Ah, the ripple effect of things. As I have mentioned in previous posts, I’m involved in a lot of community work between writing for the local paper and other. Let us just say the past few days has been a bit of a scramble with the impact of rescheduling and trying to decide about rescheduling events. There was also a personal situation (nothing bad) we had to deal with that became more complicated than necessary. It all worked out, but took extra effort to do so. In other words, I have fallen behind with a post. While neither Hubby nor I have any health issues to make us vulnerable to the situation, we do of course sympathize with those who do. Like most people, we hope things stabilize as soon as possible. When that will be is of course unknown at this point.

Our trip to see the kids in the D.C. area will have to be rescheduled and we’re waiting to hear if the proposed June date for the performance is a “go”. That will actually work better for us than a possible May one, but we’ll adjust to whatever. The April scuba gathering has been cancelled and I haven’t checked yet to see what the refund situation is as trying to plan for something in 2021 tends to be a little out of my usual time horizon.

Aside from the health impact, I feel the most keenly for the economic hit, not on the stock market as that always eventually recovers. Employees suddenly out of work is a different matter. Even with the government stepping in to help, that is never a quick process. Plus, disaster funds are available, but in general, only certain parts of the country will be affected for any given disaster. This obviously has a much wider impact. We shall all have to see how this plays out.

Mixed content ahead. A passage periodically goes around Facebook with something like, “I survived riding in the back of a pick-up truck, no bicycle helmet, playgrounds without rubber mats,” and several other instances of things kids raised in the 50s did as routine. My brother and three male cousins didn’t exactly have reserved spots in the Emergency Room, but they were frequent visitors. I’m not saying times haven’t changed and there aren’t some very real dangers out there we didn’t face as kids. On the other hand, ordinary kid activities do sometimes come with the risk of accidents that will range from the “band-aid and kiss” solution to the trip to the ER.

Son was not quite seven years old when that call came as he was in Maine with his grandparents. They had installed a swing set in the yard and as happens, using the swing set as it is intended apparently wasn’t quite adventurous enough one afternoon. Why not instead climb out to grasp the top rail and swing back and forth like an acrobat? The break wasn’t too bad; actually a chipped elbow. That was in the day of plaster casts and at least it was his left arm. No complications either. (Of the later trips to the ER, three were far more serious, although none the result of an accident.)

Active kids are likely at some point to get hurt and medical emergencies do occur. In truth, I can’t recall if the lingering scar on my sister’s forehead had been the result of stitches or if that was a case where maybe stitches should have been required. For sure, the cut on one of my fingers was a borderline situation, but neither of us were anywhere nearly as accident-prone as my brother. Anyway, granddaughter is proving to be a bit on the daring side. It is possible all will go without incident. The day may come though when the call is, “Hey Grandma and Grandpa, my arm is in a cast.”

We are continuing to check off certain improvements to the house. The whole house water filtration system is working nicely. The next part was replacing the front door and the outside lights. For those who don’t live in Miami-Dade County, replacing a front door is quite a process. This is due to code reference being hurricane resistant. The cost is of course far greater than an ordinary door and thanks to the architecture of the house, these are custom which also increases the cost. This was not a personal choice as all the houses were designed this way by the builder. While they do look nice, it’s not something we would have included.

Anyway, I had no idea the installation was as complicated as it has turned out to be. It has to do with re-drilling the holes for all the hinges and apparently the bottom plate where the door closes has to be fixed into mortar. This, also unknown to me, involves tearing out all the existing wood and rebuilding it. I suppose I should have gotten a hint when the first thing they did this morning was drape plastics over all the furniture. My idea they would be finished and gone by around noon is obviously not remotely accurate, although they do seem to be working as quickly as they can. The other good thing is once this is done it ought to last a very long time. It’s somewhat like getting the new fence. If you pay the extra for the higher grade, it should not require replacement for the foreseeable future. Granted, this does also assume the whole issue of a hurricane doesn’t alter everything. As a reminder, the county did face up to reality after the devastation of Hurricane Andrew in that building codes were out of date and not properly enforced. This is why our county and Monroe (covers the Florida Keys) now have the most restrictive wind-storm codes in the country.

I have once again been put onto a news story that became more complex than originally anticipated. Our once a week paper doesn’t have “breaking news”, although I do get short-notice calls at times to scramble to get a story when the timing is right (or generally wrong from my perspective). As I may have mentioned in a previous post, notwithstanding the fact I wanted to be a writer from around age 9 or so, I never wanted to be a reporter. (Sorry, Lois Lane) I still resist the term despite having been writing for the paper here for quite a while. And yes, I really do contribute to the community.

