I spent the morning getting an X-ray and giving blood to techs at Saratoga Hospital. It was draining.

The staff was, as usual, incredibly courteous and empathetic.

On the way back, I ordered a turkey wrap for Maria and a crab salad wrap for me.

I was sorry to see Emma and Robin leave, but we took a deep breath, went to bed early, and began to settle down. There was a lot of excitement here.

I went out of my way to see my friend, the brown horse. We are good buddies now. I brought a bag of dried apple chips and tossed some on the ground, and he trotted down to sniff and eat them. I love looking into his eyes. I can tell he was never an Amish horse. They don’t know about treats.

I know his name, but I wouldn’t want his farmer to get the identical mail that I got. I think I’ll call him Barney.

I was thinking about Applegate, the big flap that erupted when I wrote on the blog that I had given him an apple as a way of introduction. The response was much like I imagine it would have been if I had murdered a puppy and posted a photo. It taught me a lot, and I have a lot to learn about letting go of the anger inside of me.

Applegate was the last straw for me.

Time to ban and bloc the angry, the paranoid, and the outraged; it finally woke me up (does this make me “woke?”) to what people have been pleading with me to do all along. Ignore peckerheads and assholes, a crude but very effective formula. My apologies for not getting it.

As my friend the horse and I looked at each other – horses have the most beautiful eyes – I wondered what I would do this time if something like Applegate occurred again.

I never imagined that giving a horse who lives on a neighbor’s tree-lined pasture an apple would be controversial in any way. I couldn’t imagine anything sweeter.

This friendship means a lot to me; Barney comes trotting down the minute he sees me, and if I don’t have an apple, he doesn’t seem to care. He wants to stare into my eyes, and I want to start into his. That is a spiritual experience for me.

Barney usually quits first and goes about his business of searching for food.

Our culture is not healthy. There is nothing so pure or sweet that Americans won’t fight to be offended or fight about it. Social media is their great gift. It’s free and easy.

People online start with outrage and then default to an argument and whining. They never make it as far as reason, perspective, or listening.

My mistake was in posting the messages in the first place. It was obvious they came from wealthy horse owners around the country, people with thoroughbred horses on special diets. Also, they attracted the never-mind-your-own-business people on social media in droves.

I didn’t care what they thought; this was the last thing I wanted to fight about.

Why did I put them up at all? I have no obligation to oblige people I don’t like, haven’t invented, and have no interest in, or who dislike me and what I stand for.

A part of me thinks it’s my responsibility to put up messages people bothered to send me, a holdover from my reporting days. It’s not the right formula for social media, and very few letters were polite or civil. A part of me goes to the idea of anger still simmering inside me like coals in a wood stove fire.

I’m letting go of all that. Applegate got me moving. I am healthier.

My new plan – block and delete together –  is working beautifully. I only publish messages that are civil, thoughtful, or of other value to the people who might read them. People who want to pee in my garden are not welcome. Disagreements are, I love to argue.

In retrospect, I felt these messages were valuable in helping me understand the widening gap between rural and urban people. And the importance of continuing my spiritual work on myself. So far, only two have been blocked, and their messages deleted. A voice in my head kept shouting, “yay!”

The farmers I heard from thought the apple gift was great and thanked me. Many horse lovers thought it was not a war crime and trashed me.

I didn’t want this fight or need it and should have deleted them in the first place. I couldn’t care in the least what these people had to say about my giving an apple to a horse. We argued for three days. No mind was changed, and nothing was accomplished.

I thought most of these people were bonkers; they thought I was ignorant and thoughtless. Some of them made sense.

Not much listening was happening, not from them or me. The only difference between us is that I would never send anyone the kind of messages many of them were sending me. May God strike me in town if I ever get arrogant and rude. I never tell anyone else what to do. There is nothing more arrogant I can think of than bullying or hounding strangers I do not know and will never meet.

Rude and cruel people are entitled to nothing but being ignored.

I didn’t ask them for their opinions about horses and diet and didn’t care about them. Yes, that is arrogant. Yes, that is hubris. Yes, that is me.

I understand that the idea of minding one’s business has perished with the sale of every single smartphone or computer—time for me to accept this new reality and move on.

It’s my blog, after all, and I don’t have to communicate with anyone don’t want to talk to.

I won’t get into nasty brawls on my blog; I’m tired of arguments with the broken and the dumb.

So far, I’ve blocked two people and deleted their messages. It feels great. I don’t miss them, and neither, from my mail, do you. The only question I get now is, “what took you so long?”

I no longer need to mention this on the blog; my visit with my equine friend brought it up.

I want to be remembered for what I am doing, not for what I don’t do anymore.

Flower sharing tonight.