Hmmm... still here.

Maybe it wants to stay.

Doll Face

Found in the gutter in front of the house. Left out front in case some kid lost her/him. No hair, no genitals, so not sure. 

One Arm Alan

 

Reach across with left hand, flip 'lever' and pull.

Forty years ago, give or take a few, my friend Dennis and I used to go out drinking almost every night of the week. I don’t think we were alcoholics so much as two guys who enjoyed the atmosphere of a drinking establishment. The fact that I was living above a bar didn’t help. Besides that bar, Dennis and I would often bar hop to different bars up and down Clark Street with dive bars being our favorite. One thing about this pattern was that we would have many bar acquaintances, and to make things easy we would have shortcut names for some of them. This is because we knew multiple guys named Bill, Bob, etc. It wasn’t to be mean, but we had one guy we called ‘Fat’ Bob so that we wouldn’t confuse him with other guys named Bob. Another guy, nice guy, his name was Bill, we called him ‘One Arm’ Billy. Yes, he only had one arm. The only rule was that we never called people these shortcut names to their faces. It was only for the convenience in conversation between Dennis and myself. I suppose my neighbors might have a name they use when they’re referring to me when see me in the neighborhood. “Old guy with the two scruffy dogs. Old guy with the old car. Old guy with hair.” I’m sure they’re all complimentary names.

I was thinking about all this because for the last few weeks I have been ‘One Arm’ Alan. I had shoulder surgery and I am not supposed to use my right arm other than the fingers. For two weeks after surgery I slept in my recliner chair, which was a challenge. It’s a right hand mechanical recliner, so I had to devise a Rube Goldberg sort of way to get it to go down and up. I’ve only been stuck in it a couple of times, and the only way to remove myself from the chair was to slither out. Then there are the two scruffy dogs. For the first week I just opened the back door and encouraged them to poop in the yard. No walkies for them. Second week my neighbor upstairs helped me out by walking Scout while I walked little Daisy. That worked out okay, but I didn’t want to take advantage. The last three days I walked them both, with one arm. It isn’t easy, especially picking up the poop. Which brings up another subject, the bathroom. Doing things in the bathroom that I have always done with my right hand, like shaving, showering, and… umm… ‘cleanup’. I don’t mean cleaning the bathroom, I mean cleaning me. A right handed job I’ve done since I was a freshly potty trained child. It has resulted in some creative moves. I’m no contortionist so it has not been easy. Anyway, the moral of this story is I now have new respect for One Arm Billy. 

Please, Pees Me

 

I’ve had three or more foster dogs over the years. The last one was Daisy. Of all the fosters I had, I decided to keep the most problematic of them. Daisy. Don’t get me wrong, she’s a sweet little dog and she seems to love and trust me. Her only flaw was that she was not completely house broken when I got her. Already ten years old, she had most of it down. She knew that outside was where you pooped and peed. What she didn’t stand for was me not taking her out exactly when the urge hit her, so she’d leave me a reminder on the floor. One day I decided that I would put one of the leftover puppy pee pads from previous foster dogs, on the floor. Sure enough, Daisy used it. She left a little wet circle in the middle of the pad. I praised her for her good aim and gave her a baby carrot as an reward. Bad move, because Daisy is a very smart little dog. She immediately realized that for every pee spot on the pad, she got a carrot as a reward. So now I’ll be sitting in my chair and a very excited Daisy will come prancing into the living room, all proud, expecting that carrot. Instead of excitedly trying to get me to take her out, she just pees on the pad as if it’s an ATM for carrots.

Lately Daisy has added another dimension to peeing on the puppy pee pad. Poop, she poops on the pad. The worst thing about that is, Daisy eats poop. Daisy eats dog poop, Daisy eats bird poop, Daisy eats whatever poop critters leave behind. The only reason I know she poops on the puppy pee pads are the poop stains left behind.  Anyway, it does make it easier on me in the winter or if it’s raining. Let her do her thing on the pad, and give her a carrot.

One more thing. Daisy does not pee, nor poop on the pad if I leave the house. I can be gone for eight hours and when I get home Daisy will not have done it on the puppy pee pad. I’m sure her reasoning is, why waste a good pee if I’m not immediately going to get a carrot reward.

