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Sunday, November 14, 2004
Beware 38th and 37th Streets
Yesterday the Cox Cable Company finally favored me with a visit from two freaks of nature apparently employed by them to install two cable TV outlets, a fast internet jack, and another phone jack upstairs. They arrived at 2:00 P.M. The only one left went away in his truck at nearly 8:00 P.M. The phone jack hadn't happened because as big freak said, "I don' know how to do a phone jack." Small freak prior to leaving asked me to sign a statement that he had done a good job.
Said he, " I know I don' know how to do this job, but I guess I kin keep it unless somebody tells 'em I don' know what I'm doin'. See, it ain' my fault because I cain' read and I cain' do math and I failed the test to work for Cox. But then Cox hired Baker Company to do work for them. And Baker hired me because I tole 'em I had experience but I didn't have no experience because I don' know nothin' about it. And that other guy with me, the one ran away? Well, he suppose to train me, but he don' know nuthin' neither. Could you sign right here?"
You want to know, "What's was that about the other guy who ran away?"
Yes. Well, here's how that happened. He didn't want to put a TV jack into the upstairs back bedroom by going up a ladder and drilling through the outside wall. He's afraid of ladders. This might have seemed funny to you had you been here to see the man who is, himself, quite frightening to look at. He's about 6' 5" and has an out-of-control unibrow. His mouth hangs open, way down. One ear is too tiny. The other ear hangs down to his shoulder getting fatter toward the bottom so it seems to be sort of a horrible meaty ear ring. When speaking, he blub-grunts through that wide-open mouth. He looks pretty scary, but he was afraid. Of a ladder. After me tearing into him on and off for over three hours, he finally grabbed the ladder and went up, drilled, installed the jack and then came in to say, "Yall done." I said, "Let me see."
Instead of going upstairs with me, he ran out the front door, down the porch steps, and down the street into the night. His partner went out with him and returned to say, "He run off."
"What?!?" I asked, incredulous.
"Yep," responded the small freak, "He run off." Must have been afraid that I'd find fault with the upstairs TV jack and make him go back up the ladder. The small freak later finished the job upstairs and eventually left...alone.
Finally able to watch TV news, I heard these words on the 10:00 P.M. newscast; "This report just in...a man was shot in the 800 block of 37th Street. He is alive and on his way to the hospital. A homeowner shot him as the injured man attempted to climb a back fence into a yard with several pit bulls. The homeowner feared that the man may have planned harm to his dogs." Well, there you go. Run away from a ladder at Joanna's house on 38th Street, and you can get yourself plugged by a dog owner over on 37th Street. Joanna on 38th Street. Gun-happy pit bull owner on 37th Street. This neighborhood is enough to scare even scary-looking people.
Friday, September 10, 2004
All Part of the Package
Sometimes you have to accept a certain amount of trouble in order to enjoy the good stuff that is part of a package. For example Morgan park horses...the most thrilling horses, the ones that don't so much seem to walk as to repell the earth, rocketting up off the ground with each effortless step, nostrils flared, eyes hyper alert, ears up, tails up, heads up, knees up to their ears as they trot...wow, what a sight. It reconciles you to the normal pace of life on earth. It's OK about the coffee taking 10 minutes to brew. People ahead of you in line at the checkout may need to get in depth personal counselling from the cashier. You may have to wait two weeks for the Sears service guy
to fix the riding mower while your lawn grows out of control...all those miserable things that just make you wonder once in a while if there isn't a better deal on another planet somewhere. That's all OK, though, as you watch your Morgan park horse show what it means to be 100% alive. I have cried watching park horses trot. I also have run for my life as a park horse headed my way seemingly out of control. Those horses may not intend to hurt their handlers. However, handlers need to be pretty light on their feet. One time I had a horse that could only be hitched in motion. That horse would not stand, could not stand. That enormous energy just exploded out of him at all times. It could wear you out to watch him sleep. So, when it was time to do up all the straps and traces, a couple of us ran along beside him wrapping and buckling as we went.
