1949, Mom Had a Rough Christmas

 

Birthdays have never meant much to me. Sandwiched between Christmas and New Year's Day, it was always overshadowed by the big holidays. Of course the day I turned sixteen meant a lot to me. I was now old enough to legally drive. I parked myself behind the wheel of my various cars after that and wasn't seen around my parent's home much. At the age of eighteen I was now considered an adult, sort of, and fodder for the Vietnam war. So that birthday meant something to me and the United States Army. Turned out that they didn't want me. The last big birthday was twenty one. I was now old enough to drink and vote, and this being Chicago, in that order. After that my birthdays meant nothing to me. Just years flowing by until recently. A few years ago I realized how fast years pass and that old age was coming at me like a Mack truck in the wrong lane.

On Tuesday I looked in the mirror and saw my grandfather. When I was a kid it seemed like he had been in his seventies for about twenty years. I was now seventy three, and things keep failing. Eyes, feet, knees, shoulder, and a few other things are going bad. So now birthdays mean something different than they did when I was young. They're just another clickity clack of the tracks under the train hurtling me towards death.

Anyway, Tuesday was my birthday and I appreciate all the well wishes, dinners, and booze. The only thing I miss about my birthday is the phone call. Each and every birthday for the last forty or so years, the phone would ring. I would answer "Hello", and my mom would start singing  'Happy birthday to you..." Over the years the voice became a bit weaker until a couple of years ago, when I didn't get the call. That's the only thing I miss, and the only person who I really ever wanted to acknowledge my birth.

Merry Christmas IDiOT

I had an almost perfect Christmas day with my family on Sunday. Well, at least with half the family. With ten brothers and sisters, having just half of them around you is pretty good. Eleven of us together is overwhelming. Anyway, I left my sister's house around nine in the evening with another one of my sisters in my car. Her car had broken down and she needed a ride so of course I took her home. But not before I stopped for gasoline. It's really cheap out in my home town, around forty to fifty cents per gallon cheaper than in the city. 

This is not a story about cheap gas, my sisters, or Christmas. It's about the Illinois Department of Transportation. Also known as IDOT, which I believe has an 'I' missing from that acronym. Illinois highways have the worst street markings, terrible signage, and poor planning. After filling up with the cheap Will County gasoline, I got on the expressway that would get my sister home. It didn't take long before we were at the exit to take her home. At seventy miles per hour, I slowly moved over onto the exit ramp. First I heard this from my sister. "You're not on the pavement." She didn't scream it, just quietly informed me that I had missed the ramp. Then I heard the rumble of the 'rumble strip' put there for people like me, to let us know we're not on the pavement. Not my fault. There are no lines marking any pavement. Not on the interstate highway, not on the exit ramp. At least IDOT put that rumble strip at the edge of the highway. Anyway, I moved over onto the pavement and we successfully made our way off the interstate highway. I soon found myself on the two lane highway that goes to my sister's house.  It had no obvious centerline, a lot of black ice, and glaring headlights of oncoming cars. It was white knuckles all the way. After I dropped my sister off, I headed east on 147th Street, towards the interstate highway. Once again, no lines painted on the pavement, no lights for much of the route, and when I finally got to an area with lights, there was snow covering half the street. No problem. Stay in my lane, head east until I hit the expressway, and turn left. I haven't had to take this route but maybe three times in my life so I'm not all that familiar with it. But it's not all that complicated. As I neared Interstate 57, I could see the traffic whizzing by on the overpass. However, there are no brightly lit overhead signs telling you what side of the street the entrance is on. No signs a half mile before telling you a major interchange is coming up. Nothing until you're right on top of it. Because I was trying to figure out the side of the street I should be on, I missed the sign hidden off to the right. What I saw was a double left turn lane onto a ramp going in the direction of Chicago, so I whipped across two lanes of traffic and turned onto the ramp. No signs at all telling me what highway I had just turned onto, just a big overhead sign telling me 'I-Pass or Pay Online'. Sonofabitch. I was on the Illinois Tollway. I turned too soon, and there is no safe way to get off the Illinois Tollway once you get on it. I had to stay on the tollway. I had to pay to get home and travel an extra ten miles.

Jeopardy and Other Things

 

Twenty three years with somebody and you pick up a few habits. Every week day Mark and I would sit and watch Jeopardy together. Mark was very good at movie, Broadway, and author questions. I was good at geography, history, mechanical, and electronic type questions. Together we did pretty well, often beating the Jeopardy champion. Our rules did not include giving the answer in the form of a question, so that gave us a leg up. Also, as much as we liked being smarter than the contestants on Jeopardy, we liked beating each other to the answers even better. Mark has been gone for over two years now and only recently have I stopped yelling out the Jeopardy answers as if he were sitting over on the sofa competing with me. He's up on the fireplace mantel, and I finally realized he can't hear me. I now just think the answers and if there is such a thing as ghosts, I assume the ghost of Mark can hear me thinking those answers.

Last week I bought a three pack of Puffs facial tissues. For the last twenty five years I've been buying only Kleenex brand facial tissues because Mark insisted they were better. So last week I'm standing in the tissue aisle of the Jewel looking for the three pack of Kleenex tissues, and it hit me. Goddamn, Puffs are cheaper than Kleenex and besides, Jewel is sold out of Kleenex. I'll buy Puffs. I'm not sure how Mark was using tissues, but I can't tell any difference. I blow my nose in them, I blot my eyes with them after my eye drops, and I do not see any difference. This morning I had another epiphany. While I was standing in front of the toilet staring at the box of Puffs tissues, I remembered something. I never, ever bought facial tissues before I met Mark. No, for decades I used toilet paper to blow my nose or blot whatever needed blotting.

