Erin Go Bar, But the Bar Was Closed

I've never been a big fan of Saint Patrick's Day. The green beer, the crowds in the bars, I just don't get it. Okay, snakes. Saint Patrick got the snakes out of Ireland. Apparently he sent them to the New World in the form of politicians. Anyway, I'd like to know how did it go from snakes to blind drunkenness? And then there is my favorite movie channel, Turner Classic Movies. All day long they play corny Irish themed movies on March 17th. It's almost as bad as when they play all those horrible Elvis Presley movies on Elvis' birthday. To top that all off, every year Mark insists that we have corned beef, with stewed cabbage, potatoes, and carrots on this day. I do like the corned beef, but that cabbage. Pee Yew. I hate the cabbage and the cooked carrots, and those potatoes have no flavor at all. Simply boiled potatoes. What a waste of a meal. No, Saint Patrick's Day means nothing to me. I will still have my one vodka cocktail in the evening, but I won't be going out to some bar to drink some green beer. Besides, all the bars have been shut down by the mayor. Cheers!

A Repost from 2009

The Happiest Place On Earth

When I was nineteen, two of my cousins and I took a road trip from Chicago to California via the legendary 'Route Sixty Six'. One of the highlights of that trip was our visit to Disneyland, something I had been dreaming of since I was a five year old kid running around in a Davy Crockett coon skin hat, and a fringed jacket made out of vinyl. It was kind of pathetic, seeing a long haired, nineteen year old guy riding around in Alice's tea cup, and flying around on the Dumbo ride, but I had to fulfill that childhood dream.

Back when I had first heard of Disneyland, I knew that there wasn't a chance in hell that my dad could ever take us there. Our summer vacations always centered around a rented cottage on some muddy little lake, within four hours driving time of our town. Those vacations were always punctuated by angry outbursts by my dad, caused by the inevitable mishap, calamity, or misdeed by one of his children. The trip I remember most clearly is where the rooftop carrier, along with all of our luggage, went flying off the top of the station wagon, while we cruised down the highway at sixty miles per hour. The car immediately filled with the screams of children seeing their bathing suits and toys scattering across the pavement, while my dad bellowed and cursed from the front seat. I believe I might have actually heard a few new swear words that day as my dad was scooping up our clothes from the highway.

That was our vacation back then. So imagine my surprise to learn from my mom that after I had grown up and moved out on my own, my dad had taken the second tier of his offspring, the six youngest, on an airplane trip to California, and Disneyland. My jealousy was short lived however, when I listened to my mom describe the fun that ensued when they got to Los Angeles. Dad found that their hotel reservations were not honored, and the car rental agency tried to give Dad, Mom, and their six children, a subcompact car. I'm sure my little sisters had heard most of my dads repertoire of cursing before, but on that vacation he just might have kicked it up a notch.

Rancid Bologna and Beer

Whole wheat on the bottom shelf, Jewish rye on the top shelf.

I went through many hurricanes when we lived in Florida. The moment the news people informed us that a hurricane was a coming, all of those in the affected area rushed to the grocery store and bought up all the bottled water, canned tuna, and beer. A reasonable and expected reaction.

Saturday I did my regular weekly shopping at the Jewel store near us. I had been seeing stories on the news about idiots going crazy and buying up all the toilet paper and hand sanitizer, but I was not ready for what I found at the Jewel on Howard.

In the meat department pickings were slim, but I managed to get the last two packages of ribs. Beyond the meat department things got weird. People hurriedly pushing their carts while grabbing what they could off the shelves. Others were simply moving like zombies as if it was the first time they had ever been grocery shopping. Nobody was mean or pushy. No reason to be, because most of the stock was totally sold out. The shopping list Mark had given me had Jewish rye bread and whole wheat on it. I ambled over to the bread aisle, it was devastated. Devastated except for two loaves of bread, Jewish rye and whole wheat. Yes, I live a charmed life. After the bread I pushed on passing the paper products aisle. It was bare shelves from one end to the other with a few shoppers staring at them as if a miracle might suddenly happen. No toilet paper, no paper towels, no paper napkins, no tissues. Nothing, not the premium brands, not the store brand. Didn't matter to me, I have two weeks worth of toilet paper at home. What I did need was some Comet Cleanser and dishwasher detergent. I turned the corner to find the cleaning supplies department also stripped bare. No Comet, no dishwasher detergent. No Spic and Span, no Mr. Clean. Nothing. I joined another shopper standing there staring at the empty shelves. After a short time soaking it all in, I turned to her and asked, "What do you think these people did before today to clean their homes?" She looked at me with fear in her eyes, "We're going to be quarantined.... " Her voice trailed off. At every aisle I turned down, there were shopping cart traffic jams because shoppers were stripping them as fast as the employees could restock them. To make things worse, my liquor sample lady was not there. Last week I got two shots of Jack Daniels from her. This week, only sadness. After awhile I was finally done shopping. Somehow I had managed to get half of the things on Mark's list. Quite an achievement considering. Now to check out at the cashier. I  picked the shortest line with only three people ahead of me. Despite the fact that there was a lady ahead of me who apparently was shopping for ten other people and had ten different orders, I did not get upset. And when she had a problem because the cashier had mixed the orders up, causing a ten minute delay, I didn't get upset. Not until the guy in line ahead of me ripped off a loud, smelly fart did I lose it. Not until the aroma of rancid bologna and beer that had passed through that guy's digestive system came wafting by my nose, did I get upset.