The trainer ran at his head to sort of steer him until she could hop into the buggy and get his attention via the bit. We called it "aerobic hitching" because by the time the horse was ready to go, his crew was sweaty and exhausted. Was he worth the trouble? Absolutely. Once safely in harness he was a sight to lift the heart. His craziness was just part of that fabulous park horse package.
Another example of a good stuff/crazy stuff package is grandchildren. Haven't we all know some children who are shockingly beautiful, and lively and inventively intelligent, whole heartedly happy, funny, sweet??? Right. Those same children, however, need to be told a million times, "Put your shoes on." "Turn off the Playstation." "Shhhh!" "Sit here." "Don't get up until you finish eating."
You have one of those children with you at the Mall and you are ready to go home, tired, back hurting, needing a cup of tea. You say, "Let's go, Bubba," and Bubba runs the other way faster than an Olympic track star. Do you scream, "That's it, you little maniac! You're fired! Go be somebody else's grandchild!!!!" No, you don't. The bad stuff is part of the package and you wouldn't do without any of the craziness because it would mean not having the wonderful things.
Saturday, August 28, 2004
diet
If you REALLY want to lose weight, the best plan is to have an operation. Although not pain-free, this method has the advantage of taking away your appetite. A couple of bites is about all you can handle. You do not want a snack. As a matter of fact you don't really want to eat your meals at all. The weight just goes bye-bye. No nonsense about aerobic exercise, you can just lie there taking codeine and morphine shots and losing weight. The worst part is whatever got you into the hospital in the first place. If that was painful, then, of course, you had a rough time...but the silver lining....yahoo! I am recovering from a gall bladder fiasco and have lost 21 pounds so far. Is that good or what?
In case you would like to copy off me, here's the plan; after a lifetime of eating things that cause gall stones, in one meal consume every single gall bladder annoying item known to the human race. Then go to sleep and wake up yelling that you're going to die. After EMS drags you to the nearest hospital, a gastroenterologist removes your gall bladder. Then you have miserable gas pain, incision pain, and diahrea for a few weeks but eventually you are newly thin and brisk...and you wouldn't eat a piece of key lime pie if someone paid you by the bite.
Wednesday, August 4, 2004
Go to the beach. Lose a body part.
"What did you do on vacation?"
"I lost a little chunk of my digestive apparatus."
After a week of misery I am about to lose my gall bladder...in a hospital here in a vacation paradise surrounded by sand and palm trees...smiling faces and beautiful places, to quote a passing license plate. That will give me two more weeks here to recover..if I'm alive when the doctor with the knife says, "Okeedoke. All done."
I want to keep my gall bladder. Going to tell the doctor to put it in a jar of alcohol and get it back to me. Why not? Even car repair places have to do that in order to prevent them from charging you for things they did not do. It's ugly to get back into the car and find that you have to throw away a bunch of spark plugs, etc, but it means that you did get something for your money and that long wait by the way-old coffee machine. So I want my gall bladder complete with stones, all in a small jar. I'll have it made into a necklace.
"Oooh. What's that"
"My gall bladder."
"Oh, gross. How disgusting."
"Yeah? So's yours and so is your mother's. You'll never find a surgeon to remove yours if needed, because it is so hideous there's anti-ugly ordinances in every municipality in this country to prevent the mass hysteria and horror which would accrue to a shocking exposure of something that ghastly to the light of day. So there. Mine was sick but it's small and cute. Look at those little stones. Each one speaks to me of ice cream and bacon and cheddar cheese and yummy things I have eaten in the last 60 years. There's a whole history of gastronomic enjoyment in those little objects..while in your case, gall stones are simply an ugliness beyond the scope of human imagination."
Consider yourself warned. If I catch you making oppobrious remarks re. my gall bladder and stones, you will hear some fresh, new rhetoric!!