Don't get me wrong, I loved Mark and miss him. But these small things that I have let go of seem to help. Like deleting Bravo from my television guide. I did that the week Mark passed away. I hated Bravo.

Maybe I'm a Bit Over Caffeinated

 

French Press coffee maker

Last week I was watching a documentary about Automats in New York City. Automats were those restaurants with the food behind little glass doors. You dropped the appropriate number of nickels in a slot and the door would open, giving you a piece of pie, a sandwich, or whatever. They also had coffee for a nickel. The coffee would come out of a brass dolphin's mouth. The guy in the documentary said it was great coffee and then started talking about something called a "French Press". He said it was the best way to make coffee if you loved good coffee. I love good coffee. However, I am rarely satisfied with the coffee I make or the brewed coffee I might buy at a restaurant. So I immediately went to Amazon and entered the words French Press. They had plenty of French press coffee makers available, so I ordered the one with the most positive reviews. On the day it was delivered, I rushed into the kitchen and prepared myself a cup of what was to be the best brewed coffee I had ever had. It wasn't. It was bitter and tasted awful. So I read the instructions. It seems that regular Maxwell house ground coffee is not good enough. The grind was too fine. What I needed was whole coffee beans that were coarse ground. 

Yesterday morning I threw on my coat and went to the Jewel store for coarse ground coffee and a plantain (Making Cuban pork again). In the coffee and tea aisle there were many whole coffee bean choices, but no grinding machine. For the last fifty six years, since I was a stock boy at Jewel, they've had a grinding machine in the coffee aisle. Not yesterday. Instead there was an empty space where it had been and the stock boy told me it was removed because it kept breaking. Grrrr.... So I stormed out of there, leaving my shopping cart with one plantain in it, sitting in the aisle. I'm not paying for a plantain if they can't fix the coffee grinding machine. I then went to another Jewel up in Evanston. This time there wasn't even an empty space where the coffee grinder used to be. Oh sure, they still sold whole coffee beans of every type, but no way to grind them. Grrrr... I was pissed and wandered up to the self checkout with my plantain, cursing out loud. But I showed them. I self scanned my plantain and paid the forty three cents for it with my ATM card. Then I made sure that I put the plantain in a big bag. I'm only sorry that I didn't double bag it.

Automat coffee spigot

Dad's Home Movies

 

My dad passed away twenty two years ago. I miss him, but at least he left us with his home movies. Dad bought an 8mm movie camera in 1965, just in time for Christmas. Over the years, until VHS video came into being, Dad took lots of movies. I have been converting those old movies to MP4 files with a machine I bought a few months ago. One thing that has become apparent is that Dad was a crappy cameraman. His style was very shaky, and blurry, and in many cases the people had the top of their heads cut off. So it's not high quality video, but oh the memories those crappy movies are bringing back. What I've found interesting are the movies of my younger brothers and sisters that Dad took after I moved out of the house. I was nineteen when my youngest sister was one year old. In 1971 Mom and Dad took those five or six younger kids on a vacation to Tennessee, while I was living on a hippie commune in Iowa. That's the part I find so interesting, what they were all doing while I was stoned and living my life elsewhere. I'm starting to believe that Mom and Dad had eleven children because as long as there was a baby in the house, they felt young. Also, the odds increase that at least one of them won't be a stoned hippie.

I Never Want to See, Smell, or Taste Jell-O Again

 

7:00am: Monday morning. I've fed Scout and while she eats, I eat my breakfast. A half cup of bright, lime green Jell-O, and a cup of black coffee. I made two packages of lime Jell-O on Sunday in preparation for my colonoscopy fast. The instructions are no solid foods, but Jell-O is okay just as long as it isn't orange or red Jell-O. I guess if the doctor comes across something red in your intestines, he'll be confused.

10:30am: Jell-O fills you up just fine, for about sixty seconds and then the hunger returns. So, I ate some more Jell-O. In fact I've already eaten half of what I had made on Sunday.

11:34am: I'm at Lowes shopping for Christmas wreaths. Hunger has returned and I feel very lightheaded as find myself telling stupid jokes to the cashier. The cashier does not seem to appreciate my jokes since she has to work the register in the garden department and it's like forty degrees out there.

4:22pm: I'm sick of the flavor and smell of green Jell-O. That's all I have had to eat today. Now it's time to start taking the twelve pills that will leave my colon "Clean of stool." I opted for the pills because fifteen years ago I took the 'lemon' flavored liquid and I hated it. In fact I didn't finish all of it as prescribed because I didn't like the taste of lemon flavored vomit. It still worked fine. So I start taking the pills which I would describe as horse pills. They're very big. They go down just fine until I try swallowing the sixth pill. Oh well, I thought. At least I have something solid in my stomach, not just liquids and green Jell-O. Twenty minutes later I have washed down all the pills, but I used twice as much water as the instructions said to use. I'm now bloated and nauseous, and the instructions tell me to take even more water in thirty minutes. We're talking forty eight ounces of water all together, and I've already drank too much water.

6:50pm, a feeling in my gut says to run to the bathroom. I won't go into details.

11:00pm: After a break from the 'clean out' I have to take twelve more pills. I assume with similar results. 

 Tuesday, 12:40am: I can't go to bed because I fear I might fall asleep. I don't want to fall asleep. Not after I saw what happened six hours earlier.