I Eat My Own Face

 

(First of all let me say how happy I am that I figured out how to get back into my blog. During a long period where I was otherwise distracted I did neglect it, but I am back. I don’t write all my passwords down which can be good, and can be bad. This time a good guess fixed things. I still don’t know the password because I didn’t write it down again. I simply won’t ever sign out.)

About two or more weeks ago I bought a nice steak at the Jewel. It had the fifty percent markdown tag on it because it was about to go past its sell date. It’s the only way I ever buy meat, marked down. Seriously, it tasted just as good or better than if I paid the twenty dollars, extremely tender and flavorful. Unfortunately, while I was gnawing down on a mouthful, my mouth got confused. In all the mass of chewed up cow meat, I bit down hard on my inner lip. There was a shot of pain and a loud scream that sent the begging dogs running. They came back quickly though when I spit the meat out and blotted blood from my lip. My dogs don’t care, used meat tastes just great to them. I was looking forward to that meal, planning for it all day. I had mashed potatoes, and corn along with the steak, and a nice wine to wash it down. The pain was so bad I just couldn’t finish dinner. Anyway, after that painful meal I have re-bit the same spot at least fifty times. No matter how slowly I chew, no matter how carefully I chew, I still keep biting my inner lip. I’ve bit it for breakfast while eating my Cheerios. I’ve bit it again while eating a Wolfy’s hotdog. I bit the lip when chewing my melatonin gummy before bed, while eating Jell-o, I even bit it while sucking a smoothie up through a straw. The only thing I can see that will cure my sore lip would possibly be a week long liquid diet, but I’d probably still find a way to injure myself.

Skin

 

When I was a kid, back in the 1950s and 1960s, we were sent out into the summer sun without a care. At the beach or pool you could almost hear the sizzle of skin frying and smell the aroma of coconut fried chicken. We were the fried chicken. No such thing as sun-block back then. In fact what my mom put on us, and what was sold at the drug store, were products that enhanced the sun rays. In a highly segregated society where people born with dark skin were treated as second class citizens, white people smeared Coppertone suntan lotion all over themselves. Coppertone, so we could make our pasty skin a rich dark brown. I do remember getting sunburned on a few occasions, but mostly I tanned. I tanned really well, and people would make jokes about me possibly not being of Northern European heritage.

This summer I’m trying to stay out of the sun. Usually I get dry skin during the winter, but by springtime my skin would bounce right back. Not this year. It might be from the chemo, but this summer my skin looks like crepe paper. I have finally acquired the look of somebody my age. Full on gray hair, the wrinkly skin, and bruises. Yes, bruises like you might have seen on your grandmother if she lived a long life. Nobody has beat me up, but my arms look like a pear that has been sitting in the bowl of fruit too long. I don’t even have to bump into anything. Simply a gentle breeze wafting across my arm and a bruise appears. As for the dry, wrinkly skin, maybe I should have stayed in Florida. The ninety percent humidity does wonders for your skin. Plumps it right up, like a raisin in a bran muffin.

Grandpa on a Ladder

1961                      Today

For those who wonder what happened with my chemo treatments, I finished them almost three weeks ago. I’m still a bit weak, but life goes on. In fact the doctor encouraged me to keep doing the things I’ve always done while on the chemo. So that’s why I kept bowling every Friday and did other things that literally took my breath away, like walking my dogs. You’d be amazed at how much energy it takes to bend over and pick up dog poop.

On Friday of this past week I noticed a sag in the roof of my garage. So I went inside the garage and took a look at the rafters. Sure enough, one of them was split and that split was right over the front end of my ‘classic’ Mercedes. Either the heavy, wet snow we had in January had cracked it, or the squirrel that lives in my garage put on too much weight. I pondered the problem. Should I have a new garage built? No, that would blow up my budget. Find a handyman to fix the rafter? No, that would also blow up my budget. Then I remembered my grandfather, Bill Webb. He helped my dad jack up the roof of our house in Tinley Park to build a dormer. They borrowed old fashioned automobile bumper jacks to do the job and lifted the roof. Hell, I have a jack and it’s much better than those old bumper jacks. Then I thought about how I would do the job. Marry two boards to the old rafter with some bolts was the best way. That was what I would do despite the fact that I’m a doddering seventy five year old man. But hell, Grandpa was seventy five years old when he was crawling around on the roof building that dormer with my dad.