Monday, July 12, 2004
Yes, Paper Is Work
Who works harder, loggers or computer programmers? Neither. The worst job is doing paperwork. As in answering mail, filling out forms, explaining in 250 words or less what is the matter with your new appliance, paying bills. That's back breaking work. I would rather chop down a forest with a wet noodle than write a check to the electric company, slide it into an envelope, put a stamp on it and take it to the mail box. Recently I got a big brown envelope full of forms from the state retirement service. Knowing how subject to mistakes I am, I thought I'd fill everything out in pencil and then overwrite in ink. That was going pretty well until I came to these words somewhere on the fourth form, "Any signs of mistake or erasure will invalidate this filing and will require that all forms be refiled." Well, how was I supposed to write pen over pencil without making the whole thing look like erasure or signs of mistake? Oh, brother! So I went to Kinkos and had all the forms copied. That made the pencil look pretty good. I signed and sent everything. Now you just wait...I'll get it all back with a message that it looked mistaken and erased. Then I get a letter from the probate court that if some form I'm supposed to file isn't in and correct by Thursday, I'll be in contempt of court and subject to fines and imprisonment. I go all crazy and fill out the form. The problem is that the form has two parts. I painstakingly did part one to the best of my information and belief, but about part two I had no clue. Eventually I got it straightened out, but it took hours of grief and woe. Finally I sat down with a mile high stack of bills, opened and paid them all. That may sound trivial but if so, why am I so tired and where did this horrible headache come from?
Sunday, July 11, 2004
The Martin Lawrence Problem
The Martin Lawrence problem is the tragedy of all those who in their hearts at some point aspire to be famously talented. Martin Lawrence is famous, but not famously talented so he didn't get it all. His movies just never arrive alive. Looking at little inadvertent riffs of business accidentally burred onto the body of a Martin Lawrence movie, you can see he's a gifted silly fool. Unfortunately he might as well be a tree stump for all his funniness is ever going to add to the body of classic comedy. ALWAYS he is directed, formed, shaped, made to behave in congruence with the script crafted by someone with a 60 IQ. Pottymouth language, moron situations pretty much totally devoid of situational humor...that's your Martin Lawrence movie. Martin Lawrence is the archetypal guy that 'coulda a contender'. He's funny but he isn't, really. He has a rare gift without a nurturing professional environment. Watching one of those films is kind of like when you have to sneeze and can't...it's almost there, almost, almost....and you don't sneeze.
If you sit back and look around, the reverse Martin Lawrences among us,talented but not famous, their name is Legion. Don't you know plenty of people whom everyone urges, "You know, with your talent, you should blahblahblahblahblahblah." The talented one looks a little bit flattered, but unconvinced. Their unique ability is unmatched with whatever else it takes. That's OK. They have an audience, just not ever a big one. The comedians, musicians, story tellers, dancers, the drama queens you meet in the grocery store, the laundromat, waiting at the garage, in line at the bank, in the doctor's waiting room I'm always glad to run into one of those people....now that I don't have to teach them any more.
Camping Out
I'm very fond of camping out. It has a positive effect on the neighborhood over summer weekends and holidays. The more people who go camping the better I like it. The only thing nearly as good as camping is rain which keeps all the local children indoors. Camping is what this particular community needs more of. It is the answer. My neighbors whom I think of as 'the war next door', those fighters, screamers and bashers who have lately been more annoying than ever, well...this weekend they have gone camping. I saw him toiling out to the van numerous times with big armloads of stuff. Then they all piled in and went away and this has been the nicest weekend in a long time. Sometimes when you live in a townhouse community you can be pretty entertained by neighbor antics. Lately, however, I have not been amused by the carrying on. Example; the other day he had a two-year-old tantrum. I heard him roaring and yelling at her. Usually this gets her crying. Not that time. She was talking back. Then it sounded like he was crying. He got louder. Soon he was stomping his feet and crying in a loud, high girlish squeal, "I want some cigarettes, I want some sigarettes, I want some cigarettes.....stomp, scream, stomp, scream." Then the door banged. He was running across the street to the party store. Then he was running back with a pack of cigarettes in one hand. She had relented and given him money. I used to think that his rages were alcohol fueled because when he yelled his speech was odd. Lately I have wondered if he is simply retarded. Even the way he crosses the street, he runs oddly, something wrong about it. And he never, ever leaves the house unless she drives him somewhere. He's indoors over there all day and all night with the TV going, cooped in that little box week after month. It is very creepy. But, hey, this weekend they're both out of the box and out of the neighborhood. They're out camping. As she drove away I wondered that anyone nearly nine months pregnant would head for the woods, but oh, well...