The Circle of Life

This was on the wall of the Neurosurgeon's office

Around four years ago I started to experience some real back pain every morning. I would wake up, barely able to move around. At first I blamed it on the dogs. Certainly being twisted into a pretzel so that Chandler could stretch out on the end of the bed while I slept, must have been causing my back to hurt so much. So Chandler was banished to his own bed on the floor next to my bed. It didn't help. I then figured it must be the mattress. The nearly new king sized mattress that Mark had bought just a few years before must be the problem. So the mattress was banished and a nice new and expensive queen sized mattress was substituted. The king was too big for our bedroom anyway. The new mattress was nice and firm, and guaranteed to be the answer to my back problems. It wasn't. I finally went to a doctor and asked if there was anything I could do about my morning back pain. Long story short, one X-Ray, one MRI, and one visit to a neurosurgeon later I was told that I am old, get used to it. I was referred to a pain doctor, presumably for pills, and to physical therapy. Also known as exercise. I'm not a big fan of pills, so I guess I'll try the physical therapy. Oh, and there was one more thing the neurosurgeon told me. Lose some weight. That forty pound baby I'm carrying isn't helping my back.

Also on the wall. WTF you talkin' bout Willis?

Harriet

Not the actual proposed Tubman twenty, but I really like this one.

I have an odd sense of humor and I also tend to get emotional while watching movies or television shows. An ironic turn might make me laugh, or a particularly touching scene might make me tear up. What pisses me off is Mark. If I laugh at something he doesn't get, he asks me why did I laugh. That completely ruins the moment. If it's over your head, too bad, move on. The opposite happens if I am suddenly touched by a scene in a movie. Tears start to well up in my eyes, and sometimes I will actually break out in quiet sobbing. That's when Mark will look over at me and ask with a hint of sarcasm, "Are you crying?" My answer is usually, "Screw you, you heartless bastard." Or something along those lines.

On Saturday Mark and I sat down to watch the movie, 'Harriet'. Harriet Tubman, who it turns out is one of the most heroic and under celebrated figures in the history of the United States, is the subject of the movie. She personally saved seventy plus people from the chains of slavery by returning time and again to the plantations of Maryland, and escorted them to freedom. This is after she herself had escaped. Then, during the Civil War, she led one hundred and fifty Black soldiers in a raid that rescued more than seven hundred human beings from enslavement. I had heard of Harriet Tubman before, but did not realize the lengths she had gone through to free so many people. After watching the movie I assumed most of that couldn't be true. I was wrong. The movie is at least ninety five percent accurate with just a few artistic licenses taken. I was sobbing by the end of that movie and for once Mark did not point that out.

By the way, Harriet Tubman was scheduled to be the new face of the twenty dollar bill this year, but something happened to stop that from becoming a reality. 


 https://thehermitage.com/learn/mansion-grounds/slavery/

Poop

Baby Alan

I went out to see Mom again on Wednesday. We sat in the dining room of the facility and talked for awhile. Me, Mom, and her tablemate, Marie. After a bit of time we noticed that the room had cleared out and it was just the three of us sitting there. So I asked one of the employees where everybody had gone. She told me that she didn't know, but maybe it was to the 'Sensory' session over in the fireplace room. Well, that's Mom's favorite place to hang out, next to the fireplace. Mom gets cold very easily and loves getting close to that fireplace. Anyway, we rolled on over there. Mom in front of the fireplace, me in a chair next to the fireplace, and Marie in the chair on the other side of the fireplace. Around the rest of the room were about seven other residents of the facility and two employees. I think the 'Sensory' session is a great idea. Basically what they do is get the old folks to talk, to have a conversation. While one of the employees goes around asking each person if they would like some moisturizer on their hands, the other one asks a few questions of the group. Question one was, did we know that Marie was going to have a birthday next week. Marie is going to be one hundred and four years old. We also learned that Marie has never been married, that she had no children, and that Marie traveled a lot in her life. We learned that another lady, Irene, was now one hundred and one years old. The group learned that my mom had pushed out eleven babies and that I was one of them. And I made a joke about Mom being the youngest old lady in the room. Everybody laughed because Mom is ninety eight.

All this made me think about life, how long you can live, and my first memories as a newly minted human being in 1949. There are two things that I vividly remember from being very, very young. The one that goes furthest back is me in my crib in the bedroom I shared with my older brother and sister. I remember pulling myself up to a standing position so I could look out at the room. My face was even with the crib railing that at one point had cracked and my dad had repaired by bolting the two pieces together. I remember chewing on those bolts, the metallic taste, and my mom coming into the room and telling me to stop sucking on those bolts. My second oldest memory might explain why the word "Poop" keeps popping up in my stories. I remember being put on the child's seat, on the toilet. It was made out of wood and had a canvas belt that was used to strap me into it so I wouldn't fall out. I remember chewing on the end of that belt while I sat there, expected to do my thing in the toilet. I was being toilet trained. After what seemed like a long time, something came out and my mom came into the bathroom to check. She looked down between my legs, into the bowl, and exclaimed, "Good, he made some marbles." It was my first big boy toilet poop.