Odds & Ends

St Nicholas Abbey, the Irish thoroughbred race horse, has been put down.  He broke his right fore pastern while galloping in July, and underwent surgery.  In October, he began to develop laminitis in his left fore; that seemed to have been contained with minimal damage.  Earlier this week, he developed a severe case of colic; corrective surgery found a massive strangulated amount of intestine, and it was decided to put him down.  Most people can't believe how fragile a horse actually is - St Nicholas Abbey's case only goes to prove the point that horses are a fragile animal, even with round-the-clock monitoring.
   We've had a twelve-year-old boy  fire a .20 gauge shotgun in the gymnasium of his middle school in New Mexico this week, two people were hospitalized;  a couple of teen-aged boys set off an explosive chemical reaction in a Colorado Charter school, sending 5 classmates and a teacher to the hospital for treatment; a high school student in Longmont threw a party while his parents were out of town - a 20 year-old man is in custody for killing two teens and stabbing a third (he was an acquaintance invited by a friend of a friend). What's happening?  Once again, I ask, are we becoming a nation of non-caring people, or is the news that much more pervasive these days?
   The maintenance man just wandered by with a huge ladder...  Nedi ran and hid under the bed; Lovey just looked and blinked.  The patio door is closed, but Jim and some of my neighbors are making an awful lot of loud noises.
  Around here, everyone seems to be in the grip of "Broncos Fever."  I'm definitely supporting the local team and will be verbally cheering against the Patriots - but enough is enough.  It's a professional football game - men are paid to beat the crap out of one another and place an inflated pigskin either across a certain line, or through a set of uprights.  I won't cry if the Broncos lose the game, and I'll be happy if they win, and can go on to play in the Super Bowl.  But this game is not my end-all and be-all.
  This weekend, the Denver National Stock Show is open, and the Native American Convention is also taking place in Denver.  Football is fun, but it's not all....