I got the job done, despite not having any help. It only took me two days, a lot of cursing, and some very sore muscles. Remember, I just got over chemo treatments and my body is still pretty weak. Luckily, I didn’t fall nor did the roof cave in and kill me. The real test will come in about seven or eight months when the snow starts blowing and the squirrels scamper across the roof of the garage looking for a way to get in.

Alien Port

 

Have you ever gone through something in your life, something that you hope you’ll never have to go through again because it was so unpleasant? Well, shit happens. Again.

Thirty seven years ago I had a cancer and had to do twelve weeks of intense chemotherapy. It was unpleasant.  A week from today I start another twelve chemotherapy treatments for transitional cell carcinoma in my kidney. I think it’s stage three, but it might be stage two. I’m not sure because I tend to space out and my eyes glaze over when the doctors are talking to me. It gets to be too much information, too fast.

Last week they put what they call a ‘chemo port’ in my chest. Some kind of tube that they’ll use to administer the chemo. Which is fine with me. The last time I did chemo, I opted for no port and had to go through a poke in the vein every week. It turned out that I opted for the wrong thing because it hurt more and more with each treatment. Anyway, this time I got the port and it is creepy. A lump of plastic under my skin with a giant purple bruise that spreads out past my nipple. I can’t help thinking of the movie ‘Alien’ every time I touch it. Like maybe it’s going to pop out from under my skin and skiddle across the room. Oh well, I’ll just have to pull up my big boy pants, grit my teeth, and deal with it because it will all be over at some point. One way or another.

Fried Kidney

 

I turned seventy five years old about two weeks ago. I don’t think I’m old, but since I turned seventy things around me have got weird. For instance I feel some doctors think they’re wasting time healing a guy who’s going to die soon anyway. So I have to keep reminding them that my grandfather lived almost to one hundred and two, and Mom lived ninety nine years. Also, young people don’t seem to see me. I’m just an impediment between them and the cute, hot people on the other side of the room. So I get out of the way. Worst thing about living past seventy is your body starts breaking bits and pieces before the things that broke the month before can heal. If you read my earlier blog posts, you know of my problems. Now that they yanked one of my kidneys out of me, it turned out that the kidney had a cancerous tumor. Well, son of a bitch. I now have twelve weeks of chemo-therapy ahead. All I ask it that my hair doesn’t all fall out again. I went through that thirty seven years ago, and clumps of hair washing down the shower drain creeped me out.

Pandora's Dox

 

This happens to me often. I prepare for a do it yourself job, either on my car or in the house. I look at the job and decide what tools I will need. So let’s say the job requires a flat head screwdriver and that’s all. I get a flat head screwdriver and proceed. Within minutes I realize I’ll need another tool, like maybe pliers. So it’s back to the tool cabinet for the pliers. An hour later I’ve dragged out the entire tool cabinet for the job and I’m cursing up a storm. I thought it would be a simple fix. A job that would take maybe five minutes. It never does.

Back in August I was having trouble urinating, especially at night. I would get up almost every hour on the hour. I would stand there in front of the toilet knowing I had to go, but nothing would happen. So I made an appointment with an urologist. I figured he would give me pills like the ones they used to advertise on television. You know, the one where the guy on the golf course has to stop at every hole and pee in the bushes. I got the pills, but the doctor also took a urine sample.

“The report shows that your urine is abnormal. So I’d like you to get a cat scan.”

I got the cat scan.

“The cat scan appears to show abnormalities in your prostate. I’d like to do a cystoscopy”

A what? It was then explained that a tiny camera would be shoved up my pee hole, all the way up through my prostate and into my bladder. I got the cystoscopy. It was not fun, but at least I got to see the inside of my wiener and bladder on a giant video screen.

“The cystoscopy looked fine, but the urinalysis still comes up abnormal. I’d like for you to get an MRI.”

I got the MRI.

“MRI shows that your prostate may have some malignant areas. I’d like to do a biopsy. We go in through your anus and take twelve samples.”

I got the biopsy. It was awful. That’s all I’m going to say about it. After the biopsy the doctor sat me down and said this.

“I noticed while looking at the MRI that your right kidney is not working. It looks like it hasn’t worked in a few years. Also, it appears to have the beginnings of a malignancy. I think it should be removed.”

