How Sad

There are so many sad things going on in this world. The earthquake in Peru, the bridge collapse in Minnesota, starvation in third world countries, the Iraq war just to name a few. But today - this one caught me by surprise and pulled at my heartstrings dramatically.

"Man kissed ailing wife, threw her off balcony, prosecutors say" http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/08/16/wife.killed.ap/index.html
Apparently his wife was dying of uterine cancer and other ailments and he couldn't keep up with the medical bills. The details were a little bit sketchy - they don't say what her prognosis was, if he had applied for medical assistance, etc. but how sad.

How sad for his wife who was pushed off a building to her death. I can't imagine what it would have felt like to know what he was doing and not be able to stop it - or worse yet, to not want to have stopped it. And how sad for him. To be in a situation where you feel like that is your last option. How sad.

I can't pretend to know their situation, but I must say that things like this just shouldn't happen. People should have a place to turn when nothing else has worked, when they have no other options. Scratch that - people should have a place to turn before it gets that bad - when they can see that the future is bleak.

This type of thing can be stopped - Medicaid could help, Social Security for the disabled, state aid, etc. That's not to mention a national health insurance program would have made this story non-existent.

God bless her, her husband and their families. I hope he can forgive himself and that she is in a better place.

Over Due

So, I admit that I am not really very good at returning my library books - o.k. I am really bad at returning my library books on time. It is actually a lifelong trait - I was really bad at it as a kid - I once ended up owing $60 for an overdue movie at the library - I think I could of bought it for as much as I ended up owing in fees...but that's a whole other story...

Anyway - I think I mentioned once before that I joined a book club through my Mom's group. I really like it- I have met a lot of great women and even read some decent books. But - our last meeting was kind of a flop - just me an one other woman and neither of us had finished the book. Then I forgot about the book. I went to order a book from the library and I noticed that I had an overdue book on the listing - the book club book...anyway - I just got to the library on Friday and I ended up owing about $4.75 in fines.

I asked if they send out overdue notices - they said yes, but couldn't tell me when. When pushed - she said - it must be over 19 days - my book was 19 days over due. So, me being me - I said - that is really frustrating. My book was 19 days overdue and they hadn't sent me a notice - but at 21 days they would have. Why 21 days - why not 10 days. I would really prefer not to owe $5.00 every time I have an overdue book - which let's be honest is a reality.

Anyway - the librarian came up with approx. 5 different options for how I could remember to return my library books...I was sitting there thinking - what the hell - I don't need someone to tell me to circle the due date on my calendar - if it hasn't worked at this point - I really don't think it's about to change now.

The point is all I wanted was for someone to pretend to write down the recommendation and pretend that they were going to forward it to someone who could do something about it - not insult my intelligence.

I had a bad day at work and then I was being told that I needed to circle a date on my calendar by someone who I didn't ask for advice from - I was peeved...

Obviously I'm still peeved..