And Then There's That Pesky Constitution

 Ohio Teacher Fired

An Ohio high school math teacher is suing to get his job back after being fired by the Catholic high school he worked for. Archdiocese officials said that Sy Goldberg, who is Jewish, was observed eating a corned beef sandwich for lunch on a Friday during Lent. According to Roman Catholic Church teachings, the eating of meat on Fridays is not allowed during the season of lent. A spokesman for Our Bleeding Heart of the Baby Jesus High School, confirmed that Goldberg was let go after an anonymous email with attached photo of Goldberg eating the sandwich, was sent to the Archbishop.
"We cannot have employees who do not follow the teachings of the Catholic Church influencing our students."
Mr. Goldberg confirmed that he did indeed eat a delicious corned beef on rye, with mustard, on the Friday in question, in full view of some students.

Sounds stupid, doesn't it? It is stupid, and wholly made up by me. However, it isn't any more stupid than the real news story as reported here by the Journal Star.Com.

A gay teacher who said she was fired by an Ohio Catholic school after her mother's published obituary included the name of her partner, is fighting to get her job back.
Carla Hale, 57, said she was told she was being let go because her relationship is against teachings of the church.  Hale said she was fired during Holy Week in March after an anonymous letter sent to school administrators drew attention to the obituary published in The Columbus Dispatch.
A copy of the letter provided by her attorney was signed "a concerned parent."
"My daughter came home and told me that one of the gym teacher's mother had died," the letter said. "She asked me to pray for her. When we looked in the obituaries, I was shocked by what I saw. It had her teacher's name and that of her `spouse' listed. It was two females!"
Hale, who is Methodist, was informed about two weeks after her mother's death that the school was investigating. Hale had been teaching at the school for 19 years...  Read more here

Love Child

If I didn't know better I'd say Mark had a love child living next door. He's a little black kid about eight years old, and he always has the same sour scowl on his face that I am so familiar with in Mark. Yesterday there were a bunch of kids playing out in the street in front of our house. It was dog walking time and when I left to walk Sasha, all the little girls came running over to say hello to her. Not so mini-Mark, he just stood there and scowled. I took Sasha around the corner and down the block where she did her piddles and poops. Like a good neighbor, I picked up the poop in a lovely little pastel blue bag, and started back home. When I got near our house mini-Mark was there.
"What do you have in the bag?"
"Dog poop."
"That's nasty."
"Well I can't leave Sasha's poop on the neighbor's lawn. They wouldn't like it."
Mini-Mark cocked his head.
"How do you pick that up? With your bare hands?"
"No, oh no, I put the bag over my hand and grab the turds. I then pull it off and turn it inside out, tie it up, and then throw it away when I get home."
He scrunched up his nose, and in a most dismissive tone told me, "That's nasty, you're nasty."
He then turned and walked away. Like I said, if I didn't know better.

Breakfast With Mark

Hmmm, I Wonder If I'll Ever Need That Again?

I was digging around looking for something in my desk and I came across an old dial up modem. Remember those? You would boot your computer to Windows 95, click on the AOL icon, and then sit back and listen to the music.
"Beeeeeeeeeeeep, blaaaatzzzzzzzzzz, Squeeeeeeel, Beeep Bleeeeeeeeeeeeep"
Once you got signed in to AOL you could do almost anything. Join a chat room, go to a BBS, or look at the boring pages supplied by AOL. That didn't last long though because the internet was growing and soon you could go to the internet through the AOL portal which you soon discovered you really didn't need anyway.

I'm always amazed at the crap I end up throwing into the garbage. Today I tossed my Directv DVR\receiver. It wasn't the HD model, I had to return those. This was the standard definition DVR that I paid a couple of hundred dollars for. Garbage now, as is the modem I found. I'll throw that away along with the DSL modem from at&t that I have sitting on my desk. I have memory strips that I paid for, cell phones, and a ten year old PT Cruiser. All obsolete. I guess that is one way of gauging just how damn old you are. It's when the Smithsonian comes knocking, and asking if you'd donate that killer eight track tape player for their exhibit on life in the mid-twentieth century that you know you've really crossed the line.
"Glad we caught you when we did sir. I'd hate to hear that your surviving relatives tossed such a fine example of early American, electronic ingenuity. Very few of those left you know."