Thursday, July 8, 2004
Sleep Sheep
Two or three nights a week I can't sleep at all or wake up around midnight and then don't go back to sleep. What's the trouble? Probably panic attacks and stress due to this refried moving business. What are the sheep I employ to help me back to sleep? For a number of years when awake in the middle of the night, I would get whatever book lay nearby and read until the book fell over. The all-time champion put-me-to-sleep book is James Michener's Poland. Recently, though, I click on the TV and go to the TV Guide channel to see what's on. All night fairly good movies run on a variety of channels. The Learning Channel repeats its house-fixing shows until about 3:00 A.M. when it's infomercial time. MSNBC repeats its evening line-up. Lately I have watched movies. TV is becoming very potty-mouthed, but not quite as bad as the original movies. For TV the movies get bleeped quite a bit. Twice I have seen Orange County which spouts pottyisms left and right and cleaned up, it is almost incomprehensible at times. Very comical film. Next week I head for the beach and wouldn't you know, I saw Jaws II again just in time to keep me watching for shark fins all summer. The shark in that movie is scarey but not scarey, too. CGI work has come so far since then! The poor shark looks like a big plastic toy. Last night I watched a rarity, a movie with not one woman in the whole thing, not even as a person on the street. The title, Disorganized Crimereliably predicts the action. Both criminals and cops flub their way through a mildly amusing story.In my career as an insomniac I must have seen every infomercial that has been made and the third and second most annoying are the Jack Lalane juicer hostess with her gigantic teeth, and Ron Popeil selling kitchen accessories accompanied by a woman who never once looks away from his face. Somehow you feel she must have inside information and knows that anytime now old Ron P. is going to unzip his human skin to reveal his identity as a reptile from Planet X. She doesn't want to miss it. The entirely most annoying infomercialist is Tony Robbins emitting untold wattage, cheering, yakking, and boosting. He's so exhausting that he has on occasion put me to sleep. He IS the product he's selling. If the testimonials from customers are sincere, that man is a god to those who have bought his tapes. His speaking engagements look like religious revivals with him passionately preaching the gospel of himself.I have never watched a Tony Robbins infomercial all the way through, too, too, gooey. It's better to lie in the dark staring at the ceiling and just wait for morning.
Monday, July 5, 2004
The Fourth of July
It is the morning after the Fourth of July the night before and I got almost no sleep at all due to the way local enthusiasts persevered with their fire works. At 7:20 A.M. on the morning of June 5 a few fireworks still kaboom from nearby yards. Do I think the noise demonstrated mad, crazed love for America? No, it showed great love for fireworks. I wonder how many people on this block would take up arms in defense of America, fight here or be willing to take the war to some enemy overseas. Would I? No, unless an enemy appeared here on my block and began shooting. I think I'd become entirely martial under those circumstances even if all I had to fight with is an iron skillet I can barely lift with both hands.
I wouldn't just stand around waiting to be shot.
