly where it stays.  And, you know he was really asleep because the flash of the camera always gets his attention.

I don’t laugh at him any more when he chases his tail.  I am confident that one day, he really will subdue the thing once and for all.

Have you ever thought about how many things you have to do over and over again during your lifetime?

I think about it occasionally, and it happened again over last weekend while I was dusting.  I wondered how many times I had dusted the furniture.

I’d try to figure it out, but math has never been my favorite task, I’m quite certain the mind would boggle at the answer, and besides that I’d just completed doing some math when I balanced my checkbook, and I didn’t really feel like doing it all over again in the same day.

I must admit that I do get bored easily.  I’ll bet the first time I dusted a table I found it rather stimulating.  And, even now, I do get a sort of a kick out of seeing the lines the cloth makes in the tabletop as it whisks the dust away.  However, to get that reinforcement, you have to let the dust settle long enough so that you can see the difference -  which means you probably don’t want to visit my house the day before I dust.

And, just to be clear, I don’t use a cloth, I use one of those fuzzy things on a stick that is supposed to contain the dust, not just push it around.  And, I think those things are a great invention.  Which brought to mind the concept that if we really could do away with doing things over and over again, there’d really be no need for new inventions.

When you think about it, most inventions are a result of someone trying to make the things we have to do over and over easier.  For example, if children could learn by simply touching all the pages in a book, we might not have electricity, which lets them stay up late studying.

If we didn’t need to go into town every week to get supplies, we might not have cars today.  If we didn’t have to keep eating over and over again each day, there would probably be no Cuisinart.

So, while I don’t want to squash the creative spirit or sentence the world to mediocrity, I do sometimes wish there were some way to avoid having to do some of the same things over and over again.

I’d vote to eliminate cleaning.  I can’t think of anything bad that would happen if there were no dust, soap scum or mildew in the world.  And, Mr. Dysan could just put his genius to work inventing something truly useful.

I’d probably keep eating because there is pleasure in good food and good company.  However, I wouldn’t be opposed to a Star Trek type replicator appliance.  You’d describe what meal you wanted and the replicator would pop it out all ready to go.

However, if I keep eating, I’d probably have to keep washing dishes which I think is another thing we could all do without.  So, someone would have to invent a way to eliminate that task.  Maybe we could just take all the dishes and shove them back into the replicator for recycling.

I think the answer might be that inventors should stop fiddling around fixing the little things.  They should really get out there and attack things that cause of our repetitiousness in the first place. 

As far as I’m concerned, the person who invents a way to eliminate dust should be awarded a host of assistants who would make sure that the inventor never has to wash another dish as long as they live!

I was sitting at the kitchen table a while ago, and a hummingbird came by and stared in the window quite intently for what seemed like a very long time.  As the animal lover that I am, I know that when an animal takes that much notice of me, it usually means they’re hungry.

So, off I went to acquire a hummingbird feeder.  It’s a pretty big structure with a glass bottle that holds the hummingbird juice, and 6 lovely flower-shaped plastic appendages with bright yellow “stamens” inside, where the hummingbirds get access to the nectar.

I’ve had bird feeders before, but never one for hummingbirds, so I was interested to see what would happen.  It didn’t take long.  I installed the feeder late one day and by the next evening, I had a full complement of tiny little birds hovering all over the place.

I know that hummingbirds are very territorial, and the ones around my house are no different.  They spend a fair amount of their time chasing other hummingbirds away from the feeder so they can eat in peace.

The six flowers at first seemed like overkill, since it seems that only one bird is allowed to feed at a time.  But, then I noticed that some of the birds swooped in, hovered at the feeder and took 4 or 5 sips.  But, others have a great time going from one “flower” to the next.  I wonder if they can taste a difference, or just enjoy hogging the entire feeder.

You know it was going to happen.  The other day I stood very still at the far end of the deck from the feeder and waited.  To my surprise, two birds came zooming in.  In case you’ve never been that close to a hummingbird, I can tell you that they don’t really hum.  It sounds more like a helicopter coming in for a landing.

The first order of business, of course, was to establish which of the two birds was going to have the chance to use the feeder.  One of the birds was behind me making a loud racket with his wings.  The second bird hovered in front of the feeder, squawking loudly. 

I don’t know how to describe their voice.  A description I found online stated:  [the hummingbird's] chase call is a sharp, sputtering zeeek ididididid.   That may be, but I still don’t know how to describe it.

Anyway, the second bird gave up the cause and disappeared.  The victor, for this round anyway, took several aerial hops to get close to the feeder, then in triumph gave his wings a rest, and perched on the edge of the feeder flower to gulp down his prize of lovely red nectar.

There’s really no end to this story.  I just wanted you to know that if you ever think you hear a helicopter in the backyard, it’s probably just a hummingbird.