Good Night

LGBTQ+

 

Fifty years ago I walked into a rundown house on Elm Street in Chicago and I think I joined the Chicago Gay Alliance. I don't remember any membership application or rules, nothing like that. You just kind of showed up and you were in. It was definitely a big sausage fest, no women in the place. However, in June when the big Gay Pride Parade and rally was held, there were women everywhere. Lesbians, also drag queens, bi-sexual people, and trans people. All under the same banner. 'Gay Pride'. Sometime in the last forty years everybody has wanted to be included in the description of who we are. First it was LGB, then they added the T. I thought that now we were only up to LGBTQ+, but I recently saw this, 'LGBTQQIP2SAA'.  Adding new letters every couple of years is causing confusion and  really makes it difficult for television news reporters. I've watched a few of them trip over LGBTQ+ a couple of times over the weekend. It's time to pick one word that encompasses everybody whose sexuality has been marginalized, and excluded from society. Stop with the alphabet soup already. I have a bunch of alternatives already in mind, but I seriously fear backlash if I put them down here. Like this one. the Free And Good Society. You could shorten that to an acronym just to make it roll off the tongue easier. I'll have to check with homo headquarters about that. Yes, we have a headquarters... a whole hierarchy just waiting to take over the world. 

Did You Hear the One About the Shoe Salesman?

 

You know how there is the question, if you could go back in time what would you tell your younger self? I would tell young Alan, "Always wear decent shoes. Good shoes that fit and support your feet. Don't wear crap." Unfortunately I wore mostly Sears cheapo shoes as a teenager, and crap shoes in my twenties. I worked for a shoe wholesale shop back then, and the shoes were almost all imported from Poland. This is back when Poland was still a communist country with no quality or standards. Just a bunch of comrades slapping leather together. My boss let me buy my shoes for cost, so they were dirt cheap. Mostly I got the work boots which actually didn't look too bad, but boy did they fit like shit. So I started out as a kid with flat feet that splayed outwards, and ended up making them even worse as an adult. I now have worse flat feet, a neuroma in my right foot that the doctor says he can't fix, neuropathy in my toes, and a chipped ankle bone. This has made me very particular about what shoe I buy. Now I go to high end athletic shoe stores and try on shoes until find the pair that is just right. I did that last Thursday. I was the first customer for Lauren, the shoe sales lady. Poor Lauren, she had no idea what her morning was going to be like. She brought me four shoes to try on at first. It was like Goldilocks but without the 'just right' part. I hated all of them. So Lauren says, "I'll go down and get you some more to try on." Yes, the shoes in this store were all in the basement. That lady had to go up and down the stairs at least ten times, not counting the trips back down there to return the dozens of shoes I didn't buy. I did finally find a pair that fit me thanks to Lauren. And kudos to her for not just having the stamina and good nature to run up and down those stairs. No, she also listened to my stupid jokes for nearly an hour.

I Do Like Chocolate Malts

 

Fifteen years ago my doctor told me to get a colonoscopy. So I got a colonoscopy. Like everybody says, the actual procedure isn't so bad because they put you in fantasyland with the nice drugs. What I hated about it, and why I never got another colonoscopy in fifteen years, was the preparation. From what I remember, I had to drink about three gallons of a disgusting liquid that tasted like a vomit milkshake. I shudder just thinking about it. Of course the reason they have you drink that stuff is to clean you out, and clean me out it did. Like a fire hose.

A couple of months ago I did the Cologuard thing, which is like doing a school science project with your own poop. That also is disgusting. Anyway, the results came back and I was told that I needed the colonoscopy again. So I have it scheduled in three weeks, right after Thanksgiving. I did tell my doctor that I didn't want to drink that preparation goop again, that I had heard of a pill you can take instead. The doctor told me that was my choice and wrote me a prescription for the pill. But, it isn't a pill. It is twenty four pills the size of my pinky finger that I have to wash down with gallons of water in two thirty minute periods. These are supposed to be about six hours apart with the second of those thirty minute periods at midnight the night before the procedure. So I'm expected to get a good night's sleep with the preparation pills knocking at my back door all night. I'm sure it won't be an easy night for me. However, at least I don't have to drink three gallons of vomit flavored milkshakes.

Shhh... it's listening

 

I have four Amazon Alexa things placed around the house. As of right now, all I can figure what she's good for is to turn the lights on and off, set a timer, and play music. I'm sure it can do more than that, but things get complicated beyond telling her, "Alexa, light off." Seriously, getting her to sync with the smart plugs I bought for the lights was a challenge. Kind of like the challenge of me not calling her a bitch as I write this. Why would I call an inanimate electronic device foul names? Because I don't think she is completely inanimate. I don't think Alexa is an innocent contraption that is only here for my own good. I think Alexa is always listening to me. I will simply think about something and moments later, on Facebook, ads for what I was thinking will show up. I spoke with Dennis recently about places that old people can move into, where every whim is taken care of for ten thousand dollars a month. Within an hour ads for 'retirement' homes started showing up on my Facebook page. Yes, I know. Amazon and Facebook are not the same company. They have different super rich assholes running them. But I think the super rich assholes all get together and are in cahoots. I think they put Alexa in my house to further their goal of owning a million dollars for every penny I own. Why else would Alexa suddenly stop playing my hillbilly retro music when I quietly tell Scout that she's a good girl? I think it stopped playing music to listen to what I was saying. I don't have any proof, but just an hour later I started getting ads for Farmer's Dog, dog food. I'm telling you, they're in cahoots.... Aw crap, now I'll get ads for bars named Cahoots.

Cowabunga ?

