We’ve had one of those exceptional days today when things go precisely as you hoped they would.  And now it’s the cocktail hour, time for an espresso and some of that new CBD stuff we bought at the local Hooch Store. I’ve also got Beegie Adair playing the old favourites. She’s great! It feels like a Friday or Saturday evening. You know, that happy-go-lucky feeling when everything is boomps-a-daisy!

Strangely – that is, in spite of my current fizz – I am thinking about those less happy.  The dreadful reality of our existence is that not everything is good all the time. In most instances the discomfort is minimal, usually capable of being rectified one way or another without a great deal of punishment.  But alternately there are those whose fortune is less dismissive.  There are those who have nothing but fear.

Yesterday while listening to the horrors inflicted upon Ukrainian and Russian people by Putin’s deliberate and utter madness, an image of ants came to mind. Not so much because of their similarity; more because of their innately ephemeral existence. We are no less impermanent. Mere weeds that bloom and wither. While I know it is pleading with one’s hand banging against a wall, I shall never fathom how any human being can pretend to legitimize the engagement of an entire nation in warfare against another. The mere cost of war would to me be so much better spent on improvement of the world not its destruction.

Then there are those who are sick.  Some are young and some are old; neither thinks of himself as young or old, just sick. It is a dreadful state of affairs.  Very often there is nothing to be done to quell the situation. Personally I am big on pain killers – other than codeine (which I consider but another word for constipation). Apparently the medical community has yet to discover an analgesic which is kind.

Hello. You understood these things correctly. Morphine and heroine are made from the same plant, called asian opium poppy. Morphine is used in medicine to help cancer patients and chronic pain sufferers manage their pain. However, it should be used as prescribed and monitored by doctors who have prescribed it. Morphine is also highly addictive. Tolerance and physical and psychological dependence develop quickly. Withdrawal from morphine causes nausea, tearing, yawning, chills, and sweating lasting up to three days. Morphine crosses the placental barrier, and babies born to morphine-using mothers go through withdrawal. This drug has the ability to activate brain reward mechanisms and their ability to chemically alter the normal functioning of these systems can produce an addiction. Drugs also reduce a person’s level of consciousness, harming the ability to think or be fully aware of present surroundings. Words of wisdom : stay away!

Lately I have exemplified the typical old fogey, looking back upon the past, reminiscing, pretending to do credit to the contemplation either of the here-and-now or of the hereafter. Let’s face it, it’s an inexpressible mystery!  Nor do I attach any significance whatever to creating or finding any meaning in it all. And as for bravery, that too is right out! Nonetheless I seem to have the capacity to put on a good face.  No doubt it’s the advantage of living in the present (by which I mean, the opposite of thinking about the future – which has not always been a compliment).