Up early, quarter to eight.  Slept well, cause I took an Aleve last night.  Was having a lot of pain.  Flare?  Okay so far, but Aleve is twelve hours and that’s not up yet.  We’ll see how it goes later.  Hoping to vacuum, which was on yesterday’s list but back was hurting too much.  Did get some other things done, though.  The hand-off with the homemaker took seconds, and I put away frig/freezer items and just left the rest on the counter.  Will move them in a couple of days.  Lots of hand-washing.  Caution, caution caution.

My little kindle is dying.  The battery is virtually dead and goes from a full charge to empty in seconds.  Works while plugged in, but reboots itself often.  It’s the one after the keyboard one.  Still has the side page turners. Why did they ditch those for that horrid touch screen?  Why, Amazon, why?  My keyboard Kindle, which is my oldest, is losing ground fast, too.  I am not using it now.  It’s my most favorite one.  I have a second one, but it is not in great shape either.  I think I bought it used, just because I was desperate for a backup keyboard Kindle.  They are easy to hold and use.  Oh, well, nobody cares what works for me, just what is the newest, shiniest thing they can come up with, regardless of how much a pain it is to use.  Complaining already, Jean.  For shame.  It’s too early for this.  This is my first Kindle.  I love it to bits. I bought it September 23, 2011, and it has had many, many, many hours of use.
I accidentally discovered yesterday that my new laptop IS backlit, you just have to hit F5 to turn it on.  It’s cheery, having a backlit keyboard. Cheery is good.  Speaking of which, here is something I posted as a comment a while back, and I think it applies to right now.

“I’ve found that the older I get, the more I realize how little all the crap really matters. Things come, things go, political situations included. I’ve lived through times of war, threats of nuclear annihilation, riots, progress, regression of progress, my country turning into idiots (still in the midst of that one, actually.) I’ve figured out, for myself at least, that the purpose of life is to live. To get as much enjoyment out of every moment that you can. Look at the sky, notice the clouds, the color in the trees as the sap rises, the new leaves, feel the breeze, enjoy the comfortable sofa, savor that cup of tea. In other words, be aware, every moment. Don’t live in the past, don’t live in the future. Now is all there is. Do as much good as you can, in however small a way that is available to you. Stick a dollar in that can on the counter, smile at people, be polite. These things matter. Let go of the things you have no control over and focus on those that you do. Make someone else’s life better by being kind, listening, helping when possible. These things help me, especially when it looks like the world is just going to hell. I believe every generation has thought that the world was going to hell, and we’re still here. Enjoy your life. It has a tendency to end at some point, and you don’t want to miss any of the good stuff along the way.”

What do you think, dear readers? (You are out there, right?)  How are you coping with the mess this planet is in?  We humans have done/are doing a really poor job of keeping it habitable for ourselves and the other species, who are no less important than we are, in spite of what your religion might teach you.  It is home to ALL of us, and none of us have the right to ruin it for the rest of us.  But we do. We are.  We have let greed become our only reason for being.  So many people trying to do the right thing, but so many more not caring at all if it’s right or not, so long as it’s profitable.  We are such a disappointment. If there IS a god, I wonder if he’s doing a serious rethink about us.

I used to think that there would come a point when enough of us would get a clue, you know, what they call a ‘tipping point’ and things would change.  Not looking good for that, is it?  The cretins have crawled out from under their rocks and are doing their best the screw things up for everybody.  Objectively speaking, the planet would be so much better off if we just wiped ourselves out of existence, but then we wouldn’t be here to see how great it could be. Technically, we are parasites.  Did you know that?  The earth is an interconnected ecosystem.   This depends upon that depends upon something else.  But nothing in the ecosystem is dependent upon us for survival, we just take and take and use the resources up and destroy the environment, and kill off other species willfully, but we contribute nothing to the survival or well-being of the other species or the planet as a whole.  Or even to the survival of ourselves.  You think I’m wrong?  Just look around you.  See what we are doing/have done.  Virtually everything is destructive, not constructive.  Not helping, but destroying.  It can be very depressing, but you have to hang on to hope, I think, or what’s the point of it all?  Better life in some afterlife?  Seriously?  This is where we are, when we are, and if we do not behave responsibly and do the right thing in every instance, if there is an afterlife, we will not be going to the good place.  Not.