Anyway, a gentleman who has a service dog due to his PTSD from his Army years did an editorial about “Fake Service Dogs” that was passed along to our paper. Since it involved a former military individual, it came my way. His letter was very pointed at people who are falsely having their pets declared as emotional support animals (ESA) and causing problems for genuine service animals.

In being fair to those who function from misunderstanding as opposed to selfishness, there are actually four categories; service, emotional support, comfort, and therapy dogs. (Yes, there are other animals used, but we’ll stick to dogs here) In essence, service dogs are highly trained, specifically so to behave safely in public places. Although the remaining types have been shown to provide benefits, the same level of training is rarely the case. (https://adata.org/guide/service-animals-and-emotional-support-animals has a lot of detail).

There is plenty of data to show the health benefits of having a dog. As more people seek to have a dog declared in an ESA capacity, the focus may shift more to what benefit the human receives than to the training/temperament of the dog. In other words, while a dog may bring comfort. etc., to the human half of the pair, how does it behave in public, especially if it is crowded? To add to this, capitalism and entrepreneurship being what they are, identification of ESAs has become a marketable commodity.  On-line sites provide the identification, vest, and leash for the dog for a fee. Of the two sites I checked, my impression was the prime consideration was not about the dog. One expert with a service dog organization said there are sites that will issue the documentation based on nothing more than a photo of the dog.

Being unwilling to acknowledge the unsuitability of a dog is no different than someone who doesn’t recognize when their child is ill-behaved. Deliberately having a dog falsely declared as an ESA is no different from an able-bodied person borrowing a Handicap tag in order to get a better parking place. As I said, I discovered some interesting things during my research.

I have posted before about my constant struggle with weight. While I might not be the poster child for yo-yo-dieting, I could be in the running. During my Army days, it wasn’t as intense as I was younger and of course, we had strict weight limits as well as constant physical fitness training with required runs three days per week. In my waning days, there was the time I was cajoled into running a half-marathon, but that was most assuredly a one-time event.

Anyway, I hated to jog and after retiring, I swapped to walking instead which I did enjoy. I managed to not put on too much weight, then circumstances with available time changed and I allowed myself to basically get out of control. My aging didn’t help, nor was it the single defining cause. Despite having put on extra weight, I’ve always kept up a program of walking at least four times a week, using time walking as opposed to distance. What I hadn’t realized was my efforts had become less effective. I had previously posted about us getting a stationary recumbent bicycle after I injured my knee. At that time, I was using a combination of walking some days and on the bike others. A few years ago during my travels, I was on a treadmill in a hotel gym. I did the usual amount of time and comfortable pace/elevation. Then I looked at the number of calories burned and saw it was less than when I used the bike. There was also the one age-related factor of being out for a walk and needing to go to the bathroom. I admittedly cut the walk short by a few minutes on more than one occasion to make sure I arrived back at the house in time.

Despite the delays due to an improperly installed part, Hubby did keep working with the manufacturers of the new recumbent bike and it is fully functional. Indeed, there are functions I have no idea how to use and that’s okay. It gives me the kind of exercise I need. Well, the kind I’m willing to do. No doubt a trainer would tell me I could do more.

You often don’t know why a small business fails, but there are numerous reasons. We learned yesterday a specialty shop we really liked in the Keys closed. Granted, we hadn’t been in quite some time; essentially due to not being convenient from a distance perspective. Perhaps the closure was only due to poor sales, or there could have been other factors. In another case, a pub we enjoy is changing hands with a different format planned and we’ll see if it continues to be a favorite or if it goes in a direction we don’t care for. This is a place people flocked to at the grand opening, talked about how wonderful it was to have this type of place to go to and then within months, they were down to limited clientele enough nights to be cost-effective. The simple fact is people do only have so much disposable income and both the instances I cited are not necessities of life. Even though Americans spend a tremendous amount of money eating out, there are lots of choices. And, as this area grows, more restaurants open to create greater competition. That’s one of the most difficult businesses to manage under the best of circumstances. Staring any business comes with so many challenges, yet it is a dream of millions and despite the trillions of dollars of the huge corporations, small businesses really are the “backbone” of most communities. I’ve mentioned before in other posts, individuals and families who have to count literally every penny must take the cost of anything into consideration. The extra spent to buy from a small business may come with not being able to buy something else that is needed. For those of us who do have discretionary income, it is an action we can take to help those taking the risk to achieve their dream