So I agreed, and this week I went to my doctor for the pre-surgery clearance exam. He gave me an EKG while I was there.

“I’m afraid the EKG says that you might have had a heart attack sometime in the past. You will need to get an echocardiogram.”

Heart attack? Maybe when we were going through some mountains in the old PT Cruiser, and Mark was driving? Anyway, I got the echocardiogram today. While I lay there on my side getting the echocardiogram, the tech told me all about her UTI problems… in detail. Finally the UTI story was finished.

“All done. You’re fine. No evidence of any heart attack.

Sadly it’s not over yet. I still have the surgery ahead.  All I wanted was to pee.

Pooping in Reverse

 

I’m not familiar with lady parts, but I do know the ladies sometimes have to go through difficult visits with doctors sometimes. So I’m not looking for any sympathy from them here. This is just a story about what I went through today. I do know quite a bit about man parts. Being a man and a gay man at that, I will accept a small bit of sympathy from the men.

I had an appointment with the urologist today. A procedure was to be performed involving my prostate. It seems that organ is now twice the size of normal and the doctor wanted to do a biopsy. Okay, I was up for that until the doctor informed me that it would be performed by reaching the prostate through my rectum. I am not a fan of things going up my butt… (Didn’t he say he was gay? Yes, but despite what you may see in the movies and in gay porn videos, not all gay men like things up the butt.)

Here is how it went. The first nurse instructed me to drop my pants, to take it all off. She then gave me a shot of antibiotics in my leg, and I was told to sit there for about fifteen minutes while the shot took effect. So I sat there, butt naked from the waist down, staring at the strange and scary looking instruments the nurse had laid out on the table in front of me. Needles, long tubular gizmos, and other things that looked like alien probes. By the time the doctor came in I was fully stressed. “Okay, lay on your left side and pull your knees up as far as you can.” I obeyed and the doctor continued, “This part will feel like you are pooping, but in reverse. Just relax.” I tried as he stuck one of those instruments up my bunghole. I was not happy, but I gritted my teeth and kept quiet. For a few minutes I could feel something moving around in there, as if a rodent had found a new home and was investigating every nook and cranny. The doctor told me I would hear twelve clicks. That would be the instrument collecting the biopsy samples.

“Click…  click… click… click…”

Four clicks and I was getting hot. My hands were tingling and becoming numb. My mouth went dry as the Sahara. I squeaked out, “I think I’m fainting… something’s wrong…” It is not a good sign when you realize the doctor is checking your pulse and the nurse is putting a cold wet towel on your forehead. I seriously thought I was dying. I was not, and I did not faint. Apparently the doctor felt I wasn’t going to die and he continued.

“Click… click… click… click… click… click… click… click.”

The biopsy part was done. I put on my pants and the doctor started to tell me about the MRI I had two months ago. What he told me had nothing to do with my prostate. What he told me was that my right kidney is dead. It isn’t working and probably hasn’t in a few years. He showed me on the MRI screen how it had atrophied and there was no connection to the bladder anymore. He wants to remove that kidney. So there is the bad news, especially for anybody in my family who may need one. Nobody is getting a kidney from me.

Urethra

 

No.... That's Aretha

When men grow old and certain parts of them begin to wear out, doctor visits become their new social scene. An unfortunate result of growing old, and at seventy four I now qualify, is that a man's prostate gland begin to enlarge. When that happens urinating becomes difficult, yet for some reason also becomes more frequent. After many nights of getting up almost exactly every hour, on the hour to pee, I made an appointment with an urologist. Not just because I have to pee so often, but because when I try to pee, it's almost impossible to get the pee started. It's in there. It wants to come out, but apparently my prostate hasn't got the message and won't open the gates. (I'd like to know where was that control when I was a kid and woke up most mornings in a very moist bed.)

So that's what I did this morning. I saw the doctor. It was not fun. You would think sitting on an exam table for half an hour, alone, with no pants on, waiting for the doctor to come in would be the worst of it. That was bad, but not as bad as when the doctor shoved a camera up my pee hole. When I was told that was going to happen, all kind of fears flooded my mind. How big was this camera? I know how small my pee hole is, and I was imagining a VHS Camcorder. Once the doctor convinced me that they now make very tiny cameras, the procedure began.