 

I met Mark in April of 1997, I didn't get to know him as well as maybe I should have before he moved in with me. It was June and the stormiest month in South Florida. Mark's apartment building got hit by lightning and his apartment became unlivable. It blew out all the electricity leaving no lights, no air conditioning, and no way to cook the great meals he had been luring me with. So I suggested he move in with me. It took me about six months to figure out a lot of things that I should have known before hand. Like the fact that Mark liked to shop. He had taken over the redecorating of my house and we spent about two months shopping for a dining room table. It had to be perfect for him, and cheap for me. This sort of thing went on again and again for twenty three plus years. Mark also loved holidays. Christmas became a nightmare for me. Mark would make it a very beautiful holiday that Dickens or Clement Moore would love, but a nightmare for me. Mostly because I did all the grunt work while Mark was the overseer. But this story is actually about our first Halloween together. I did not know how seriously Mark took Halloween. It meant nothing to me, but Mark insisted we have costumes and go out on Halloween. During one of Mark's shopping safaris he had found giant rubber Simpson's heads. One of Homer and one of Bart Simpson. These were to be the basis of our Halloween costumes. So on that evening we dressed as the cartoon characters, and slipped the giant rubber heads on. I don't know why, but we drove through Wilton Manors, Florida in Mark's little red Miata, with the top down, wearing those giant rubber heads. This was seriously dangerous. I couldn't see anything but straight ahead. Not only that, it was probably eighty degrees with ninety percent humidity and my head was inside a giant rubber Homer Simpson head. I was sweating profusely, I couldn't see where the hell I was going, but Mark was having a great time. I definitely was not. Not until I took off the giant rubber head, cooled down, and had my first vodka cocktail.

Over the many years, Mark continued to dress in some really great costumes every Halloween. I never dressed up in costume again...  Oh sure, Alexis and Alicia. But those girls stayed home and hated Halloween too.

When Worlds Collide (Repost)

 

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2011

When Worlds Collide

For a little over three years I have volunteered at a no kill pet shelter. It is run by a very dedicated staff, and they are supplemented by an enthusiastic group of volunteers. One of the activities we volunteer for are the 'Meet and Greet' events. These consist of taking some of the dogs and cats to fairs, stores, and other places where people gather so that they might find adoptive families. Usually the meet and greet crew consists of various old ladies, nice man/woman couples, and the ever present gay man or two. So when the call went out for help at a meet and greet at a local gay bar, of course I immediately signed up. The bar is called The Ramrod.

The Ramrod is a leather bar. That means that the guys get dressed up in varying degrees of leather costumes, and play different roles in their little alternate reality. Some are into S&M, some bondage, and some... well who knows. Many years ago I used to go to this bar on occasion. I am not into that leather scene, nor do I own any of the accessories used in that scene. Mostly I went for the cheap drinks, and the fact that once in a while those guys do go vanilla. What I remembered about that bar was that it was very dark inside, had different forms of restraining devices placed around the bar for customer use, and that they showed hard core pornography on the video screens.

Never the less, what could go wrong with us bringing some of our dogs over there? I figured we would set up a table with our flyers and promotional stuff right outside the front door, greeting the leather boys as they arrived. It was when Barb, the organizer of this event, informed me that no, it wouldn't be out front but on the 'patio' that I started to worry. Maybe I waited too long, but on Saturday afternoon I emailed Barb asking her if she was aware of what that place was. She replied back that she did, and besides it would be in the early evening, before the leatherwear crowd showed up.

So early Sunday evening, we arrived with our dogs. Our crew consisted of me and Mark, two other gay men, Barb, and another middle aged lady. After making our way past the dildo gift shop, we stumbled through the nearly pitch black inner bar area, and out back to the patio. The patio was just a narrow area between the back of the building, and the property line. It was damp, and smelly, but there was a bar and bartender out there. So we set up our little table next to the pillory (a medieval restraining device). The dogs immediately began sniffing things of uncertain origin that were jammed into the corners, and trying to taste the moist spots on the floor. Besides the pillory, there were chains, ropes, and video screens. On those video screens they were showing porn movies. Hard core gay porn movies. Big, beefy, hairy men doing what your mother always told you not to do. If you tried to avoid looking at the porn by casting your eyes downward, you were greeted by men in assless chaps. I looked over at Barb, and then over to the other lady. They seemed unperturbed. Instead of their heads spinning, and them gouging their eyes out, they were both busy talking to guys, trying to find those who might possibly adopt a dog. All I can figure is that either they are blind, kinky themselves, or just troopers doing whatever it takes to find a home for the dogs.

That Nagging Feeling That You Forgot Something

 

It seems that I cannot multi-task. If I get distracted, whatever it was that I thought I was doing is completely wiped away. Like Saturday when I took my sister and my brother in law out for a ride in my old car. I pulled out of the garage just as my neighbor was coming down the alley. So I, like the good neighbor I am, pulled ahead into the little parking lot behind the stores on Peterson Avenue. Then, after the neighbor pulled past me, I had my passengers climb on into the old Model A Ford. You can't get into the car in the garage because there just isn't enough room to open both doors, so I make all passengers wait in the alley. After they got in it was off to dinner and later a stop for ice cream. It was a wonderful evening, even the weather cooperated. Balmy and clear. Which also describes my brain. Balmy and clear. Cleared of all thought when I pulled out of the garage other than I had to let the neighbor past my car. I totally forgot to hit the button to close the garage door. When we returned, I was horrified to see my garage wide open with the lights on. We had been gone for at least an hour and a half, and I left the garage open for all the thieves of Chicago to help themselves. I learned as a child, that in Chicago you cannot leave anything unattended. That was driven home when my brother left our cousin's bicycle in front of our grandparent's house for "Just a minute" and it got swiped. Anyway, I did a quick inventory of my garage. Nothing was taken. Not the lawn mower, not any of my tools, nothing. My faith in humanity was restored. People aren't all thieves. That, or it just meant that no thieves had wandered down our alley for a couple of hours. One thing that is good to know, I did lock the side door of the garage. Nice and tight, double bolted.

I Walked Like a Duck, sooo...

 

1952, That's me in the duck costume

I bought some Halloween candy last week. Two bags of Reese's mini peanut butter cups. I swear, I won't eat them. I got away without having to deal with kids trick or treating for the last three years. In 2019 it snowed and no kids came around, and the last two years the covid scared them away. I don't think I can get away with ignoring it again this year.

