When you get older you think occasionally about how it all might end.

In my case, I choose to ignore it but the wife brings it up once in a while.

I have a friend that every morning, the first thing he does is get the newspaper to read the obituaries.

He says he wants to know if any of his friends have died.

It seems to me if the dead person was a friend he’d know about it before the newspaper.

Then he says the paper will usually note when the service is.

So, why is he interested in going to the service?

To show respect, he says.

The time to show someone respect is when they’re alive and can appreciate it, not when they’re dead and could care less.

The wife doesn’t like that.

She says you show respect to the rest of the family by going, whether you knew the deceased well or not.

Okay – I’ll give her that, but since no one invites me to those things I suppose I won’t be judged.

And she goes by herself if it’s for someone she knows and I don’t.

I can count the number of funerals I’ve gone to in my entire life on one hand.

They’ve been close family members, otherwise I usually skip them.

Cold hearted?

Some may think so but I don’t.

I prefer to remember someone when they were around and not as a box of ashes on a pedestal with people telling long stories about how wonderful he or she was.

Then it’s followed with socializing over the free food catching up with old friends.
A celebration of life they call it now.

I like that, but I’d rather just work it through like I did with my stories of my dog.

I’m sure few who read it really cared.

And that’s okay, it wasn’t written for them.
Just me.

The wife has asked me more than once what kind of service I would want.

I tell her I don’t care.
I won’t be there – so to speak.

Funerals are for the living and some need them.
That’s good they have the opportunity.

Some people don’t need them, like me.
That’s okay too.

This is my medical weekend.

One doctor’s appointment today and another tomorrow morning.
A lot of things aren’t working well, mostly having to do with getting around.

I go see them and they nod, make some marks in my records, leave the room and I go home.
Nothing really accomplished.

I found myself standing in front of the refrigerator this afternoon looking at the long list of things my wife wants done and count the increasingly large number of projects started and left unfinished.

It’s a bit distressing to remember how I used to be the greatest handyman around the home.

Always building, fixing or doing something.

Now she takes out the garbage and does the shopping and I sit like a sack of potatoes at home.

The wife says it beats the alternative.
Not really.

If you can’t live life, then you’re not living.

What’s important to remember is never give up and never give in.

When I went to the medical office building this morning, there were dozens of old, sick people going in.

Some in wheelchairs, many with walkers, most carrying their oxygen tanks.

I don’t have it so bad.

I can still get around – although it can be difficult at times.

I still have the motivation to try something – anything – to improve what I have now.

I haven’t given up and will not give in.

It’s difficult without my best friend to soldier on alone but one has to make the best out of what you have.

Tomorrow I drag my sorry butt back to the gym and see if I can turn back the clock to before all this stuff started three years ago.

It will be an interesting journey and I look forward to it.

We all have a choice.
You work to get better or you don’t.

But you don’t give up and you don’t give in.

Remember Yoda?
“Do or do not. There is no try.”

The wife took pity on my sweet-tooth addiction last week and bought some Oreo cookies.

I sensed their presence hidden in the cupboard the minute I entered the kitchen.
I have this gift.

It’s been a while since I looked at one closely.

The white stuff has shrunk.
A lot.

This is what the Oreo looked like before I ate it.

The filling is the reason I like Oreos in the first place.
There’s hardly any.

There’s certainly not enough left for me to want to buy them again.

If you can’t pull them apart and lick the stuff – why bother?

I’m not saying this is the case here, but making things smaller is the latest great idea from most companies.

Here’s the logic, as I have heard it:

It’s costing more to make stuff, like cookies.

So, what they do is make things a bit smaller, or put less in the package, so they don’t have to raise the price.

Supposedly the idea is we won’t want to pay a 50-cents increase for a dozen pieces of something, but we’re willing to pay the same old price for only ten pieces.

How messed up is that?

Sure, salaries and benefit costs go up.
Raw material is more expensive.

Things are going to go up.

My mother bought a new Chevy when I was a kid for $5,000.

I bought a new Jeep last year for $32,000.

No one was selling a $5,000 car with only 3 wheels, no seats and a rubber-band motor to keep the price the same.

If Oreo, or anyone, is going to make a product worse in order to keep its customers, they’re like a dog sniffing at the wrong hydrant.

When any product is no longer what we thought we were buying then we stop buying and go elsewhere.

That’s the logic they should be looking at.