Off This Week

Hopefully everything will turn out just fine. Or, maybe I'll have a heart attack, or stroke. If there is no new post by this time next week... call 911.

I can handle things! I'm smart! Not like everybody says....

I spent twenty five years in the computer business. I learned multiple operating systems, hardware, and devices. I could walk up to a computer screen and decipher how to use that computer within minutes. It all seemed so intuitive to me. So how come, now that I traded in my antique flip phone for a smart phone, I now feel like a cave man confronted by a library of books.

Yesterday Mark and I upgraded. I got an android smart phone that is apparently much smarter than I am. I have been poking at that thing, swiping the screen this way and that, and listening to it beep, sing, and vibrate, yet I still don't know how to use it. I now know how my mom felt when I tried to teach her to use a computer.

"Okay Mom, just click on that icon and your email will come up."

"Click on? What does that mean, and by icon do you mean that tiny little picture?"

"No Mom, use the mouse." (Her computer did not have touch screen technology.) "Just slide the mouse while watching the cursor move across the screen."

"Oh dear. I don't think that is possible."

By the time I left my mom alone with her computer, I was certain that she had mastered the task of opening her email... even if it would take her ten minutes. But alas, her email account filled up with hundreds of emails while her computer became little more than a giant space hog on her desk.

Anyway, so I now have a smart phone that can receive texts, photos, and chat. I thought it would be a little easier to  reply to those things with a smart phone. The old flip phone would take me five minutes to reply "hello back at you" to a text. Now a nice keyboard pops up so that I can poke away with my thumbs and fingers, misspelling everything because my thumbs and fingers are too damn fat, and taking five minutes to reply because I have to keep going back and retype everything.

Fat Lady

Okay, let's get past the body shaming bullshit right away. I don't call anybody fat to their face. I don't tell anybody what to eat or how much... unless it's somebody I love who is killing themselves, but then I'll only tell them once. I don't troll the internet making fun of people's looks... unless it's Donald Trump. I don't think it's my business what surgeries people have. Yet I do maintain that is my right to discuss such issues with other people. After all, I have nothing to brag about when it comes to a body. I know that I look much different than I did forty years ago. I know that my man boobs are the envy of many a young girl. But it's my body, and I am responsible for how fat I am. Well, me and Mark who has been shoveling all that great cooking into my maw for all these years.

On Sunday nights I like to watch my horror shows. First up is "The Walking Dead", a show about zombies that are out to eat every living person on Earth. I know that it is stupid. I Know that after six years there is no way that they could still have fresh batteries, and that after six years all the gasoline would have turned to shit, or that there is nobody maintaining those pristine roads with the manicured grass growing alongside them. I know that it's just a television show that scares the hell out of me and gives me bad dreams. The other horror show I watch on Sunday is "Girls". Horror, you ask? Yes. To a sixty six year old gay man, seeing an overweight, pasty young woman naked at least twice every Sunday, is horror. Last Sunday was even more horrendous than ever. They crossed the line from sensual, to downright fearful. In one scene, Hanna (Lena Dunham) had her face buried in the crotch of a naked woman while she screamed "I can't do this. It's too hot, I can't breathe!" Mark and I were screaming in terror during the entire scene, yet we couldn't look away.

Now television horror is one thing. Yesterday my friend Dennis and I experienced the real thing. While on our way to McDonald's, we turned off 26th Street onto Federal Highway. There, on the bus bench, was a three hundred pound plus woman sitting facing the highway. She had her skirt pulled up around her waist and appeared naked from there on down. It was a huge mound of pink flesh punctuated by some sort of blob protruding from between her legs. We both screamed in unison. It was only about a second, but it scared the  hell out of me. My only regret is that Mark was not in the car. Oh, and the fat lady was not there when we passed by on our way home. I assume she caught her bus.

Nerves

I'm a nervous wreck. I have discontinued the electric service as of next Saturday, same for the phone/internet/television, and city utilities. Ninety nine percent of my house is in boxes, sealed and ready for the movers that are coming on Saturday. Mark is all set to fly to Chicago, and my friend Dennis and I are ready to drive the PT Cruiser one last trip up north with the dogs. Yet I don't have a time and place for the closing on the sale of this house. I have a contract that says it is to be Friday, but like I said, no time or place. I've emptied a full bottle of Tums, yet my stomach is still churning, and Mark didn't help with his curried chicken the other night. So far I've unloaded four curried chicken craps in the last twenty four hours. Luckily my good friend Dennis is here to help. Both in the move and for getting me to go out for a drink. As Friday the 25th of March, chugs closer and closer like a runaway train, my nerves are quite frayed. And all I ask around this house, is for Mark to talk a little less, ask a few less questions, and stop having me pack things to move that we haven't used in ten years. Just yesterday morning he gave me a set of poker chips and a card shuffling machine that he wants to take with us. In nineteen years Mark and I have never played poker, never played cards... ever. Unless you count those games on the computer. Then yes, we've played a million times.

Neo

For seven and a half years I have gone over to Abandoned Pet Rescue to walk some of the big dogs. I got tricked into it when I dropped off my dog Molly's leftover food after she died. 
"Oh, thank you so much for your donation. Would you like to meet some of the dogs while you're here?"

"Ummm.. sure."

I was escorted into the big dog room, which erupted into a roar of barking the minute they realized somebody new was there to meet them. That was the old days of APR, before the remodeling and other improvements. As I roamed around the kennels, my heart sank as each dog with pleading eyes demanded I take them home. 
"Would you like to take a few of them for a walk. Today is one of the days when volunteers come in and take all the dogs for a nice walk."

"Ummm.. sure."

Now, seven and a half years later, with a giant APR dog now living in my home, I have walked my last shelter dog there. All those years, all those dogs, probably over a hundred. In the heat, in the rain, in the chill of January, I walked them. Now I must say goodbye, but not without a great sendoff from Neo, a very large taupe colored dog. Big and goofy, sweet and happy to see you, Neo left me with a little  present before I left yesterday. Neo, who never has had loose stool before, took a big messy dump which I cleaned up with a plastic bag. As we continued on our walk, I was completely unaware that the bag of poop was leaking. Not until I felt the cool touch of dog shit dripping down my leg did I see that my entire right side from the waist down, was covered in crap. Seven and a half years without getting dog shit on me, until yesterday.

By the way, Neo is a great dog for anybody who wants a big boy. He's a little rambunctious, but lovable.   (Click here to get the details on Neo)

Exact Change Only

I fell in love with recliner chairs about thirty years ago. Growing up there was no recliner in our house, and if there were there would have been bloody battles over who got to sit in it. Unless of course, Dad was home. Then he would sit in it. But alas, Dad never popped for a recliner while I lived in his house. So there were no bloody battles and no Dad bellowing at us to get the hell out of his chair. Since that first chair that I bought back in 1986, I have had a number of them. They take quite a beating and I have to replace them regularly. Yesterday was the day the big red recliner in my living room met its end. After being bathed in dog slobber, spilled cocktails, and dirt being ground in by my  big ass over the years, I had to dump it. So I dismantled the chair and took it out to the curb for bulk trash day. As I pulled the back part of the chair apart from the seat, a large pile of stuff hit the floor. Stale nuts, pieces of candy, desiccated grapes, and lots of change. Quarters, dimes, and pennies came tumbling out. After dragging the chair out front for the garbage truck, I returned with the broom and dust pan to pick up all that junk that fell out of the cushions. But it wasn't there. Mark had swept it all up while I was out front. Or so I thought, until Chandler puked up this....