Spoiler

"So this guy, who isn't rich, falls for a rich woman who dumps him because he's not rich... blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah... and then Gatsby gets shot... blah, blah, blah, blah... "
"Enough already Mark, I get it. You don't have to play out the entire movie for me."
"Well I can't believe you never read the book or saw the movie."
"I know, I'm a moron and you're a college graduate. So big deal, I never saw The Great Gatsby, nor did I ever read the book. It wasn't required reading in school, and I didn't like the font on the movie poster, so I didn't go see it"

Mark just did two things that piss me off to the point where I have threatened bodily harm is he doesn't shut up. First he revealed the plot of a movie, including the ending. Secondly, he kind of called me an idiot for not knowing something he knows. In many respects Mark is much more well read than I am, and he is a college graduate, which I am not. But what I do know, I think, makes up for most of that. I don't get lost every time I visit a new city and wander around nearly in tears for hours. I know how to stop Mark's computer from crashing after he downloads suspect 'movies'. I know how to manage my finances so that I don't run out of money halfway through the month. And most of all, I can squish a giant cockroach instead of running around the house screaming, "Kill it. kill it", and then vomiting when I do kill it.

No, I have never read nor seen The Great Gatsby. I will probably see the newest version of the movie though. Not because Mark's narrative of the story piqued my interest, or because I like movies about rich people. I'll see it because Leo DiCaprio is in it. I can't think of one movie he's been in that I haven't liked. Wait, I take that back. I didn't like Romeo and Juliet, I thought it sucked.
Oh, I can hear Mark when he reads this.
"You don't like Romeo and Juliet? What kind of uneducated man do I live with?"

Pearly Gates

My sister Peggy sent me an email this week. It's all about her husband's mother, Pearl. She's written other stories about Pearl, of which my favorite is the one about her poop, but this one is amusing too. What I like the most is that Pearl likes her vodka, just like somebody else I know.

So I usually order the bulk of Pearls groceries through Peapod, a delivery service offered by Jewel (not the singer).  She writes up her list and gives it to me and I go on the computer and let my fingers do the walking....and avoid lugging several bags of heavy groceries to her place.  Heavy because she does love her canned vegetables and broth.  For that the delivery charge is $6.95 to 9.95 depending on how large an order it is.  You wouldn't think a 4ft 8in 95lb woman would eat much..."I have no appetite!" but she goes through more groceries than Rick and I do!  I often accuse her of hosting parties or hiding a boyfriend under her bed! So this week she added a bottle of Vodka to the list because she was out. She had told Rick that she didn't have any for a few weeks "and I don't even miss it!" but there it was on her grocery list!  (She doesn't think Rick and I talk and share information!) Here's the kicker.....the delivery guy said he had to see her picture ID!!!  92 years old  and she gets carded!!!  So she went to her purse, got out her wallet....and could NOT find her state ID!  So he took the vodka back with him!!!!  She stressed herself out about it for days before she would tell me about it. She crawled around looking behind things "where it might have fallen" and was very lucky she was able to get back up!  She almost gave herself a coronary she was so upset, "How will I get another ID?  Would he have taken my birth certificate for an ID?" (THAT she could find!!)  "Pearl, you haven't gone anywhere, you haven't needed it for ages. It is there in your house, stop worrying!"  So I get her a bottle of vodka (I gave up that battle and told her if she drinks too much and falls down she will be going to the nursing home!), and  I stop by her place.  "Get me your wallet." She hands it over, and I pull out the stack of credit cards, medicare card, pharmacy card......and her picture ID!!!  She is flabbergasted!  "I looked there...more than once....where was that...it couldn't have been in there..."

I guarantee that she believes I had it all along and slipped it into her wallet while I was checking......because I am evil!!

Peggy  

For more Pearl Stories, click here.

Shut Up, Just Shut the Hell Up!

