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.