Lucky Me, Part One

Wasn't so lucky for the rabbit.  Or the horse.

People who know what I've been through this year are always coming up to me and telling me how lucky I am. Well, they don't phrase it exactly like that. Most people I know are of a religious bent, so it's usually more like wow, G-d has really been good to you because you're still walking around and still breathing and still functioning reasonably well. Please forgive me, but I sometimes have trouble with that concept. After all, wouldn't G-d have been better to me if He hadn't made me so deathly ill in the first place? So I'm going to file that away in the box in my brain marked "Things I Don't Understand". You didn't know brains had boxes? Well they do. Actually only men's brains do. Women's brains are completely different. I'm attaching a link at the bottom of the post to a very funny video of Mark Gungor who'll explain it all to you. Anyway, please don't get me wrong: I'm incredibly grateful for this second chance that G-d has granted me. I wake up each morning and sincerely thank Him, and then I try to really appreciate the day, no matter how lousy it turns out to be. I think of my dad, lying out there in Farmingdale, and I figure if he had the opportunity to come back for just one day and there happened to be a blizzard on that particular day, he wouldn't complain. So I'm very happy to still be here. Grateful, too. But lucky? Anyway, last Thursday I was in Manhattan pretty much all day. I had to see a man about a horse. Now, that's not really true. I don't need a horse. What would I do with a horse for crying out loud, I live in a small apartment in Flatbush. I don't even particularly like horses.  They smell.  Give me a bird every time.  Seeing a man about a horse is just an expression. After I used it just now, I decided to check what it meant. So I googled it. Here's what I found:

To see a man, to see a man about a dog, or to see a man about a horse is an English language colloquialism, usually used to apologize for one's imminent departure or absence – generally to euphemistically conceal one's true purpose, such as to go to the bathroom or going to buy a drink.The original non-facetious meaning was probably to place or settle a bet on a race, thus dogs or horses.

The above explanation is from Wikipedia.  If that is indeed where the expression comes from, then my using it makes even less sense than I originally thought, because I didn't go to the city to go to the bathroom or buy a drink.  I'll have you know that I have indoor plumbing in my apartment, thank you very much, and I could buy a drink in Brooklyn, for crying out loud.  And I'm certainly not apologizing for my imminent departure or absence.   So let's start over: last Thursday I was in Manhattan pretty much all day.  I had a bunch of errands to take care of.  There.  Now, wasn't that a bit more forthcoming?  Hey, that reminds me of the horse again (or is it "hay"?)!  You know, during a race at Belmont for example, there are the three horses that pay: the Win horse, the Place horse, and the Show horse.  After that there is the horse that is fourth coming. I think I'll have to start this post over if I'm ever going to get to my original point, which actually eludes me at the moment.  With each brilliant new sentence, it seems fodder away.  And sometimes when you wander too far away from what you wanted to say, it's darn near impossible to get back there without incurring what I like to call "writer's whiplash".  So I guess I'll go shower and take care of all my morning ablutions and come back and write some more; perhaps then I won't be so full of horse#$%*.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BxckAMaTDc