Foundered and Losing My Mind

Everything is falling apart.  My basement refrigerator caught my friend Christine's refrigerator's virus, and after 20 years of freezing everything that should only have been refrigerated, it no longer cools.  And yes, I've cleaned the coils.  The kitchen cabinets, nearly new when we moved in but of that laminate crap, are coming apart at the seams.  The shelves are falling.   It seems when things start to break, it's an avalanche.

Such is the case with me as well.  I think I've foundered.  Horses walk mainly on the human equivalent of one large toenail.  When they eat too much, the wall between the living and dead (toenail) tissue separates, and the horse has "foundered".  In the worse cases, the bone goes through the hoof wall.  Lose the hoof, lose the horse, and it must be put down.  Before you put me down, it is only my right foot that is totally breaking down, and it can be saved.

I have had bunions as long as I can remember, at least back to age ten.  The word itself conjures old women playing bridge and moaning of their aching feet.  I don't want to be that woman.  I want to hike mountains in my old age.  So, doctors are going to next month take my foot apart and reconstruct it.  No driving for six months nor riding for three.  Lauren is teaching me to ground work the horses so that I can help with them without riding.  It will be good for me.  I am looking forward to being pain-free.  At least on that foot.

As for losing my mind, I can feel it coming.  That sharpness I once had is slipping now and again.  Today, for instance.  I took Eugene to BigOh because the front right tire felt like it was going flat, but wasn't.  What was up?  They looked it over, balanced the tires, took it on a test drive and said maybe it was the transmission but they weren't sure.  They didn't find anything.  On the drive home, it hit me.  I had parked at my hairdresser's hilly driveway and put on the emergency brake.  I had forgotten to release it.  So on my drive home, yes, Eugene shuddered like an old man trying to make it up the hill.  It was the emergency brake.  But my hair looks good.


Likely, when they took him out for a spin, they noticed, released the brake, and voila, no problem.  And I remember putting on the brake and saying to myself, "You idiot, you are going to forget the brake."  And answering myself, "No, I'll remember."  Gah.