R.E.M. L.E.D.

Somewhere around midnight I turn off the television and fall asleep. I am warmly ensconced in piles of blankets, pillows, and dogs. I sleep pretty good, for hours I am in a deep sleep. Around five in the morning I start dreaming. This means I'll have to get up and take a leak soon. I have noticed that my middle of the night pee breaks are always preceded by some kind of bizarre dream. Don't get me wrong, I like the dreams. They are one of my favorite forms of entertainment, and cutting them short for that pee break does ruin it. It is when I come back from the bathroom that I notice, it's almost like daylight in here. Five in the morning and I can see everything in the bedroom. Chandler flopped out in the middle of the bed, Sasha stretched across the pillows, and Mark, skinny Mark, taking up most of the rest of the bed. So why is it so bright in here? The answer is LEDs, Light emitting diodes, the ubiquitous signal of the modern world. The television has a blue one to let me know it is off. On the dresser is Mark's Kindle charging with it's green led. Next to that is the Directv receiver, and Mark's cell phone charging up behind it. Both have led's just so that I know they are doing their jobs. Over on the other side of the room is the house phone sitting in it's cradle, recharging, and helping to light that side of the room. But worst of all is the new fan that Mark has bought. It not only pushes air around, it filters it, and adds ozone to the room. It's the ozone function that causes the brightest blue led I have ever seen to remain lit all night. I have asked Mark to turn off that part of the fan, but he insists it helps him breath. So I have a choice to make, let Mark breath, or let me sleep. There is one benefit to the giant, bright blue, ozone led. It does act as kind of a beacon so that I will always find the bathroom in the dark. Nothing worse than stumbling into the closet instead of the bathroom....   Yes, I have done that.

Kweeks Draw McGraw

I have lived sixty two years. Twenty three of them here in this sunny paradise, Florida. For every minute of those sixty two plus years I have never owned, nor thought I needed, a gun. I am starting to think that maybe that should change. Seeing as how Florida is awash in guns, and crazy people are shooting other people every day, I possibly should join them. I mean think about it. If we all had guns, and all had concealed gun permits, we would be able to free up the cops to just write speeding tickets. Think of the revenue they could generate instead of wasting their time on criminals. Citizens would be taking care of all the criminal activity themselves. That guy across the street who stands out front talking on the phone every night, probable drug dealer. I'll just shoot the bastard, and say he was an imminent threat to my safety. No, I don't really have any proof that he's a drug dealer, but he's on the phone every night! I feel it in my gut that he is.

So yeehaw! Let's shoot'em up and return to the American tradition of the old west. Let's all pretend we live in a frontier town without any law enforcement. Most cops are assholes anyway, and we would need a lot less of them if we just made getting the bad guys our job. Oh, and one more thing. Mark and I have discussed this, and we agree, everybody gets a gun. Every black guy, including the ones that scare white people, every Mexican, every Puerto Rican, everybody gets a gun. That way we will all feel so much safer knowing we can protect ourselves. That's all for today because I have some practicing to do, and very little time to do it in. That quick draw skill doesn't come easy at my age.

Photo Friday

Here I am in 1955 on Neighborhood Watch. 

My gun is hidden under my fancy pants.

I am not sure if I am taking this woman into custody

or I am saving her from.....

...this guy. Obviously he doesn't belong in our little lily white town.

Video Thursday

 Puppies, puppies, puppies

At Abandoned Pet Rescue

I Stink at Bowling

After four weeks, this godawful cold that has hung on like a visitor from up north, seems to have abated. My sense of smell has returned. You would think I'd be happy, but I actually wish it had hung on at least one more day.

I always look forward to Monday night bowling. I enjoy it even if I often look like an uncoordinated boob. I do bowl well every once in a while, just often enough to keep me trying, but the norm these days is crap. This past Monday we were competing against a team with a very special member, I'll call him Pepé Le Pew. Pepé is a guy who has no sense of smell or no sense of what he smells like, and apparently does not own a bathtub. He stinks. When we bowl against his team I usually spend most of my time upwind, near the bar. This has a two-fold benefit. I don’t have to smell his stench, and If I drink enough the smell doesn’t bother me so much. The biggest problem with Pepé is that he is distracting. When it is your turn to bowl it is very disconcerting to have a cloud of Pepé’s odor wafting under your nose. The only benefit I can see bowling against this stink bomb, is that on those nights I don’t feel so bad about my silent little farts.

