I’m frustrated with lots of things so I’m in one of those funky moods.

I’m frustrated that one or both of these houses don’t sell. It’s not that we have to sell them or we’ll end up in the foreclosure mess that many others are, but it’s the cost of property taxes, insurance and utilities that are going to waste. If I thought that my property taxes were being used for the good of humanity, I’d feel a little better, but when I read the paper and see what our local officials are doing, I think my hard earned money is swirling down the toilet.

I don’t want to stop now and only offend local politicians. I think on a state and national level, things are much worse. It’s hard for me to believe that all Republicans feel that they have the only legitimate answer to what ails us and all Democrats think the Republicans are full of it and only they have the solution. No matter what you think about Iraq, immigration or the state budget, I don’t understand how the two sides can be so far apart that they can’t agree on anything and there is no chance for compromise. Well over 50% of Americans think that government is broken and there doesn’t seem to be any way to fix it. We can go back to the “throw the bums out” philosophy of many years ago, but when we vote in new people with great ideas, they somehow morph on their trip from Michigan to Washington and turn into clones of the people we just voted out of office.

Enough of politics. If I keep thinking about it I get angrier by the minute and it’s not good for my blood pressure. That brings me to another problem. I’m frustrated that my left hip is not better. Not any worse, but not any better either. My mid-week runs have been in the 3.6 mile range, so I’m not in any pain until the very end. On Sundays I’m trying to run around 6 miles and the discomfort usually starts around 4 miles. Today, being such a beautiful day to run, my hip mess decided it wanted to get out early so it appeared in the first mile. I toughed it out but it wasn’t pretty. To make it feel better, this afternoon I went out to the cottage and weeded the flowers. The bending over and stretching made the joints creak and both hips were begging for Aleve.

If that wasn’t enough, I’m frustrated that my latest health issue, prostatitis, is taking a long time to resolve. We know what the problem is, but my doctor says that it often takes weeks before things are back to normal. In the meantime, I’m sidelined off the bike. I feel left out when everyone else is able to go out for a nice bike ride during the week or on Saturday, so I try to keep myself busy by doing outside work around the cottage. Since I’m a man, and we can’t always help ourselves, I dive into jobs that always take a bit more strength or endurance than I have, so I overdo. Not a lot, but just enough to wake up muscles I didn’t know I had and to increase sales of Tylenol by 30%.

When I’m not swimming (I can do that without much problem, at least until we have to go back in the pool), or hobbling through a run, or beating myself up doing yard work and chores at the cottage, I relax by playing golf. That’s my next frustration and it’s a dandy. Parts of my game are getting better and I feel like I’m getting closer to where I left off a few years back, but then my lack of coordination rears its ugly head and I revert to a real hacker. This past Friday I played with “the guys” who meet at the first tee at noon. I had seven pars, so you would think I had a good score. Wrong!!! I had two bogeys and the rest were doubles or triples with a cool 10 thrown in for good measure, and I hit all ten shots…no penalties…no lost balls. What a mess, but I only lost $4 and I had a good time just being out there.

Just (Looking Up From A Deep Valley) Jack