Wednesday: A Touch of the Blues and What's a "Double Whammy"?

Bill says nothing is new. He is feeling the same, not great, but functional, and in my humble op, he's at least a little bit better than he has been.

He's teaching today. (Ain't he sumthin?)

And tomorrow, Thursday, he wants to speak to his oncologist about his future with chemotherapy. He is thinking that maybe it's too strong, or that he needs a break. He isn't thinking of stopping it altogether, but he is feeling overwhelmed by it, and that something needs to change because he doesn't feel he can continue like this. That's how bad it's been!

In general, it's kind of a, ummmmm, maybe melancholy is the word? day for us. We're battling a second disaster (not about our physical health, at least, thank God, or finances, or anything like that) that struck us in late December and about which I haven't posted, and won't ever be able to post, due to its nature. But apart from Bill's health, it's the second worst thing that has ever happened to us. Kind of like a tsunami on top of an earthquake, but only metaphorically, of course, as nothing should be compared to the suffering of the Japanese people.

Anyway, there. I mentioned it. I don't mean to whine. I just think there's something great about truth, and now you've got our whole picture: we're tromping through a double whammy*.

Now you wish you'd skipped reading this and had that root canal, don't you? Cheered you right up, didn't I?

*grin* Oh well. This too shall pass.

Love,
Your cowpokes (*see below for the history of the term "double whammy" if you're horrifically bored and desperate to fill the next minute with useless information.)

*Double Whammy: History of the term (from a website)

Double whammy

Meaning: A double blow or setback.

Origin

A whammy was originally an evil influence or hex. It originated in the USA in the 1940s and is associated with a variety of sports. The first reference to it in print that I can find is in the Syracuse Herald Journal, October 1939:

"Nobody would have suspected that the baseball gods had put the whammy on Myers and Ernie when the ninth opened."

double whammy'Double whammy' emerged not long afterwards, as seen here in the Oakland Tribune, August 1941, in an interview with the eccentric boxing manager Wirt Ross:

"Shore there's only one way to beat Joe Louis ... No man can lick 'im, it takes a syndicate and that's what I got. I've been taking a course in hypnotism from the famous Professor Hoffmeister of Pennsylvania. When I gave my big police dog the evil eye like this he liked to collapse, went out and nearly got himself killed by the neighbour's pet poodle pooch. Professor Hoffmeister says I don't get the double whammy to put on human beings until Lesson 9."

Ross was well-known for his tall tales and flowery language. It is quite possible that he coined the term in that interview.

'Double whammy' is often associated with Al Capp's Li'l Abner cartoon strip, which featured the phrase several times. In that it referred to as an intense stare which had a withering effect on its victims. ---by Anna at Yahoo! Answers