David,
You said once, if I remember correctly, that after you lose them all,
you don't intend to replace them. I wasn't thinking in quite those
terms when I lost my last Ridgeback, Ben, but I have had to rethink some
things since then. I am 86 with a bum leg. One person advised me that a
Ridgeback would be too heavy for me to handle. Ben weighed 125 pounds,
I wrote back, and he was no problem for me. But we were used to each
other before I broke my knee. I wasn't so confident about getting a
Ridgeback puppy. And the offer of some older Ridgeback rescues didn't
appeal inasmuch as I feel like a rescue half the time myself. In short
I'm learning to live with the two I have left. Perhaps a bit like you,
although you have Hamish as well.
Here we three are on a 90 minute hike we took yesterday:
https://lawrencehelm.smugmug.com/
There seems no reason why we can't get back to hiking more often. I've
had my two Pfizer covid shots; so I'm no longer feeling the need for
sequestering. I do have a problem negotiating places where I have to go
up or down steep inclines, but I've resolved to let my Jeep do more of
that for me in the future. As long as the route is fairly level I
should do okay.
I've continued to pursue my interest in modern "classics." I'm
currently on Joan Didion's "Slouching towards Bethlehem"; which I'm
enjoying very much. I tried to read her novel /Run River, /but didn't
get very far. I read some reviews and apparently few liked it. The
American Library of America included it in Didion's "The 1960's & 70's"
because that's what they do. Her husband was quoted as admitting it
wasn't very good, but it was her first and he liked it because he knew
the circumstances that inspired it.
Big Brother in the form of Amazon, or perhaps Netflix, noticed I was
reading Didion and directed me to a documentary about Didion, made in, I
think, 2017. She is two months younger than I am but very frail. She
seemed a timid introvert, not at all cut out for the harrowing life she
led, perhaps believing the dictum "whatever doesn't kill you makes you
stronger," but in her case it appears to have been a very close call.
Lawrence
On 5/2/2021 11:39 AM, david ritchie wrote:
On May 2, 2021, at 11:34 AM, Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Condolences!
Thank you.
Sorry my proof reading was even worse than usual.
David