Here was this man, about the same age as me, and he was bloviating about his days at the Brooklyn Technical School, when he was fifteen. Boring, stupid shit about his teachers, his schoolmates, and how he was the rebel who told the principle to "Go fuck himself". No, I wasn't in a bar. I was in a barber's chair, a position that I had waited forty five minutes for. I was stuck having to listen while this guy went on and on about the Vietnam War, the shoulder length hair he used to have, and just how generally cool he was way back then. I would have left when he first walked into the barber shop but I figured he'd shut the hell up soon, and besides, the bald guy ahead of me couldn't possibly take too long. I was wrong about both things. He never shut up, and the barber took a half an hour to 'cut' the bald man's hair. I don't mean the bald guy had a little round patch in the middle of his head that was hairless. I mean he had no hair on his head at all, nothing. Yet the barber ran an electric razor over his head, and then some kind of doodad that seemed to polish the man's naked orb, followed by shaving cream and a straight razor. I never knew being bald was so labor intensive. When the barber was done with the bald guy, I was up next. It wasn't until I was in the barber chair, with the tissue tied around my neck, and a clipper plowing through my hair that I realized Mr. Brooklyn Tech wasn't going to shut up. For twenty minutes I sat there while Brooklyn Tech told us about his entire high school career. Finally, the barber removed the tissue from around my neck, pulled the hair covered cloth off, and flipped it to the side. I was done. As I walked out the door Mr. Brooklyn Tech was still talking as he took his turn in the chair. I looked back at the barber. He was wrapping that tissue around Mr. Brooklyn's neck, and I could swear he gave it an extra little pull, snugging that thing nice and tight.

Now That Was a Bad Week

Thank goodness they finally allowed us to come out of hiding last Friday. We were all supposed to be scared shitless, and in hiding weren't we? According to the cable news networks the United States was under siege and if you knew what was good for you, you stayed locked in your home, quivering in fear. It wasn't until I saw drunken college students celebrating in Boston that I realized it was safe. Of course I was always safe, I don't live in Boston. I don't live anywhere near Boston.

For a while there, every television station I turned to had in depth "Terror in Boston" coverage. They had flashy graphics, and breathless reporters who breathlessly reported facts, near facts, and pure fiction. It was an awful thing to have happened to a really nice city, and some really nice people, but I kind of think it was all blown out of proportion (no pun intended). By that I mean they didn't have to keep pre-empting Judge Judy, and Jeopardy. The facts of the story could have been quickly explained in five minutes or so. But that wouldn't have goosed the ratings, so the powers in charge of television news kept all our favorite reporters on screen, speculating and fantasizing.

I for one am happy it's all over. That knot of fear I felt in my stomach is gone. At least the knot of fear that I had thinking I will be blown up by some crazy asshole running around Boston is gone. Now All I have to worry about are the thousands of crazy assholes running around the United States with Glocks and AR-15's. There were 48 gun deaths in the United States last week, from April 15th through April 19.

B.J.'s

So earlier this afternoon Mark took me out to B.J.'s to buy dog food, and some brie cheese. As far as I know, besides gasoline, those are the only two things I can save money on in that place. The trouble with traveling the five miles to B.J.'s in the eighty five degree heat, with eighty percent humidity, is that the eight hundred dollar air-conditioning repair we did on the car last summer, has failed. That coupled with Mark's horrendous driving skills had me as nervous as a dog in a Korean restaurant. Instead of changing lanes and pulling around slow moving cars, Mark likes to sit behind them and call them all kinds of politically incorrect names. And then there is the radio. Mark likes to put a c.d. in the radio and play it over and over again until you want to eject it and reinsert it into one of his orifices. The c.d. of the last two weeks is the cast recording of Pricilla, Queen of the Desert. I thought I loved that show, until Mark forced me to re-live it every time I get in the car. Anyway, after a white knuckle ride on the expressway, and listening to Mark scream at the car in front of us for driving at the speed limit, I decided to pull out the video camera. It's not much, but it amused me at the time.

Don't Blink Damn It

My eyes are a bit sore tonight because today I had a five hour appointment with The Minister of the Interior, also known as my eye doctor. Today's appointment was special. The doctor wanted to check my eye pressure over an extended period of time, meaning once every hour for five hours. If you have never had your eye pressure tested in an eye doctor's office, it consists of sticking a little purple light directly into the middle of your eye. If you tend to blink a lot when somebody pokes you in the eye, like I do, it turns out to not be a very pleasant experience.
"Sir, you blinked again. I'm afraid I'll have to recheck that eye. Now please sit still and don't blink while I stick this thing in your eye."

In addition to the pressure checks, the doctor also wanted to measure my corneal thickness. This was done by a technician who ushered me into a small room filled with what looked like medieval torture equipment.
"Trust me sir, it won't hurt."
She then took a long instrument with a pinpoint end on it, and started stabbing me in the eye. First she did the right eye, after which I complained that it felt like she had stabbed me ten times. The technician assured me that she had done exactly that, and that I should sit still while she did the same thing to the other eye. So I sat there and let her stab me in the other eye ten times. The creepy thing is that I could see that thing coming at me until it actually smooshed into my cornea. And for all this torture and discomfort, I was charged ninety five dollars. I wasn't expecting that. That was way over my co-pay. The nice lady at the front desk explained that my insurance doesn't cover the stabbing you in the eye test, only the sticking you in the eye with a purple light test.
"Really, does my insurance policy cover getting poked in the ass by my insurance company?"

