Day 3450: Two wrongs don’t make a right

“Two wrongs don’t make a right” was one of my late mother’s favorite sayings. Another favorite saying of my mother’s was “there’s a place for everything and everything in its place” so I think this is the place for today’s Daily Bitch Calendar.

It sure as hell would make me feel better right now to share a photo of my mother. It’s right that I coincidentally captured an image of my mother with my son Aaron yesterday when I took a picture of our cat, Joan (on the right).

Two humans — my husband Michael and I — were wrong in worrying that our old and fretful shelter cat Harley would never accept shelter cat Joan. Those two together definitely make a right.

There’s a place for everything and this is the place I’ll share a story about my mother and me and “two wrongs don’t make a right.” I was born with a heart that was wrong, which resulted in many hospitalizations and my needing pacemakers from a very young age. We didn’t know what kind of heart condition I had until my very right and still current cardiologist, Dr. Deeb Salem, figured out in the 1980’s that I had the very rare heart condition of congenitally corrected transposition of the great arteries (CCTGA). When Dr. Salem rightly described how my heart was very wrong in two different ways — (1) the aorta and the pulmonary arteries are switched and (2) the ventricles are also switched — and

1. that means all the blood ends up in the right place and
2. having just one of those wrongs would have killed me when I was born in 1953 because of what kinds of heart surgeries were available then,

I turned to my mother and said “You know how you always say ‘two wrongs don’t make a right?’ I guess not!”

There’s a place for everything and this is the place for me to say that I miss my mother and my father every day.

It’s right that many of my images for today have twos in them.

It seems wrong to me that onion rings and kissing — both very right in their own way — are celebrated on the same day.

Here’s what I find on YouTube when I search for “two wrongs don’t make a right.”

I also find this very right rendition of “Two Wrongs” by Wyclef Jean with Claudette Ortiz:

It’s right for me to end each post with thanks to all who help me blog every day, including YOU!

Day 3084: My mind

Today’s blog is brought to you by my mind and by The Daily Bitch Calendar.

Yesterday, my mind tried to set Twitter on fire with flying thoughts about popular proverbs and other matters:

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My mind was very occupied facilitating two Coping and Healing therapy groups yesterday, so I hope you don’t mind that I have only three photos of the outdoors to share today.

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There are usually songs going through my mind and I’m noticing that there are lots of songs with “mind” in the title. Here, according to ranker.com, is #1:

My mind went to “Georgia on my Mind” which was #43 on ranker.com’s list, which blows my mind!

My mind will answer any comments your mind leaves, below.

My mind, as always, is filled with gratitude, so thanks to all the minds that help me pull these blog posts out of my mind every day, including yours!

Day 140: We cannot control other people

Duh.  Isn’t that obvious?  We can’t control what other people do — to themselves, to us, to the rest of the world.

However, we can be clear about how their actions affect us.

We can also let them know how we feel about it. And we can control what we do , in response to their actions.

This applies on a personal level.

Let’s say that an adult, whom I love, has a toothache. This person has had toothaches before and — for lots of reasons — has not gone to the dentist.

While I think it’s a great idea for that person to go to the dentist, it’s not my tooth. It’s not my pain.

The best I can do is this:  tell the person that it bothers me to see them in pain. Let them know I’m eager to talk about what might be getting in the way of them seeing the dentist.  Find out and offer information that might be helpful.

And then step back.

As they say, you can lead a horse to the dentist, but you can’t make it sit in the chair.

(Depending upon where you live, that previous sentence might make NO sense. If that applies to you, the original saying is “You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink.” See here for more about that English language proverb.) (I am not, at this writing, aware of any real proverbs involving dentists.)

That concludes today’s post, ladies and gentlemen.  Thank you, so much, for bringing yourself here.