I can do without Halloween. Mark loved it and always tried to get me involved, but I mostly resisted. Mark did not hate it, he looked forward to Halloween and always had very clever costumes. I did not. I wore regular clothes and simply accompanied Mark as his bad date. In fact after a few years of going out with Mark, I stopped. Instead I just sat in my big recliner and told him to have a great time as he walked out the door.

Maybe the last three years broke the cycle of Halloween trick or treating. Possibly not one child dressed in some costume I can't figure out, will show up. Not one troublesome teen who should have stopped doing the trick or treating thing by seventh grade will come ringing my doorbell. And hopefully, idiot adults dressed as sexy nuns, sexy nurses, and sexy whores will stay away. Not that I want all those Reese's mini peanut butter cups for myself. Seriously, I do not. I worked hard losing more than thirty pounds. No, instead I'll bring the leftover candy to bowling and let those folks get fat.

Mark as Tonto

Orange Juice

 

Yesterday morning, Sunday, I fired up the oven for my two mini-croissants from Trader Joe's. I then fried two eggs, sunny side up, and poured myself a glass of orange juice. I was going to have myself a pleasant Sunday morning breakfast. I used to do this for Mark, fix a fancy ass breakfast on Sundays, so I like to keep up that little bit of my life. The mini-croissants came out perfect. Golden brown and airy, fluffy. I placed my plate of eggs and croissants on the table along with the orange juice. Scout lay next to my chair in anticipation because when I eat, she eats. Scout is a bit plump. Alexa was pumping jazz music throughout the house and all was right with the world... and then I reached for a napkin. Well, goddamnedsonofabitch, I brushed against the glass of orange juice and in slow motion I watched as it spilled across the table drowning everything in its path.

I have this habit when I walk in the house, of dropping whatever I have in my hands on the dining room table. Favorite CDs that I have been listening to in my car, magazines, my wallet, my keys, and the mail. It was all engulfed in orange juice. I also had my new city sticker for the car on the table. That also got orange juice on it. I may have set a new record for the number of times I said the 'F' word repetitively without stopping. Sure, after awhile I punched it up with some other foul curse words, but only saying fuck over and over again helped. I kept repeating it as I ran around with a roll of paper towels trying to sop up the spill. It was a mess.

Mark used to accuse me of purposely spilling glasses and breaking them. I do not do that. I have crappy vision and I don't wear glasses when I eat. I blame the design of beverage glasses for causing me such distress. Wide at the top, and rounded and narrow at the bottom. What the hell, why? It's just an accident waiting to happen. Anyway, I have a new juice glass that I will use from now on. I found it over on the bar next to the whiskey bottle. It's wide and heavy at the bottom, like all glasses should be.

My new juice glass

The Blind Leading the Blinds

 

I was going to bed last night, and when I looked down at my leg, there on my inner thigh was a giant bruise. A big splotch of various purple hues up and down my inner thigh. I have no idea how I got that other than as a gift from the DNA I inherited from my mom. She also used to bruise at just the thought of brushing past a hard object. My only clue to the big bruise were the new blinds I put up on the front windows of our home. I could have injured myself there. 

For six years I have left the raggedy shades on those windows that the previous owners had put up. Probably thirty years ago. Every time I priced new shades a shiver went down my spine. That's an awful lot of money to spend on window shades, I would tell myself. So I never pulled the trigger on ordering them. Not until most of them had tangled cords, bent folds, and were pretty much just twisted junk. For two days I labored, taking down the old and putting up the new blinds that replaced them. Once again, the product came from China. I don't purposely order products from China, it's just the way it is. As a way to screw with us imperialistic Americans, the Chinese like to include cryptic instructions printed in the tiniest font available. Thank goodness for YouTube, the how to do it for old folks. Almost everything I do these days includes a review of how to do it on YouTube. Seriously, I don't know how we lived before the age of videos. Oh, wait. Now I remember. Clear instructions in a large enough font, written by somebody with a firm grip on the English language, and usually the product was made within five hundred miles of my house.

Autumn in Chicago

 

Cars covered in fall leaves (Look closely. they're honey locust leaves)

The honey locust trees are the last to get their leaves in the spring, and the first to drop them in autumn. Tiny little yellow leaves everywhere. Open the door to your car and you'll find them stuck in every crevice and on the floor. Yes, it is the season they call 'fall' because that's what happens. Leaves fall, temperatures fall, and old people start looking forward to falling in a couple of months. Winter ice is brutal. Autumn is the season when I remember that I don't live in Florida anymore. Not that I dread winter, it's just that fifty degrees in September is so much colder than fifty degrees in February. If we get a warm spell in January or February and the temperature jumps up near fifty degrees, you'll see Chicagoans running around in tee shirts and shorts. Sometimes they'll even break out the flip flops. Not me. Unless it's over sixty degrees I stick to the long pants and layers of shirts and sweaters.

In the fall of the first year we moved back to Chicago from Florida, on the first day the weather turned nasty and dropped to under fifty degrees, I got ready to walk the dogs. I put on a sweat shirt, the big fluffy coat Mark had bought me, a hat and gloves, and braved the cold along with Chandler. He also didn't like being cold. He was a Florida dog all the way. We hurried down the street to the corner where a family of Chicago firemen lived. As we turned up Thorndale the firemen were all out there, drinking beers in tee shirts and shorts. I'll never forget the distain in the voice from one of the older guys in the group. "Geez, look at this guy. He's all bundled up already. Damn, it's only October fer krissakes."

The firemen don't live in that house anymore. A family from Vietnam bought it. You know, Vietnam. Where it's hotter than hell most of the year. I've seen them outside in the middle of winter, also in tee shirts.