Porkulicious

"Light the fire."
With those words Mark began a full day of delicious aroma, and anticipation. The dogs started salivating early on as Mark prepared the pork with a savory rub on the kitchen counter. I had known I'd be in for one of Mark's signature dishes the night before. I saw the wood chips soaking in the sink. There was going to be a porktacular porkofest, a porkorama for dinner. I lit the fire in the smoker out back around ten in the morning. For three hours smoke curled up from the little smoke stack, and up through the trees, tantalizing the rest of the neighborhood. When Mark determined that the large hunk of pork was properly smoked, he moved the process indoors. Another two hours at a low temperature in the oven, filling the house with the heavenly scent of slow cooked swine. Finally, around four in afternoon Mark removed the meat from the oven and placed it on the top of the stove. "To rest." I was told.
"I'm going over to pick up Willie. He's coming over for dinner and a movie with us. Do not touch that pork!"
You might just as well told a crack head to not light up, or Lindsey Lohan to just stay home for one night. I couldn't help it, just a little taste. It was damn good, so I picked a little more off the side. As I stuffed my face with gobs of fatty, greasy pig meat the dogs sat quietly on the floor in front of me, waiting for bits to fly their way. By the time Mark returned with his friend Willie, I had put a pretty good dent in that pork. Yes, he pitched a fit, but I don't care. It was so good.

Douche Bag

Last night, in the middle of the night, I had what I'd call mental restlessness. This is where you lay in bed and start thinking about something in your past and then the longer you lay there thinking, the more it escalates into a full blown case of insomnia. It all started with me getting up to take a pee. When I got back to bed I started thinking about when I was a kid and I wouldn't get up to take a pee. I'd just do it right there in bed. It used to drive my mom crazy, and really wasn't a very pleasant thing to wake up to. That thought then reminded me of being potty trained on an old, wooden, potty seat that sat on top of the regular toilet seat. I remembered the little rubber cup at the front that was designed to catch any errant squirts. This then reminded me of something else from my childhood. Now you have to realize that I am talking about being like two, maybe three years old. Anyway, in our bathroom while I was taking a bath one day, hanging from the shower curtain rod, was a rubber device. I remember my mom telling me that it was a hot water bottle, and that she used it for aching muscles. So there I was, little Alan sitting in a bathtub full of water, looking up at this strange thing. Oh, and it also had a long rubber hose attached to it with some kind of nozzle with four holes in it. Needless to say, I reached up and pulled the device off of the curtain rod and immersed it in the bath water. I then took the long hose and put the nozzle end in my mouth and started blowing bubbles with it. After a while I began humming into the hose as if it were a bagpipe, making up my own music. This got my mom's attention, and she came running into the bathroom with a horrified look on her face.
"No Alan, we don't play with mommy's things."
She took it away, and I never did see it hanging in the bathroom again.

U-Turd

"Hello, are you there?"
"Glug clurg gurgle gurgle murfle."
"What the hell?"
"Glub blub burble murb... and then I said never... burfle mub gub."

I know the last post said I was done posting about the AT&T U-Verse cable thing, but it seems to be a never ending circle jerk. The above was a 'conversation' I had on the phone earlier today, Sunday. It seems that if I want to talk on the telephone I have to turn off all the televisions in the house. They take up too much bandwidth for the U-Verse to deal with. Very handy, don't you think? This whole AT&T nightmare just gets worse and worse. I thought I had the whole television thing under control, but right now Mark is supposedly recording Sixty Minutes, and The Amazing Race. Unfortunately the record light on the receiver is not lit, and when I look at the list of recorded material, his shows aren't there. All I can say is that it's a good thing Mark went out for drinks this evening. It will give me more time to steel myself for his inevitable temper tantrum. Hopefully he won't discover his programs didn't record until sometime tomorrow. That's when I'll hand him the phone, turn off the televisions so he can be heard, and dial the number for AT&T U-Verse customer service.

