Assembly 17

Heaven

Oliver, the Australian terrier has been having a really tough time. He suddenly stopped eating and began vomiting on Sunday, and we took him to the vet. He’s been there ever since, and finally last night they figured out he had a foreign body lodged in his gut, and then emergency surgery and today he looks like hell but is stable and we have hope that he’ll survive. His sudden illness has also devastated our meager credit reserves, so we have a lot of dollar/snake bite anxiety to add in.

Some of you may remember my tribute to John (our next door neighbor Saint) who died last last spring.

I think maybe Osiris just died in my neighborhood. John lived off exit 17*, and he went to church at 1717* Bellevue Way. A Facebook page made to honor and encourage him - “Get well John” - had 1700* entries.  

So this afternoon Var was out gardening and happened to talk to John’s widow (Isis) about Oliver and she spontaneously offers to help with Oliver’s medical bills! She said “John would have wanted to”.

Today is 3/17.

Somehow, through all this, I think I've also been vomited up a 'foreign body'. I must have swallowed something a long time ago, and it's time to be rid of it.

If I told you what it takes to reach the highest high
You'd laugh and say nothin's that simple
But you've been told many times before Messiahs point you to the door
No one had the GUTS to leave the temple --The Who

* According to Greek historian Plutarch, the ancient Egyptian god Seth murdered his twin brother Osiris in the twenty-eighth year of the latter’s reign, on the seventeenth day of the third month. Twenty-eight divided by 17 approximates the square root of e. If the date- setting priests were aware of this constant and wanted to express the nature of the festival by its date, they could have found no better way than to so assimilate the god’s death with the root -- or cause -- of new growth.