The Shape of Things to Come

 

Back a few weeks ago I finished physical therapy for my legs. I noticed back in September that my legs had become sore and weak, and it was a chore for me to pull my ass out of the recliner chair. That probably is my problem right there, the recliner chair. I spend too much time in it. Unfortunately, that's the best place to watch television. Anyway, back to the physical therapy. My doctor prescribed it instead of pills. So for four weeks, twice a week, at forty dollars a session, I went and had a young lady hurt me. That's what it is, torture that is supposed to help. Since the physical therapy place was really nothing more than a poorly equipped gym, when it was over I decided I would join a real gym. So I waited until the place near me had a sale, and on Christmas day they did. It's a good deal, ten dollars a month with no commitment. I've been to those places that make you commit, and getting out of a contract with them is like escaping Stateville Prison. The best way to cancel a gym membership is to make sure you put the monthly fee on your credit card, and then when you feel you're buff enough to quit call the credit card company and tell them you lost the card. A new number is issued to you and the gym can't charge you anymore. Brilliant, right? So I signed up with the purple place, that gym where they keep telling you it is "The no judgment zone." Ha, liars. First thing they did was judge me. They looked me over and figured I would pull the lost credit card scam on them. So they asked for not just the credit card, but my bank account number and routing number.

Sloppy Seconds

 

Post Christmas photo. Probably 1956. Dave, Peggy, Alan.

Officially, yesterday was the first snow in Chicago since the middle of last March. Calling it snow is a stretch. Sure flakes came down, but on the ground it was all just slop. I didn't even bother to go out and shovel it off the sidewalk. It was a rare birthday for me that the ground was not covered with snow and the temperature wasn't below freezing. That's how I remember all my childhood birthdays. Snow, ice, cold, and the other half of the Christmas present I had been given two days before. Oh, yes. That happened. The curse of being born at Christmas because my parents got spring fever nine months earlier. An electric Lionel train set on Christmas and a box of accessories two days later. A cap gun in a two gun holster and the other cap gun two days later. I think that's why I don't consider my birthday to be a special occasion. I don't celebrate it and now that Mom is gone, not even the singing birthday phone call is expected. Don't get me wrong. I'm not sad about my birthday not being celebrated. I'm sad that it marks one day less that I have to enjoy all the things and people around me. I'd sure like to get as much fun and life in before the legs give out or the eyes go blind. Nothing worse than a blind guy in the old people's home running geezers over with his electric scooter.

Have a Wonderful Holiday Season

 

Maybe You Could Keep That Mask on Until the Date is Over

 

For the last twenty months I've listened to people whine and bitch about having to wear a mask around other human beings. Seriously, I am sick and tired of wearing them too. However, the reason we're still having to do it is because of those very people who refused to go along with the precautions necessary to control the covid virus. No masks, no vaccines, breathing on other people. They just couldn't deal with it. I used to have a job repairing anesthesia machines in hospital operating rooms. For that job I would have to put on what they called a bunny suit, a hair covering, booties over my filthy street shoes, and a mask across my face. It was a bitch trying to work on those machines all bundled up like that, and the mask made my glasses fog up. However, to protect those patients who would be operated on later, I dealt with it. One thing always bothered me though. I was all sterile in my powder blue bunny suit just like required. Yet nobody ever said a word about the filthy tool kit I would drag with me into the operating room. Sometimes, if it had been raining outside and my tool box was especially dirty, I would put large foot booties on the wheels. Nobody told me to do that, it just seemed prudent.

I retired from that job over fifteen years ago and I didn't miss having to wear a mask while working. Now I find myself wearing a mask to the super market, the drug store, and at the bowling alley. I hate it. Especially at the bowling alley. That's because the mask is distracting while bowling and it's a gay bowling league. No problem with the gay part. It's the fact that some guys look especially good from the bridge of their nose on up, but are quite a letdown when they take that mask off to drink a beer.

 

As Chandler and I Enter Old Age Together

 

I remember the day I took Mark up to Abandoned Pet Rescue to see the cute little puppy I had spied while walking the big dogs. Twice a week I would volunteer to walk dogs at APR and that meant I got first look at all the new dogs coming in. Chandler was the puppy's name, and he was one happy and playful little guy. That was over thirteen years ago. Chandler is now in his senior years. He has lumps, his breath smells bad, and his rear legs have weakened. To get him up and down the stairs to go outside, I have to put a sling under his rear area and carry that end down for him. It's not an easy task. Because of this Chandler is not always excited when I ask him if he would like to go out. In fact, he would rather not negotiate those stairs unless he has to. It might be twelve hours since he last went out and when I ask him if he has to go poopies, he just lays there on his side. Nothing moving but his eyes. Chandler will wait until the very last second because he can hold his bladder and sphincter for an impressive amount of time. The problem is when he hits the limits of his endurance. At that point he drags himself to his feet and wobbles over to me with a look of panic in his eyes. He did that to me the other day. He moved quickly into the living room with terror in his eyes and ran up to me.

"Quick Daddy, I gotta shit!!"

Is what his eyes were telling me. Meanwhile, from the other end of my beloved dog, turds were popping out one after another. Like a turd machine gun, all over the living room. So I slapped his sling under his rear end and we ran to the back door. I thought I had noted where every turd had landed, but I missed one. The one I stepped in. The one I stepped in and then ran through the house with it on the bottom of my shoe.

When Satan Knocks at Your Door

 

My doctor has repeatedly told me to cut out as much sugar as I can from my diet. At first this was very difficult. I like sugar. I could suck down a giant chocolate malt milk shake every day. I love them. I love glazed donuts, jelly donuts, and those Boston cream donuts. I have been known to eat a pound of gummy bears in one night, and could follow that up with some chocolates. The doctor also told me to avoid the deep fried stuff, like Popeye's chicken. This was easier, because the Popeye's near me does not have a drive through window. Anyway, I did manage to cut out over ninety percent of the sugar I used to ingest. As a result, I have lost twenty five pounds of fat so far. I'd like to lose another ten pounds. That would really help taking the stress off my knees, feet, and back. I only have to stick to my guns and keep off the sugar.

A week ago my friend and upstairs neighbor, Dennis, knocked at my front door. I opened it up and there he was, smiling and holding out a sleeve of chocolate chip cookies.

"These are for you. They're really good."

"Oh, thank you, but I can't... too much sugar."

"Don't worry, they're very thin."

As if being a thin cookie would make me thin.

"Well, here. Take them anyway."

And he left them on my dining room table where they sat for a few days. All I can say is Dennis was correct. They were very good, and they were very thin.

Alan, the Dorky Years

 

There was a period in my life when I would screw up every family photo. The dorky years, from eleven until around fifteen. Hormones hit me hard as I entered my double digit age, and something weird would happen the minute I knew my picture was being taken. My eyes would start watering. It happened again and again when I had to pose for any important photo. Yearbooks, class photos, family photos. Anything that involved my dad having to pay for the finished product, I would be the one making faces or just looking bad. Around the age of thirteen there was another added dork component, pimples. If I knew a professional photographer was coming to take our picture I would break out in at least one gigantic, red zit. On the tip of my nose, on my chin, or on my forehead a pimple the size of a rail road warning light would crop up. Sometimes I'd have one on all three locations, and then my eyes would start to water. I never figured that one out, why tears would start flowing out of control. When I hit high school the wet eye thing still bothered me, but I was saved the embarrassment of the pimple monster. No, I still had gigantic pimples. It was the professional photographers they used for the yearbook. Unlike the Sears guy who came to our house for the family photos, these guys knew how to airbrush a teenager's face.