One More Cable Thing Courtesy of Christine

u आयत

So I got the U-Verse installed yesterday. I'm not satisfied with the television part of it, but I'm saving $80 so I'll adapt. What really pissed me off is that the phone didn't work. I couldn't get any incoming calls. So I first called at&t, but after waiting for fifteen minutes I gave up and went on line. On line I was put in a chat box with a very nice fellow who obviously was somewhere in India. After an hour and a half of farting around in the at&t chat room, I was told it would be working by tomorrow. So tomorrow came, and still no incoming phone calls. Once again I was in the chat room with India. For an hour I chatted, and was apologized to over, and over again, but still... no fix.

 

 

Finally, while I was waiting for a higher level tech to come into the chat, I called at&t sales. Two things happened. I was given a $50 credit for my troubles, and I was told that I needed to call an eight hundred number to 'register' my telephone. As simple as that, I called the number and the phone worked. Something the installing tech should have told me, and something the very polite people in India should have told me.

An Evening With U-Verse

At nine thirty in the morning the first AT&T guy showed up. He was here to re-wire the outside of the house which meant that I'd have no phone, and no internet until the second guy arrived and installed the inside equipment later in the day. Two AT&T techs, and two online chat sessions later, it is now after nine forty five in the evening and this thing is still not working right. I was watching a baseball game when a screen popped up telling me that my ball game would be interrupted so that Mark could record some crap. It seems that Mark had gone hog wild in the bedroom recording Bravo, American Idol, and Modern Family. I'm not happy at all with this U-verse crap. It seems that although they promise you that you can record four programs, what they don't tell you is that it will bring the U-Verse system to it's knees. In addition to that problem, my phone won't take incoming calls, I have to scroll through pages and pages of channels to find what I want, and after hours of fiddling with the on screen guide it still has me completely confused. It's just too labor intensive for me. Is this another sign of creeping old fogeyism? I used to be very tech savvy. I was a computer tech, and people paid me good money to troubleshoot complicated problems.

One hour later;
Okay, I've calmed down a little bit. I chatted again with the U-verse people online, and I've decided that Mark's Bravo channel won't be in HD. It uses to much 'bandwidth' according to the online chat wizards. In fact I might fix it so that most of the bedroom television is not in HD, which is a bullshit fix for the problem of not having enough 'steams' to do everything that AT&T had promised U-verse could do. So I'll pour myself a little vodka and spend the next hour deleting useless channels from that bedroom television. Good night.

Troy's Orchid

 

Three years ago a good friend of Mark passed away. We went to his memorial, and on the way out Troy's partner handed Mark one of the orchids that were placed around for the occasion. As usual, Mark took it home and left it out in the yard to join the rest of his doomed plants. One day I was tossing out a bunch of dried up plants and I came across the orchid. It still had one green leaf so I took it out to the front yard and wedged it in the crotch of the big live oak tree. It blew down a few times, and I repeatedly stuffed it back in the tree crotch. Finally it grabbed onto the rough bark of the oak and started growing. This year, just in time for the third year anniversary of Troy's death, it sprouted flowers. Now every time I come in and out of the front gate, I think of Troy. He was a bit of a character, but he was alright. I know Mark misses him.

When Stealing Cars is Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Steal Cars

You know, they outlawed methamphetamine and people are still able to get it. Same with heroin, and crack cocaine. I mean what the hell's the use? Make it all legal and just live with the addicts. Same goes for rape. Rape has been illegal for many, many generations yet the bad guys are still raping. Really, why even try? Let's just strike all laws from the books and give up. Anarchy, that's the ticket. At least according to Larry Pratt, executive director of a terrorist group called Gun Owners of America. I was watching Hardball with Chris Matthews the other day and he had this emotional midget on as a guest. His argument for not having background checks on gun purchasers was, "They're going to get access to firearms anyway, so why bother." That, and the fact that if you do background checks the government will have information about you. I'm pretty sure the government has all the information they could possibly use already. They have your Social Security number, and they have your drivers license number. They have your tax returns, and for all men, they have you in the Selective Service records. They even have your birth certificate, although I know a lot of the gun nuts don't believe in them.

I truly believe that the folks who want their guns so badly that they'd sacrifice thousands of innocent lives, are emotionally retarded. They are stuck in a fifteen year old child's mindset. I have my toys. I want my toys. You can't take my toys. The fact is we can take their toys, at least the most lethal toys from the most criminal and most insane. The problem is the politicians. They are either too spineless, or they are being paid off. I'm not sure which. I just know that the only thing lower than a pro gun politician, is a mouthpiece for the gun lobby who will say anything to keep gun manufacturers profits going up.