The Ugly Americans

 

Over the years Mark and I traveled quite often. Probably thirty or forty trips around North America, and Europe. On most of those trips, at some point, I would swear that I would never travel with him again. My need to rest after a couple of hours of sightseeing conflicted with Mark's belief that when you go away, you must spend every single hour walking, riding, visiting museums, and going out in the evening to party. I don't think he ever grasped the fact that I was ten years older than he was. One trip that Mark liked to bring up in company often, was our visit to Prague. He usually got on the subject when the idea of finding your way around a strange city came up. Mark got lost in every single city we visited and I liked to tell those stories. So Mark got great pleasure in telling how Alan made a mistake finding our way to the night life in Prague.

We had got on the correct tram, but if you know me, you know that I always think I know where I'm going. As the tram snaked through the city I kept on assuring Mark that I knew exactly when we should get off. I had looked at the map and saw that we had to exit the big red tram just before it crossed the river. About two blocks before the river the tram stopped and most of the people got off. Mark suggested that maybe we should too. "No, not this stop. We get off at the river." I told him. As we approached the river bridge, I stood up and told Mark that our stop was coming up. I was a bit surprised when the train just kept going past the corner and across the river. We should have got off with all those other people. I pressed the call button over and over. The driver ignored me. Finally on the far side of the river, the tram stopped and the doors opened. Mark got off, and as I stepped off he began berating me. I tried to make an excuse, but Mark did not hear me because he was yelling. The few people around looked at us like we were nuts, all cursing and yelling in a foreign language. Oh, I didn't mention, at that time not very many Czechs spoke English. It was very rare to run into one who understood us. Anyway, we started on foot back across the bridge, Mark yelling, me yelling, and then it started raining. You'd think he was melting, the way Mark whined. At that point I swore I would never travel with him again. We did finally make it back across to the entertainment area we had been trying to get to. Not before fending off numerous prostitutes, but we got there. We had a couple of drinks in a bar where nobody spoke English, and then took a taxi back to our bed and breakfast. The next morning I got up all rested and ready for our tour of the castle where I got explosive diarrhea. But that's another story.

No Air Bags, No Seat Belts, No Radio

 

I learned something this week. My brother, Dave, bought a memorial brick in Mark's name at the Gilmore Auto Museum in Hickory Corner's, Michigan. I do want to go and see that brick. It means a lot to me. This weekend will be Model A days at the museum and I won't be going. That's because I was not sure of how a trip that long in a ninety three year old car would turn out. Like I said, I learned something. Instead of joining the Model A club in four hundred mile round trip, I and my brother Gary, took a much shorter trip into Indiana on Monday. Sort of a test run to see if I should join the club caravan next year. First of all, it rained. It rained all day Monday. It rained on Tuesday with early fog thrown in. Did I mention that my windshield wiper doesn't work? I learned that a product called Rain-x works pretty good letting rain sheet off your windows. I also learned that on the second day of rain, most of that Rain-x has washed off. I had wanted to take a lot of photos of our little trip, but it was raining. Lots of rain. Weatherman had said twenty percent chance of rain. We had one hundred percent of rain all day Monday, and the entire drive back to Chicago until we hit the city limits. All day Monday people were texting me that the weather back home was pretty nice. Sun and perfect temperatures. Not in Indiana. On Indiana route 35, northbound, I learned that the Indiana State Police will not stop to help when a 1929 Ford has a flat tire right in front of them. We had a flat tire. The car directly behind me when the tire went flat was an Indiana State Police car. It did not stop. So we pulled off into the soft mud on the side of the road and changed our tire in the rain.

Like I said, I learned things. I learned that even when the weather in Chicago is gorgeous, Indiana weather, only a few miles away, can be crap. I learned that it was very wise to bring my brother Gary along. He was an awesome navigator, with his little GPS app on his phone. Only got us lost twice. I also learned that such a long drive in a very old car is hard on my seventy two year old body. My back ached, my knee hurt (clutch), and I got very tired. So I won't be going to the Gilmore Museum with the other Model A's next September. More likely I'll be in my 2014 Ford Fusion with air conditioning, radio, seat belts, windshield wipers, automatic transmission, and very, very comfortable seats.

I Went to a Concert and I Didn't Bring My Phone

 

I think they're called woohoo girls. The ones you see at a concert wearing tight clothes, a floppy hat or cowboy hat, who sometimes sit on their boyfriend's shoulders and if they can't do that, dance on the seat right in front of you. I don't like them. Sunday we had a version of that person. I was at the Diana Ross concert. We had pretty good seats with nobody in front of us for the first hour and a half while the opening acts were playing. Then Diana came out in all her splendor. Everybody jumped to their feet and sang and danced along to the music. About four songs in, when things calmed down, everybody sat back down. That's when the woohoo girl came bouncing into the row of seats right in front of us. She looked me right in the eyes as she wiggled and bounced, in a kind of screw you moment. She and her woohoo girlfriend didn't sit from there on. While everybody else sat, they stood and danced in front of us. When everybody stood to cheer and also dance, they stayed dancing in front of us. Yes, I danced. Which is very similar to the Trump dance. Feet planted firmly while kind of punching at the air right in front of me. Unless I had my hands in my pockets, then it was Trumpian without the air punching. Anyway jiggling and dancing isn't all the woohoo girls did. They and their pudgy man friend took video of the concert with their phones. In fact out of the three thousand, eight hundred people in that pavilion, Three thousand, seven hundred and eighty nine of them were taking video. Holding their phones up and staring intently at the little screens in front of them. The eleven who did not take video were all elderly, infirm people who couldn't stand up, and me. I don't like to bring my phone to concerts. I like to be there and actually see the act in person. You know it's true, none of those folks will ever look at those videos again past the next day. Just hundreds of terabytes of data wasting away in the cloud. Oh, and the dumb asses blocking our view of the stage? My friend Doug put down his smart phone just long enough to tap one of them on the shoulder and ask them to move over.