"It'll feel kind of like you're urinating as we begin."

It did, except it felt like the urine was going the wrong way and my angry urethra and prostate did not like that. Oh, also the doctor did not find it funny when I told him that I'd rather be getting a root canal than laying on the exam table with a camera up my wiener while an audience of nurses watched. Which brings me to the only part of this whole ordeal I found entertaining. The giant wide screen video that allowed me to watch as we traveled through the tunnel, past the gates of the prostate, and into the bladder. I got to see the inner me, and as the doctor said, "It all looks good."

Dog Food

 

I don't think of myself as old, at least not until lately. This morning it became obvious to me as I walked through the dining room, hacking up phlegm and farting at the same time. Nothing says old man like bodily sound effects. One thing about growing old that I've been scrupulously trying to avoid, is falling down. Sure, I've fallen down before, like a sack of potatoes dropped from a step ladder. But I've been doing that for years, mostly because of my weak ankles. Step on a brick, I'm down. Step in a hole, I'm down. Dogs see a cat run across the street, I'm down. What I don't do, is fall down for no reason while walking through the house. I don't just lose my balance and fall. At least not from a standing position.

For years I slept in a bed with a man (Mark), two dogs, and a cat or two. This always led to me having but a sliver of mattress for myself next to the edge of the bed. Now I have only one dog that sleeps in my bed. A very small eleven pound pup that seems to take up as much room as my old ninety pound dog, Chandler did. This morning around four thirty, I woke up with the sudden urge to pee. Not unusual, I had already got up and went to the bathroom twice before during the night. This time I rolled over to put my legs on the floor not realizing I was already at the edge of the bed. In a flash I was on the floor. Pain was immediate. Blood came next. Yelling the word fuck, over and over again, soon followed. I fell out of bed. I hit my chest on the corner of the night table leaving a bruised lump above my left nipple. It was from my left arm that the blood dribbled out onto the floor. I lay there for about a minute cursing loudly before slowly dragging myself up and off to the bathroom. As I stood there in pain before the toilet, peeing, Scout and Daisy watched hoping that this meant it was time to feed them. So that's what I did. I stayed up and fed and walked the dogs. Dogs don't care if you fall and almost kill yourself. If I had died and nobody discovered my body, they surely would have waited at least a day before deciding I was edible.

My Butt

 

I am a connoisseur of seats. Theater seats, restaurant seats, bar stools, church pews (They suck), chairs in my own house, and any other place I may decide to rest my weary ass. Two things I cannot stand. Bar stools that have uneven legs and wobble, and bar stools with no backrest. Of course that's only two things about bar stools I don't like. I also don't like chairs, stools, and seats that lean you forward. I hate it when I feel like I'm going to side off. My eye doctor's waiting room is like that. In fact, every doctor's office I go to seems to have chairs that have that little incline that feels like you will slide off. My friend, Doug, often invites me out for a beer. I don't go. I make up excuses because the seating in bars is terrible. I used to go to the theater often. Musicals that Mark dragged me to (I love that he did that.) But most theater seats are built for tiny little old ladies, which I am not. Not tiny, not little. That's why in my own house, I invested in a La-Z-Boy recliner. It's pretty good and puts me to sleep during White Sox games, but that's not my favorite seat. Best seat in the house, or I should say in the garage, is my car. Ford figured it out and put a great seat in the Fusion. Good lumbar support, variable pitch forward and back, and moves far enough back for my long legs. Now, if only they had drive-in dive bars.  

Pretty, pretty sure I was wrong

 

I didn't start watching Curb Your Enthusiasm until sometime in the third season. So recently I started watching it again from the first episode. Funny thing is, I can seriously relate to Larry David. Sometimes he does what he thinks is the right thing and it blows up in his face.

My lawn was getting pretty high and we had a nice dry day so I got out the old lawn mower. It's a good lawn mower. I bought it from my neighbor a few doors down and have got more than my money's worth out of it. Which is good, because I actually like mowing the grass. I find satisfaction in taking an unruly yard and turning it into a nice, neat patch of green. Anyway, as I was mowing across the front of the house I noticed that my neighbor's lawn was even taller than mine. It's the guy who I bought the mower from. About a year ago they took him away in an ambulance because he had a stroke. Also, he's older than me, so he's really old. I stopped for a moment looking out over his lawn and thought, what the hell. I kept going and cut his grass along with mine. I was glad I could help.