Bye, Bye Directv

My vision has blurred, I have a slight headache, and I feel a bit nauseous, but I must forge ahead. Wednesday is the deadline. ATT is coming to install my new U-Verse internet, telephone, and television Wednesday afternoon. It's the television that is causing me the headache. You see I have about a hundred hours of recorded material on the Directv DVR that will be disconnected on Wednesday. I have already slogged through two hours of House Hunters International, and I am about half way through the five hours of American Pickers that I recorded. This deadline has made me discover exactly what I value. For instance I have deleted the movie The Graduate. I have seen that movie about a hundred times, and I know that TCM will show it again within two months. Last night I watched a movie called The Landlord for the first time in my life. It had been sitting on my DVR for the last month, and since it was under two hours long I figured I could afford the time. I can't believe I never saw that movie before, I loved it. There are also a few movies that have been waiting for me to watch that I recorded almost a year ago. I think I'll delete those. If I haven't found them compelling enough to watch by now, I don't think I ever will. I'll just have to catch Roll Bounce, and Glen or Glenda some other time.

What I am going through is nothing compared to what is going on in our bedroom. That is where Mark has recorded all his shows. He's been shut up in there for the last two days fully involved in a Bravo TV marathon. Every time I walk in there I can hear the monotonous monotones of The Real Housewives. He has been watching Real Housewife reunions, Real Housewives of Atlanta, Real Housewives Start a Bitch Slap Contest, The Real Housewives Meet the Mummy. I am truly afraid that by Wednesday I will have nothing but a zombie laying in that bedroom, his brains totally drained by reality television shows. He will be but a husk of a man, as empty as a Real Housewife's brain.

Got a Bong?

 This is a photo of...

A) My glaucoma medication.

B) Party favors for Mark's next soiree.

C) What my mom found in my sock drawer when I was seventeen.

D) None of the above.

Mark is a great cook. It is the reason I have gained fifty pounds since I met him. He has introduced me to collard greens, pork belly, lobster bisque, and just about anything else you can imagine. Almost all of it, delicious. The trouble is that even the best of cooks hit a bad note once in a while. Tuesday Mark hit that bad note. It all started five years ago when we were in Atlanta. Mark had wanted to go to Gladys Knight's restaurant where they served waffles and chicken.
"Waffles and chicken? That sounds disgusting." I told Mark.
"Oh no, I think it sounds real interesting and I'd love to go try it."
The fact is, we never did go, and ever since, Mark has wanted to give chicken and waffles a try here at home. So on Tuesday Mark served me fried chicken with waffles for dinner. It was very confusing. Was I eating breakfast, or was I eating dinner? There was syrup on the table along with butter for the waffles, and then there was the chicken. It didn't matter, I ate it all. What I didn't eat very much of was his side dish, roasted kale. It was disgusting. Now you might like roasted kale, you might love roasted kale, but to me it tasted horrible. We still have a large Glad Bag full of the stuff since I didn't eat it, and there are three possibilities for what's to become of it. One, Mark will eat it all. Two, I will throw it into the garbage after it sits on the counter for a week. Or three, I will break it down into smaller bags and see if I can't make some extra money down by the high school.

Stairway to Heaven

Sasha is not a stupid dog, and Mark is not a stupid man. Together however, they have created stupid. Our new bed is much higher than the old one. It is just an inch or so too high for Sasha to easily jump up there. Instead she stands next to the bed, giving me big brown goo, goo eyes, waiting for me to lift her up there. So I suggested to Mark that he find a small hassock on one of his shopping safaris, that we could put next to the bed. It was something that I knew Sasha would be able to navigate. She could hop up on the hassock, and then hop the rest of the way onto the bed. Yesterday Mark came home with a large box. Inside was a set of 'doggy stairs', carpeted for ease of traction. Sasha is basically a watermelon with fur and little stick legs. She is not built for steep, shallow stairs. Mark proudly pulled the set of stairs out of the box, and set them next to the bed. He then lay on the bed and called for Sasha to come on up. Instead of scrambling up the stairs, she looked at them as if they were a brick wall, and then looked over to me with her goo, goo eyes. So I picked her up, put two feet on one stair, two feet on the next one, and gave her a little nudge towards the top. Nothing, she just stood there frozen in place.

