View from the Cottage

That Niggling Sense of Unease

June 26, 2018

Sophie and her cousin Cricket in a dull moment

at the cottage

Sophie has the right approach to life, I’ve decided. If there’s nothing interesting, she sleeps—on the floor, on the couch, in a ridiculous position in a chair. She sleeps. If a squirrel invades her back yard, she’s on it in a flash. If someone comes to visit, she’s Miss Personality. But home, alone, with me, she sleeps. She never feels that niggling sense of unease that I do.

That sense was strong with me when I came home from the dentist today, so I sat and thought about what was causing it, and I identified three things:

I lost a ski from my walker, the insert that makes the legs glide along smoothly. When I stashed the walker in the car, I had both skis; when I pulled it out, both were missing. A girl had come out from the dentist’s office to make sure I didn’t fall, and together we found one ski on the floor of the car. She replaced that and searched and searched but couldn’t find the other. So I limped around with an unbalanced walker. I have other skis, but they probably aren’t the same thickness, etc., and the balance will be off.

Second source of unease: I thought I was just going for a cleaning, but the dentist announced that I need three small cavities filled. I fear that his definition of small and mine vary significantly. The last time I had a “small” cavity filled I thought I was going to die. My A Fib was undiagnosed at the time but going wild, so that I thought my heart would beat out of my chest, and when I was tilted back I thought I’d drown in my own drool. The hygienist promised she would make it better, but when they offered me an appointment tomorrow I said, “No. Later.” So I go back July 9.

The SCOTUS ruling on the travel ban was the third thing that upset me because I think it goes against every principle this country was founded on and because it demonstrates what Gorsuch is doing to the high court. That was further emphasized today in rulings on abortion (those pretend clinics that exist to talk women out of abortions don’t have to advertise that they have no medical facilities or personnel) and the ruling that essentially allows gerrymandering to discriminate against minority voters. Welcome to Trump’s world.

Justices Sotomayer and Ginsburg wrote a rational dissenting opinion to the travel ban, tracing its origins clearly to Trump’s anti-Muslim campaign speeches and early presidential attempts to float travel bans against Muslims. Now he’s succeeded in banning “terrorist” countries (in some of which we created the terrorism) but it’s really disguised religious (and racist) prejudice. The United States was founded on the principle of religious freedom, welcoming all of any faith. How far we have fallen and how quickly.

I think I’ll just go quietly to sleep. I’m sure Sophie will wake me if anything exciting happens.