About an hour later I saw him out there with his lawn mower. I went out and asked, "Didn't I do it right?" I'm not completely sure what he said to me. He has a very thick Eastern European accent. But reading his face and picking up on a few of his words I realized he was very pissed off at me. I sputtered a bit, telling him that I was only trying to help. Then I apologized and went home. That was three days ago. Haven't seen him since. I sure hope I didn't give him another stroke.

(Cue the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme.)

Ay, Day

 

On my birthday in 2020, I bought a 1929 Model A. I enjoyed tinkering with it, driving it, and just having it. Recently I realized I had done as much with that car as I wanted to do and I sold it. The buyer was a nice old guy in South Carolina, and I offered to deliver it to him for a good price. Last Monday my brother Gary and I loaded the car onto a trailer to be towed by his pickup truck. I threw the two dogs, Scout and Daisy into the back seat, and off we went into the deep south. I know that Scout doesn't like riding in a car, because she pants like a huffing steam engine the whole time. I figured that after she got used to it, she would stop. She did not. Eight hours into the trip and Scout was still chugging away. By the third day of driving, on our way home, she finally gave in and took a nap most of the way. Daisy on the other hand, was a pretty good traveler. She just sat back there, being stoic and a bit confused over her large sister who smooshed her into a corner for most of the trip.

One small problem with driving cross country with dogs, is finding the right motel that allows pets. I was a bit surprised that our second motel had white bed spreads that the dogs immediately jumped onto. Cute little paw prints that I'm sure will come out in the wash. Also, motels that let you bring dogs into a room with all white bedding aren't usually the finest. That second place had some sketchy people hanging out in the parking lot, and the first floor smelled like cigarettes. But it's the south, so people smoking was not a surprise. Then there was the lady who checked us in at the first motel we stayed in. It was around eleven in the evening when we checked in. I was very tired and when the short, round lady checking us in said "Ay day." I stared back at her, "What?"  "Ay day!" Again, I had no idea what she was saying. "I'm sorry, say again please." "Ay day, ah need your ay day." Then I realized, she was speaking Southern. A variation on the English language that you can usually figure out without an interpreter.

Red Boxer Shorts

 

How I imagine him

Other than the parking lot of Wolfy's hotdog stand across Peterson Avenue, it is rare to see a Chicago Police car cruising the streets around here. That's because we don't have a very high crime rate compared to other neighborhoods in the city. Unless you count the lady who was murdered, cut up, and stuffed in her freezer by a disgruntled tenant half a block from my house. (I try to be very good to my tenant, Dennis. At least he pays his rent on time.) Anyway, I noticed yesterday that at least four police cars had slowly cruised down our street in the morning. When I talked to my upstairs neighbor about that, he dismissed it as probably nothing. Just cutting through on the way to Dunkin' Donuts. I was skeptical because Dunkin' Donuts is the other direction. So I checked the neighborhood Facebook page. Sure enough, everybody was talking about it. A man in nothing but a pair of red boxer shorts was going around ringing people's doorbells. One lady even mentioned that she had seen him sleeping in her backyard on one of her garden chairs. Apparently the guy was a bit nuts, and when they caught up with him they took him off in an ambulance. So we're safe from guys in red boxer shorts, for the time being. All I want to know is, what's wrong with my house? Why wasn't I included? After all, it's been a long time since a man in boxer shorts has rung my bell.

What he probably looked like

Dumpster Fire

 

About four years ago the building immediately to the north of me was sold and remodeled. It was gutted to the bricks and redone in a clean, characterless manner. Very well done, but with none of the beauty of what had been there for a hundred years. While that remodel was going on there were a series of dumpsters parked on the street in front of that building. I didn't mind. It meant somebody was trying to make the place better. A month ago the building immediately to the south of my building was sold. My wonderful neighbors had to move out and that building was now being gutted down to the brick walls. Once again, there is a dumpster sitting in the street filled with plaster, shattered wood, and other debris. I like it because when I walk the dogs, I can now toss the shit filled plastic bags right up into that dumpster. I don't have to go around to the alley.