Nineteen

 

Lila at nineteen

That's a photo of my mom at the age of nineteen, probably taken by my father who was not yet eighteen years old. When that photo was taken Mom and Dad had known each other for two years. I look at that picture and wonder, what did Mom see in her future? I know that Al Putz was part of that vision. It's written on the back of one of the first photos she had of him. It says something like, "I want him." She got him. They were married exactly two years after this photo was taken.

Did Mom know that she would be taken out of her city neighborhood and dropped into a tiny rural town, twenty miles southwest of Back of the Yards? It doesn't seem so far today, but back then there were no interstates. Also, the city ended around eighty seventh street. From there on it was corn fields and farms. I remember being nineteen, with a long and unknown future in front of me. At that age you have no idea. I'm sure my mom did not think she would be mother to eleven. Was she expecting to live another eighty years when that photo was taken? She probably didn't even think about such a thing. Yet Mom did live almost to one hundred years. Fifty seven of them with my dad, who passed in March of 2000.

I sure hope Mom was happy with how it all turned out. I think she was happy. Seriously, how could she not be happy? She had me for a son.

Alan Gets Beat Up By Ninety Three Year Old, Henry.

 

My arm is bruised, my ribs and knees hurt, but I eventually won. In my garage is a ninety three year old Ford that is... or was one hundred percent stock as it came from the factory. Over the weekend I changed one thing. I removed the generator and replaced it with an alternator. The reason was that I want to add some extra tail lights. Henry Ford built these cars with only one small, dim light in the rear. Also, my headlights will work better. Anyway, on Saturday I watched the video on how to install my new alternator. It looked so easy. The guy removed the old generator and slapped the alternator in the car in only eight minutes. So easy... so easy. That's the giveaway right there. If it looks easy, It will not be. Removing the generator was easy, but the old Ford just didn't want that new fangled part in him. First of all, the bolt was too long and rubbed against the fan belt. That's how I got my arm all bruised up, banging it against the radiator shell. Which is another point. I kept going back to the video to see what I was doing wrong and about the third time through it I noticed that the guy was installing the alternator on a stripped down Model A. No radiator shell, no fenders, no hood. He had great access to do the job. They probably also made sure everything fit before they even turned on the camera. At one point I was instructed to insert two washers between the engine block and the alternator bracket. Out of the four washers I had on hand, I lost three. I saw them slip out of my greasy fingers and disappear into thin air. When the cursing got too loud and I worried that the neighbors would complain, I gave up. I would continue the fight on Sunday. Early Sunday I went to Home Depot to find a shorter bolt and buy more washers. In the screws, bolts, and nuts aisle Home Depot had rows of flat drawers. On the outside is a description of what is in them. All orderly, and color coded. Then when you open the drawer that says what you need is inside, you find a jumbled mess of nothing that you need. Torn open bags of bolts, washers, and nuts, all the wrong size.

Long story too long now to make short, I got the alternator installed. It actually works and I now will feel a bit safer driving my old Ford at night. Hopefully nothing else will need attention for a week or so. I need to heal.

Roselle Road

 

My cousin used to call me "Map Mind" because I could find any place after looking at or driving a route just once. That's why I was so good at driving a taxi and delivery van in my youth.

Last Thursday I had a lunch date with my sister, Peggy. She picked a restaurant she considered to be easy for me and her to both get to. She lives out in DuPage County, I live in Chicago. The place she found for lunch was out on Roselle Road, right off the tollway. So I looked it up on Google maps. I have a problem with looking up locations on a computer map. I grew up finding places on a paper maps and I find it hard to see the entire layout of an area on a computer screen. Anyway, I looked at the Google and to me it looked like Roselle Road was two exits past O'Hare Airport on the Northwest Tollway. Not that far. So on Thursday morning I got on the tollway and started driving. I drove and I drove, for miles looking for the sign that said 'Roselle Road Exit'. Surely after driving for half an hour I should have seen that sign. I figured I had missed it somehow, which is not like me. So I got off the tollway and checked it out on my Samsung very smart phone. No, I had not passed Roselle Road. In fact it was fifteen minutes further according to the Samsung. However, the Illinois Tollway System being the thing that it is, did not allow me to re-enter the highway heading west. I had to do the last fifteen minutes of driving on secondary streets. Well, godammit. Turns out that suburban street signage sucks. You're doing fifty miles per hour and as you come up to a major intersection, there is no notice of what road you are crossing. Just a little sign overhead as you pass on through. Much too late to make a turn. Of course I missed Roselle Road and would have to do a U-turn. Which is illegal in Illinois. Totally legal in Florida, not Illinois. And, of course, just as I started my U-turn a Roselle police car pulled up right behind me. I immediately aborted the U-turn and drove an extra mile before I could make my way back.

I really do hate the suburbs. Give me flying bullets, carjackers, and bus fumes any day over suburbs.

Mini Me

 

A few years ago Mark had me stick a mint plant in the ground next to the fence. It was one little mint plant that grew, and grew, and spread until it lined the fence for fifteen feet. Not only that, it spread under the fence into my neighbor's yard. She didn't care. She stuck a bunch of it in a large baggie and took it to New York with her where she made mojito's for her New York friends. (She's got a good job and also has homes in New York and Los Angeles.) I've left the mint alone for the most part, unless it tries to break out of the area I have allowed it to have. That's when I hit it with the lawn mower, which does not bother it in the least. Within three days it has retaken the lawn and more.

About five or so weeks ago my friend, Chuck gave me a plant. It was a tiny thing with only three leaves.

"It's a mini pumpkin plant. They don't get any bigger than a softball."

