My Feeble Flabby Arms

I walk a lot of dogs. I walk my own dogs, and I walk dogs over at Abandoned Pet Rescue, so I know that they all have their own idiosyncrasies. My dog Chandler is a dilly dallier. He has to stop and smell/pee every five feet or less. If he sees somebody walking a dog behind us he will actually turn around and walk backwards so that he can keep an eye on them. Over at APR I walk dogs that need to be coaxed along and I walk dogs that come close to tearing my feeble, flabby arm from my body as they dash out ahead of me. But these are the big dogs. Little dogs do a lot of the same things, but they also have another quirk that I don't see in the big dogs. They seem to be attracted towards passing cars as if they were a giant magnet. I've seen this over and over. Little dogs walking on a leash and just as a car comes down the road, they pull out into the middle of the street towards the car. Last night I had to literally fight Bette to get her out of the way of a passing car. She pulled and pulled, fighting and dragging her feet as if she wanted to throw herself under the oncoming vehicle. I don't know, maybe she's possessed or maybe she's attracted by the shiny lights. I'd certainly hate to think that she's suicidal, or even worse stupid. Anyway, that's the reason people often see me walking down the street with a little gray schnauzer in my arms. I'm taking her for a walk.

Trash Talk

Today is trash day. Regular trash and bulk trash. Bulk trash day is one of my favorite days of the month because that's the day I can dump all kinds of crap out on the side of the street and by noon it's gone. It should really be some kind of holiday, although not a school holiday. I don't need all those kids digging through all that junk I've put out there. What I really like about bulk trash is that once the truck comes down the street, there is no chance Mark can go running out there to try and save things.

Over the past few months I've been very busy throwing things out. Each and every bulk trash day I've had quite a pile out on the curb. In fact I have thrown so much stuff out, that there is really nothing left for me to throw away. It's like a drug to me, throwing things out, and I am having withdrawal pains. All day yesterday I looked for things to put on the pile. I checked the shed, the laundry room, Mark's closet. Nothing, there is nothing left to toss. So imagine how happy I was yesterday afternoon when Mark received a large package in the mail. Yes, it was a cook book, and I felt completely justified in picking one out from Mark's book shelf to go out on the pile.

Kitchen Krap

I didn't write much last week, only two  posts. I had things on my mind that were best left off the written page. Let's just say that we won't be moving to Chicago this year, we won't be selling our house this year, and I now have a real estate agent thoroughly pissed off at me. I told him I didn't want to move in the cold weather months. Whatever, the fact is that there was massive miscommunication.

It was a week ago last Friday that I was informed the buyer wanted a thirty day extension on the closing. This after my giving them two months to close. That would have pushed our moving into November, and if I remember correctly, November is cold in Chicago. Besides that, I had everything on track for an October first move. There was a bit of negotiating on the closing after I was told they wanted more time, but not much information was forthcoming to me, just a vague idea of sometime in October. I had the truck, I had the help, I had a schedule for our move. For over a full week all that was put on hold while people vacillated. I couldn't sleep and I was borderline depressed, so I decided to terminate the whole thing. Because of that we now have more than half of our house packed up in boxes. There is a lot of things we could be using but I have no idea what box things are packed in other than a general category of 'office' or 'bedroom'. In fact right now Mark wants to know where his five hundred dollar blender is. I don't know. It's somewhere in that wall of boxes marked 'Kitchen Krap', and if Mark thinks I'm going to dig through all that... well... yes, I'll be digging through that. I can't afford to have another person hating me.

Look for the Union Label

I remember my first union job. It was at Jewel Food Stores and I was forced to join the United Grocery Workers Union. I was very pissed off at first. They took a dollar out of my paycheck every week and I couldn't figure out just what the hell I got for that dollar. As far as I could see, nothing. What I did know, was that I was a sixteen year old kid who made a handsome dollar twenty five per hour, and I got a required thirty minute lunch break. I'm sure there were other benefits, but I was sixteen and all I needed was that thirty minute lunch. It wasn't the only union I ever belonged to. I also belonged to the United Steel Workers Union. Very butch sounding, but the job consisted of packing steel cans in railroad boxcars, and semi-truck trailers. There were no steel mills belching fire and smoke. That job paid an astounding three dollars an hour. Flash forward to the nineteen eighties and the union busting Ronald Reagan. Luckily, by that time I had a good job repairing computers. As the years rolled on the unions became weaker and weaker thanks to the republican party and the dumbass idiots who constantly vote against their own self interests. So now, right now, the jobs that are available suck. They don't pay well and they have no security. People who would have been making enough to support a family of thirteen, now have to scratch to barely support themselves. In this day and age, in the United States of America, people take jobs that are demeaning and pay for shit.

Yesterday afternoon, around two, the telephone rang. I did not have my glasses on and I could not read the caller ID, so I picked up the phone cold.

"Hello sir, I'm calling from the Natural Gas and Oil.....   "

I didn't even give her a chance to finish her pitch. I didn't care what she was selling, or who she was shilling for. I had my own smart ass comeback ready for her.

"Hey, I produce my own natural gas. Lots and lots of natural gas right out of my.. "

I thought I was being so clever and so funny. Until I heard her screaming at me over my hilarious natural gas out of my butt bit.

"SHUT UP! YOU SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

I shut up. This poor woman was obviously having a horrible day, so I just shut the fuck up.

Fancy Ass

CRASH, clank, tinkle, tinkle, tinkle....    tink!

Well, I could only keep those things balancing for so long before something came crashing down.
"Goddamnit, what did you break now? What was that, which of my things did you break?"

For once I kept my mouth shut. I quietly walked past the apoplectic Mark and proceeded to go get the broom and dustpan. What had happened was that I had looked behind Mark's little wine bar and noticed a lot of dust. So I moved it away from the wall, vacuumed up the dust and dirt, and was pushing it back when it snagged on a seam in the floor. That caused two of Mark's fancy ass wine glasses to come tumbling down and smash onto the floor. No problem, that's two more things that I won't have to move to Chicago, if and when we move to Chicago.

What I have going on here is a intricate balancing act. On one hand I have to deal with the real estate agent and the supposed buyers of this house, and then on the other hand I have to deal with Mark. I have to explain each and every move I make to him, sometimes four or five times over. If I'm not getting pressure from the agent, I'm getting a haranguing, nagging, whine from Mark about not getting enough money from everybody. Mark's favorite whine is, "You never include me. I have nothing to say about what happens in this house." Which of course is completely untrue. After all, that damn fancy ass wine bar, with its fancy ass wine glasses, would have never been in this house if it weren't for Mark.