Under no circumstances, though, would I, personally, go overseas to fight anyone. I do get choked up when I hear a beautifully rendered patriotic song, so the idea of one nation standing together against everybody bad on this planet who might harm us...that is kind of affecting. I myself, however, would absolutely refuse to serve in the military unless an enemy came here. I think when I hear some nice kid say, "I guess I'll go in the military," when asked what they're going to do after high school, oy, that's terrible. They all say it's because the military will educate them. Rats. The whole point of the military is to kill people who intend to harm us. It's all about killing. Someone who joins up as a mechanic or a warehouse worker or something like that...then they get killed or injured in Iraq and everyone is so sorry for them. Why? The military is not a jobs program any more than it is an educational institution or a system to correct juvenile offenders. It is about killing other people who are OK for us to kill because they tried to kill us first. I don't see anything wrong with us sending military units to attack those in other countries who have attacked us or our bases and embassies. On the other hand it makes no sense to me to do all this fighting in Iraq to free people from an oppressive regime. The second we're gone another oppressive regime will take over because that is what they like. It's such an authority oriented part of the world. Dad is a little god to his family. Law enforcement can cut off body parts or do capital punishment at the drop of a hat. Those people want to be roughly ruled. They like a "strict" government. Us killing some of them in the hope that those alive and remaining will suddenly exercise the political patience of most Americans is absurd. Speaking of the Middle East, it doesn't bother me a bit to see on TV vast assemblies of persons in some far away country jumping up and down, shooting off guns and yelling, "Death to America." They are half way around the world, so who cares? If they brought that scenario to my street, however, I would feel a war had come my way. So the day after the Fourth of July, I believe I would defend my country as it exists right here on my street. And I hope the neighbors would help. However, better everyone should behave so I don't have to get out the skillet.
Saturday, July 3, 2004
Rise and Whine
I'm so down and out about this refried moving process that I can hardly stand it. To prevent unnecessary whining, I'm trying to think of all the things for which I can be thankful.
1. Kind friends who helped me through the yard sale.
2. A kind friend who insisted on driving me across town so that I wouldn't have a heart attack on the freeway.
3. A kind friend who helped me sort through papers and pictures of the past so I wouldn't be crying by myself.
4. A kind friend who dragged me out to see a funny movie when I was very far down.
5. A kind friend who showed up to take me to lunch because I am so moldy and need to be cheered up.
6. A nice stranger who found an agency for me, one that takes unwanted household items.
7. A woman (and her husband) from the agency who came to get a ton of stuff and in the process told me about her child who is going through life with a shunt in her head and constant seizures...and the woman was so cheerful and loves the child and is thankful to have her.
8. Another woman from the agency (and her husband and father) who has five children and only earns minimum wage at this non-profit organization but was happy, and cheerful, going out on her own time with her own vehicle to get things for those who have nothing.
9. A cleaning lady who is able to bring order out of the chaos of this week and leave the house looking and smelling great...although quite a bit emptier.
10. Enough money so that although my circumstances right now are inconvenient, I am not afraid of what will happen to me.
11. Calamine lotion and anithistamines to get me through cottonwood season.
12. Last and best, Lydia, Dan, Benny, Sadie in Virginia, calling and blogging funny stories about life with the little kids.
I could go on. It is amazing how good I have it in a world of people who are really in trouble. I asked the agency people about those for whom they were collecting stuff. Well...the agency finds and equips households for women who have children and nothing else...women coming out of prison, out of shelters, women who have been burned out. This is for the sake of the children. Their mothers get all the agency services because helping the mother helps the child. Imagine having to live in a shelter because you are so afraid of a violent spouse, and then he's finally in jail, but now you have no home to return to, nothing but the clothes on your back and a bunch of children to take care of. That is pathetic. The agency workers were so glad to get ANYTHING; half a can of coffee, a can of Crisco wih a little left in it, old towels and sheets, the worst bed on the planet... I said, "This is not very nice." The social worker said, "It beats nothing." True.
So, really, when I get up in the morning, I shouldn't rise and whine.
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