I get a wrist brace - and that's good news; yesterday's ash pictures disappear - and that's bad news (but not terrible)

See how white the snow is? It wasn't so white yesterday and I did take some pictures that showed this - including one of a broom lying atop the ash-coated snow. I thought that was very clever.

But all my pictures from yesterday do not exist! 

I don't think they ever existed.

I think I forgot to put a card in the camera. Since the spring of 2002, when I got my first digital camera, I have a made it my creed to document every day with at least one photograph. I haven't been perfect, but almost. 

The last time that I missed a day was September 20, 2005.

Or was it 2003?

It was awhile back.

Now I have no picture from yesterday.

Not a single one.

And there was ash on the snow.

Today, there was only snow on ash.

And that doesn't show.

You wouldn't even know.

You would think it was just snow.

As for this picture, I took it in Anchorage through a window on the third floor of the medical building where Dr. Duddy practices. I had gone there to see what he had learned from my MRI. I was worried that he might say that I needed surgery.

I had enough of surgery last June. And if I needed it now, it would be the third surgery to result from that stupid fall.

Afterward, Lisa wanted me to pick up sandwiches for her at Middle Way Cafe and then meet her outside her place of work, so that we could drive to a nearby dog park, park in the parking lot, eat our sandwiches and talk about cats as dogs passed by outside.

So I did. She only gets half-an-hour lunch break, but when we finished and I drove her back to the door, she had five minutes to go, so we took a short drive.

It was on that drive, as I was stopped at an intersection waiting for a break in the heavy traffic, that I saw this guy.

It sometimes seems hopeless to me that I can ever find the time and money to do this blog right.

Suddenly, this man showed me the way.

I wonder how many tickets I should buy?

How much do they cost?

What is the payoff?

I don't know anything about this lotto, except that it could be a good way to fund this blog.

Here I am, back at home, wearing my new wrist and thumb brace. I do not need surgery. I just need to wear this brace for a few weeks, to keep me from moving my thumb so much. There is nothing wrong with my thumb. It's my tendons, and when I move my thumb, the tendons pull back and forth and that is why, after 9.5 months, my wrist still hurts. The tendon has not healed.

It needs to rest, the doctor says, and then it will heal.

So right now I type without using my right thumb.

A bit awkward, but not so awkward as it was, such a short time ago, when I had to type, shoot, eat, drink and do everything that I did with just my left hand.

Remember what I told you about Jim? How he is always there for me? How, whenever I am home, he hangs with me throughout the day? How he will be beside me in one room and I will move to another and there he is, still beside me?

It does not matter what room, he is there.

Even when I shower, he walks around on the edge of the tub.

He gets a little wet, sometimes, just like he does when he accidently falls into a fish tank.

And so it was that when I came home with my right wrist and thumb in this brace, he was right there, with me.

That's my buddy, Jim.

Jim Slim Many Toes - because there are a whole lot of toes on that paw that he grooms.

Nobody has ever been able to count them all.

He has a bunch of toes on the other front paw, too, but not quite so many.

Jim Slim Many Toes.