It would have been so simple if Mark had done what I asked. Buy a small hassock, and be done with it. No, now I have to teach this nine year old, stiff legged dog, how to climb stairs. Or, I could just throw a piece of meat on the bed every time she wants to get up there. I discovered she could actually fly this morning when Mark was eating breakfast in bed.

Chandler's New Buddy

His name is Tuffy, and he only has three legs. The first thing Chandler did was sniff his stump. He looked a bit confused, like "Hey Dude, what happened to your leg?" No, he's not my dog. He is our new tenant's dog. I think Chandler finds him to be a bit much.

Bitch

It's really not so important for me to explain how things got to the state they were in, other than to say our Goodyear tires were worn out after only sixteen thousand miles.
"Sir, if you could come out to the shop floor for a minute I'd like to show you something."
"Sure." I said, as Mark and I got up to go take a look at the PT Cruiser sitting up on the rack.
"Now as you can see the tires are worn near the edges, and there is some belting showing. That's caused by under inflation."
"I check the tire inflation every once in awhile. They never were more than a pound or so under. I always put air in them if they needed it."
Before the man could say another word Mark tossed his little grenade into the conversation.
"Does that mean you aren't honoring your warranty? You know it only costs twenty five dollars to file a small claims suit."
Suddenly, from behind a stack of tires I heard a very angry voice.
"Get the fuck out of my shop."
Was that man talking to me?
"You, get the fuck out of here. Customers aren't allowed on the floor of the shop." He said while pointing to Mark.
"This man asked us to come out here and look at our car." I told him. But I couldn't stop the inevitable, and it all went to hell quite fast.
"You little bitch, I said get out of here." He screamed at Mark.
I ambled back out to the front desk and tried to get it all under control again.
"I don't know who that man was, but I've spent a lot of money here over the years. Thousands of dollars, I can't believe the owner would want him talking to us that way."
"That is the owner sir."
Just as that fact was established, the little asshole came strutting up to the counter and before I knew it he and Mark were going at it.
Mark; "You little bitch. I work for the county court house and..."
Little Asshole; "Fuck you, you bitch. Go ahead and sue me."
Mark; "Bitch."
Little Asshole; "Bitch."
"Bitch."
"Bitch."
"Bitch."
"Bitch."
And then Mark got creative.
"Fuck you bitch!"

I won't be going back to that Goodyear store, or any Goodyear store ever again. They don't honor their warranties, and after being such a good customer I don't appreciate being treated so shabbily. I don't care if they had to put up with Mark and his mouth, it just wasn't right. Damn, I put up with his mouth every day and I don't even make any money off of it.

Happy Dyngus Day!

I hope you had a wonderful Easter weekend, mine was mixed. Easter Sunday was capped off with a great meal at the home of some friends. Besides the fact that they are very good cooks, there was also the fact that I didn't have to clean up after dinner. I was stunned when I found out you could cook for six people and not leave the kitchen a disaster zone. I asked our hosts how they did that, and they replied that it was something called "Cleaning as you cook". Amazing, I'll have to remind Mark of that the next time he destroys the kitchen while making dinner. So the dinner was great, but the rest of my Easter weekend was spent dealing with tenants. We had the young couple in the front apartment move out Saturday afternoon, and the older couple I rented to, move in Sunday morning. That was the fastest I have ever turned that apartment around. Luckily the folks moving out left it in pretty decent shape. Still it ruined my regular Sunday routine of laying in bed until 11:55. (Six minutes later and I feel like I've wasted the whole morning)

Easter was always a bit confusing for me as a kid. I never could figure out how Jesus could grow to adulthood in just three months, from December 25th until Easter, when ever that was. That's another thing, I never know when Easter is. One year it's late in April, and others like this year, it's in March. Does the Pope just pick a number out of his big pointy hat, and that's when Easter is? Still, Easter is a great holiday for kids whenever it is. Especially if they don't have parents that make them do all that religious stuff. It was that basket full of candy that made it almost as good as Christmas and Halloween. And then there are the eggs. When I was a kid, I loved coloring eggs on the Saturday afternoon before Easter. I loved hunting for them the next morning. What I didn't like so much was eating them after they had been laying around in the bushes, and under the living room couch. Especially the ones that had leaked coloring inside. Blue hard boiled eggs are not very appetizing. 

All in all I had a pretty nice Easter, but now it's done. The self denial of Lent is over (I gave up hating religion for lent), and now we can all go back to our wild ways. Have a happy Dyngus Day everybody!