Yesterday, my friend and tenant on the second floor put a frozen pizza in the oven. It was a Nick and Vito's pizza, which I highly recommend. The problem was that there was something else in the oven that Dennis forgot about and that something else started burning. Smoke filled the apartment, the smoke alarms went off, and Dennis came downstairs to inform me that there was a fire in his oven. There wasn't any fire, but his apartment was thick with smoke. I opened all the windows, turned on the ceiling fans, and waited for the smoke to dissipate. While waiting, another smoke alarm went off. "Beep, beep, beep, beep...." But it was not in the apartment. I went downstairs to see if it was in my apartment. No, not there. I went into the basement to see if the smoke detectors down there were beeping. No, not there either. Yet it continued, "Beep, beep, beep, beep...." I finally figured out where the hell the beeping was coming from. It was out in the dumpster that was full of all the debris from my neighbor's building. Apparently the guys who were doing the demolition had ripped the smoke detectors out and tossed them into that dumpster. There had been a lot of smoke from Dennis's pizza, but I had no idea.

Dog Time

 

I don't really like Daylight Savings Time. It's stupid. Really, what's wrong with Standard Time? The sun comes up earlier in the morning, which is a good thing for people trying to wake up and go to work or school. Also, who the hell needs daylight at nine in the evening? We have streetlights and electricity everywhere. Anyway, that's not what I'm going to bitch about here.

It's the dogs. My plan was to let them continue to think it was still pre-Daylight Savings Time so I could sleep an hour longer. Scout and Daisy would have no idea the crazy humans had turned the clocks forward one hour. So that was the plan. Two weeks into the time change and it has turned out that at least one of my dogs is very smart. I'm not sure which one figured it out, but for the last few days Daisy has been getting up at five thirty in the morning, walking across my legs and jumping down off the bed. This wakes me up. When I look down at the floor, there's Scout sitting there staring at me while Daisy sits in the hallway making her, get the fuck out of bed, noise. "Hurumph.... hurumph...  I fucking said, hurumph! Now get the fuck up and take us out and feed us." (Yes, my dogs curse. Not sure where they learned that.) I don't know what tipped them off. I figure at least one of them can count, or maybe can tell time. It could be the old wind up clock on the fireplace mantel. It has a gong that counts out the hours on the hour. My guess is it's Scout that can count and knows what it means when the windup clock gongs five times. But then again, Daisy knows that when Alexa tells me my breakfast is ready, it's time to run into the kitchen.

Pizza Day

 

Wednesday has become my pizza day. I usually buy a good quality frozen pizza at the Jewel while doing my weekly shopping. When I get home, I bake it, and then eat the whole damn thing. I start out with good intentions. Eat half of it for lunch and then save half for breakfast the next day. (You know you've all had leftover pizza for breakfast at least once. Don't lie.) Seriously, there are a few very good frozen pizza brands out there. Nick and Vitos, Corner Pub, and the one I had today. Brew Pub pizza. All thin crust, Chicago, old school style pizza. I even cut it into squares like I did when I worked for Ray's Pizza almost sixty years ago.

I was fifteen years old when my neighbor who owned Ray's offered me a job. One dollar an hour and all the beef sandwiches and RC Cola I could consume in one shift. I was fifteen, so that was a lot. A lot of money, RC Cola, and beef. Thinking back I realize what made the pizza taste so good. Part of my job was mixing the pizza dough. Flour, eggs, yeast, oil, and water, mixed in a big dough mixer. Before turning on the big mixer, I would have to pre-mix the ingredients in by hand. When the dough was finished in the mixing machine, I had to dig it out of the giant mixing bowl by hand and plop it down in an oil soaked wooden box. There it would sit to rise for awhile before putting it in the refrigerator. Later I would have to take the dough and measure out little balls of it to a certain weight, each one a future pizza. Yes, the pizza from Ray's was very good. Only a couple of problems. Fifteen year old Alan did all the prep work with no hair net, no mask, and no latex gloves. That was my sweat, my hair, and my sneezes in that dough that made it so delicious. One more thing. I loved the well done mozzarella cheese on top of the pizzas as they came out of the oven. So I would snatch a big gob off the top of the pizzas and eat it right then and there. Sadly a few of Ray's customers got pizza with half the cheese missing. Fifteen year old Alan was a little asshole.