Assembly Day

The day after Christmas in British Commonwealth countries, is called boxing day. I used to think it referred to boxing matches. You know, they have boxing matches on television all day. Like in the United States where Christmas could be called NBA Day, because there is non-stop basketball on television every Christmas. But I was wrong. I Googled Boxing Day, and it turns out it is a holiday created in Britain for the servants of rich people. The servants had to work on Christmas so that the rich folks would have a pleasant work free holiday. M'lady was certainly not going to cook and serve that Christmas goose herself. So to keep the servant class happy and deter them from spitting in their master's food, the ruling class gave them Boxing Day. Which gave me an idea. Assembly Day. A free day between Christmas and New Years, where nobody can disturb you. You wouldn't have to go to your job. Nagging would be forbidden, and NFL Football could not be played. On that day, Assembly Day, you would have all day to put together all the stupid gifts you bought for your family. On that day the only people working would be those nice folks in India who man the product hot lines. They would have all the instructions clearly laid out so that they could explain in plain English exactly what "First commect parts, and then screw one by one to lock it, then have the good parts" means.

So far I have assembled Mark's new teak spa chair. It didn't take too long, but my wrist is still sore from trying to tighten bolts with an allen wrench that would only turn a quarter turn before hitting an obstruction. Next in line is the Soda Stream machine that I bought Mark. Probably pretty easy to assemble, but I worry. There is pressurized gas involved. 

Birthday Boy

The inner child is not happy

No, I am not happy to be turning seventy years old. It hasn't been a bad seventy years, but there were a few down times. Cancer at the age of thirty eight. That wasn't much fun. Chemo is very rough on the body and the aftermath lasts forever. I got fired from a couple of jobs, once for saying 'fuck' in front of a customer. If I'd known I was going to be fired I would have said so much more. Yet mostly these seventy years have been a lot of fun. So, why is it that this birthday bothers me so much? Time, the realization that there is not that much time compared to how much time has passed. Also, the fact that my body is not as resilient as it once was. I can't run. I can't see. I can't hear very well. If I have to get down onto my knees for some reason, a crane needs to be called in to help restore me to my feet. I'm very happy to have made so many friends, but as the years pile up they keep dropping like flies in a Raid commercial. And then there is my perception of what a seventy year old man looks like. When I was a kid my grandparents were in their seventies. In fact it seemed like they were seventy years old for at least twenty years and they looked old. Grandpa never looked young to me. He was always the same damn age. Seriously, he looked just about the same at one hundred years old as he did at the age of seventy. Ah, but there is the positive part about Grandpa. He drank, he smoked cigars, he chewed tobacco, and lived for over one hundred years. I just don't know if I can keep up with him. 

Grandpa at seventy

Pennies From Heaven

Question, what is your time worth? What is the time you save buying salad in a bag instead of chopping and slicing up a salad from scratch worth? Besides knowing you won't cut your finger and bleed all over the carrots, is it worth buying that bag of possibly listeria contaminated salad fixings? I say yes, it most definitely is worth it. Besides, a little sickness from bad romaine would help move along that extra weight I've been trying to shed. I always look for shortcuts, especially now that I'm of an older age. Not that much time left in my life to spend it screwing around when you can get somebody else to do the dirty work.

I have on my desk a coin sorter. You drop the coins in the top and they roll down into the correct cylinder. Pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters. Slugs and Canadian coins get spit out onto the floor. I used to go through the sorting process every couple of months. It helped offset the cost of vodka. However, it was a tedious process. You have to slowly pour the coins in because the thing can't handle it if you just dump them. Then you have to slide the coins out of the cylinders, into paper sleeves. The bank or grocery store won't take them unless they are packaged. Unfortunately, since we moved to Chicago, I stopped doing all that stuff. Instead I've been dumping loose change into a bowl. That bowl got filled, so I started dumping the change into another container. That is over three years of loose change. Now I am up to my tits in coins. So I guess it is time to take it all to the grocery store and dump them into that machine they have there. It counts your money and gives you a receipt that you then take to the service counter. That's where you get your money. Not all of your money, but most of your money, minus ten percent. The people who own that machine take ten percent, like a Hollywood agent. At this point I am fine with that, because it would take me a couple of hours to sort and package all that money. That is time that I value at... let's say, fifty dollars per hour. Not that anybody would hire me at that rate anymore, but in my mind that's what I'm worth.

Wool

That's Debbie in the middle

I was feeling a bit antsy yesterday so I decided to take the dogs for a little walk. When the weather turns chilly, like near freezing or colder, I usually just open the back door and tell them to hurry up and pee. But not yesterday. I put on a sweatshirt, my big winter coat, a scarf, gloves, knit hat, and told Scout that she was up first. All I have to do is touch her harness that hangs in the hallway and Scout starts bouncing off the walls. She does like her walkies. As I was putting on all my winter gear, I was reminded of when I was a little boy and Mom would get me ready for the deep freeze. Layers of sweaters, shirts, and then the heavy coat. Coats were not lightweight back in the 1950s. My coat was a heavy woolen thing that got heavier the longer it was on me. Around my neck Mom wound an itchy woolen scarf. Clipped to the sleeves of the coat were my mittens. Also wool. All this was topped off by a hat with ear flaps, and yes, it was wool. All that was for cold weather. If snow was added to the equation, boots were required. Big rubber boots with a row of snapping buckles that I had a very hard time snapping into place. Not to mention getting those clunky things on over my shoes. It was a big deal to go outside in the winter.

As I walked along the sidewalk with Scout, all warm and toasty in my winter clothes, I thought about those times as a child. Here I was an adult, still wrapped up in sweaters and shirts with a big heavy coat. I had my gloves on and a warm knit hat along with a scarf around my neck while Scout sniffed and peed her way around the block. But there was one big difference between yesterday and when I was five years old. Nothing was made out of wool. Itchy, smelly, uncomfortable wool.

1921

Michigan Avenue looking north at Chicago Avenue. 1921

We had a great time at Mom's ninety eighth birthday party on Saturday. Mom was born just a few months before this house we now live in was finished, and I think our house is old, very old. So I started thinking about just what it was like ninety eight years ago. The year of Mom's birth and the year our house was being built. I started Googling the facts. It was the first full year of commercial radio, KDKA in Pittsburgh. Before that it was just a few thousand amateur hobbyists screwing around with crystal radios. 1921 was the year the movie, 'The Kid', with Charlie Chaplin was released. It was a silent movie, sound wouldn't happen in movies for six more years. Five million Ford Model T's were built and sold that year. A model T cost about three hundred dollars. Average income was $3,300, and Warren Harding was president. A lot of history has passed in Mom's lifetime. She remembers most of it, but can't remember what she had for breakfast. Which isn't so bad. The last breakfast I remember was last Friday when I used sour milk on my Frosted Flakes and barfed it all back up an hour later. So Happy Birthday Mom, and have a great ninety ninth year. I hope you live long enough to leave your children nothing. 

Mom with her latest great grandchild.