Going Postal

A simple request by my new tenants, "Could we have a separate mail box?" Understandable that they wouldn't want me pawing through their mail everyday as I retrieved mine. For eighteen years I have had one giant mail box that all the apartments used, and I have to admit, I like seeing what my tenants are getting. It has given me a heads up on at least one occasion that a certain tenant was preparing to leave us. It also lets me see when they get late notices on car payments, and credit cards. And then there was the tenant who got weird underwear delivered by mail all the time.

So last Thursday I went to the Home Depot and bought another mail box. I was just about to install it next to the existing one when our mail carrier came by.
"Hey, I'm putting up another mail box so that each address on the building has their own box."
"No, not permitted. You must get permission. I say what mail box you have."
Did I mention that we have a Chinese mail man who can barely speak English, and I suspect can't hardly read it as well? He also parks his truck under a tree in the church parking lot and takes two hour lunches. I know this because I see him as I walk around the block to deliver the mail to my neighbors that was mistakenly put in my mail box. Fine, I thought, I'll just call the post office and clear this all up.

"You want to do what?"
"Put up a second mail box. We have two addresses on this building, and I want each address to have a separate mail box."
"Okay, hold on."
Fifteen minutes later the same guy picks up the phone again.
"It shows that you have only one address there. You can only have one box."
"No, I have two address on my building, two electric meters, two water meters, and you have been delivering mail addressed to ##09 and ##07 since the place was built in 1960."
"Uhhh, let me go back into the records room and look again."
It is refreshing to know that our post office has a 'records room', and hasn't entered the twentieth century yet. When the guy came back from the 'records room' he told me that I would have to call back on Monday when the Post Master would be in.

Well that all happened last week. Yesterday, Monday, I called again.
"What? We don't have a Post Master here. I'm the supervisor, waddaya want?"
I again went through the whole story.
"I'll have to take your number and have Donna call back. She handles those things."
"Where is Donna now?" I asked.
"Oh, she's off today."

The War on Sleep

 Somewhere in the distance I hear a noise that keeps getting louder and louder. It's the telephone, and it seems far away because I've been in a deep sleep for at least an hour. It's one in the morning. Reaching, and fumbling around, I find the phone and answer it.
"Squawk! The car won't start, the car won't start! Squawk! Squawk!"
It's Mark. He had gone out about four hours ago to hang out with Anthony, his friend from New York. Now he has a problem and figures I would love to be part of it.
"What the fuck are you calling me for?"
"It won't start.... " Mark weeps into the phone.
"Well call Triple A. What the goddamnedhell do you think we pay them for?"

Thirty minutes later, and I have finally drifted back to sleep. It doesn't last long. The phone is again ringing, and I know it's Mark.
"What? What the goddamnedsonofabitchenhell do you want?"
"Triple A isn't going to be here until two fifteen." he whines.
"And what? Why are you calling me? Sonofamother..... "
This time Mark hangs up before I'm done cursing him and his very existence.

I don't know why Mark hates to see me sleep. He seems to think sleep is somehow stealing time I should be spending with him. It doesn't matter that he went out for a good time without me, I still shouldn't be sleeping on his time. If I am sleeping in my big fluffy recliner, Mark wakes me. If I sneak in a little afternoon nap while Mark is out shopping, he calls me. I swear he has taken ten years off my life by denying me my beauty sleep.

It is now two thirty in the morning, and I have been sleeping soundly since Mark's last interruption. Suddenly Chandler launches himself from the end of the bed, and Sasha scrambles across my face, both of them barking madly. It's Mark. He's coming in the front door and the dogs are doing their job of protecting the house from unwanted intruders. Unfortunately, this time they have failed in their duty.