So I took a little shovel and dug a hole in front of the mint. I stuck the 'mini' pumpkin plant in the hole and marked it with two stakes so I would know where I had planted it. For a few days it was touch and go. I wasn't sure if it would actually grow. I needn't have worried. After one good rainy day it took off like some kind of science fiction monster, growing at least six or more inches a day. I realized I had a problem when it tried to grab my ankle as I took out the garbage. It has now completely smothered the mint and is reaching out for my rose of sharon bush. So I have had to trim it a few times, but each time it grows back longer and bigger. I have rooted around under those leaves and I believe I may have at least two dozen mini pumpkins in a couple of months. Not exactly sure what to do with them, but they'll be there. I do have to hand it to the mint. It is putting up a good fight and I do see a few sprigs poking up from under the mini pumpkin plant. The fact is, the mint will win. It's a perennial. Mini pumpkin is only a scary annual.

Potty Story

 

I was nearly an adult the first time I found myself in a 'fancy' public women's bathroom. I was shocked. They had a whole living room in there. They had a sofa and an end table with a lamp on it. It was very nice and you couldn't even see a toilet from the sofa area. Don't ask me why I was in there because I don't remember, just that I was there. So for the next fifty or sixty years, every time a woman excused herself to go to the bathroom in a public space, I imagined she needed to rest on that sofa. Men's toilets were a whole different story. From early childhood on, I was exposed to some of the weirdest public bathrooms imaginable. It's where I learned the little poem that went like this. "Here I sit broken hearted. Tried to shit but only farted." It was usually carved into the stall wall. Pre-pubescent Alan found that to be very clever. I also found even worse drawings scratched on the walls of toilet stalls. Graphic depictions of what pervy young men thought women looked like naked. There were also scratched or written on those walls,  invitations by men to engage with other men. In the 1950s through the 1970s, public mens bathrooms were an uncivilized free for all.

I haven't been in such a restroom like that in quite awhile. I find every restroom I visit these days to be clean and unsullied. But then again, I haven't been to a Cook County Forest Preserve potty in many, many years. Which by the way, do the women's outhouses in the forest preserves have sofas in them?

Pimple

 

Around the age of fifteen my face looked like the Pacific 'Ring of Fire'. Pimples waiting to explode like so many tiny volcanoes. I did everything right. Washed my face, used pimple cream, and tried not to pick at them. That was difficult because there's nothing as satisfying as popping a pimple. Every time I thought the onslaught of teen skin eruptions had settled down, a new giant pimple would emerge. I could go to bed at night with only a minor pimple puss and wake up in the morning with a red beast pushing out of my face. It was a troubling time that many kids went through before the invention of decent acne treatments in the 1970s. Lucky for me, the photographer who did the photos for the high school yearbook, was an artist with the airbrush. To look at my yearbook photo you'd never know I had a red giant on the end of my nose. Now, fifty four years later you would think the problem of pimples would be behind me. It is not. Yesterday morning I woke up to find one of what my mom used to call 'blind' pimples, had taken up residence in my ear. It's not popable, and it's painful. That's what I get for wishing I was  young again. A pimple.

The photographer was an artist

Ghost Cables

 

It's been about forty five years since the City of Chicago first allowed cable television within the city limits. Mayor Richard J. Daley did not want cable TV in the city, so he blocked it. Probably because he hadn't figured out how he could profit from cable. After a long wait, Mayor Daley finally died and we eventually got cable. Since the mid 1980s cable has flourished in the city. Companies have come and gone, merged, and been bought up by the big boys. During all those permutations, those cable companies apparently visited the building that I now own. Each and every one of them strung their own cables from the pole in the alley to my building to provide entertainment to the residents. From what I can figure out, there are cables from DirecTV, RCN, and Comcast, along with some unknown providers. So I have at least five different cables strung across the alley to my house. Only one of them delivers a product. Yesterday Xfinity (Comcast) came and disconnected one of them and strung a new cable. They left the old cable attached to my house with nothing connected at either end. So I went out there with a pair of wire clippers last evening and at least got rid of that bit of cable company laziness. Unfortunately I cannot get rid of the other cables that run from the pole in the alley to the wall of my back porch. Ghost cables that go nowhere. They are unsightly, but they do provide a perch for the multitude of birds that seem to love our yard. I know this because right below those ghost cables are splotches of bird poop. Usually dropped dead center on each of my patio chairs.

They go nowhere, attached to nothing

Dewey Eyed

 

I was watching the CBS Sunday Morning show and they had a segment on there about modern libraries. It was very interesting and it made me think. When was the last time I used a library? Six years ago I voted in the local Chicago Library branch in my neighborhood, but that really didn't count. About fifteen years ago I got a library card from the Wilton Manors, Florida library so I could take out a couple of audio books. That was for our road trip to Chicago that summer. Before that the only time I remember going to the library was forty four years ago in Oakland, California. I was living in Oakland and I had a kitten that the little girl next door gave me. Her cat had a litter and they were so damn cute I had to have one. I soon found out it was infested with fleas. Anyway, that kitten made a sound that reminded me of the Russian word for no. "Nyet, nyet, nyet!" Not meow, or mew, but nyet. So I wanted to name her after Nikita  Khrushchev's wife. In 1978 there was no internet. There were no personal computers, no smart phones. No, you had to go to the library to find things out. Which is what I did. Mrs. Khrushchev's name was Nina, so I named my kitten Nina. That was three times I used the library since high school. Before that I went to the library quite often. The Tinley Park Library, my high school library, and in junior high school I would use Mrs. Sandidge's very special library. Central Junior High had no regular library that I remember. Just the little library that Mrs. Sandidge, our history teacher, had in the back of her classroom. A bunch of books and magazines that had some connection with history. It was my favorite library of all. That's the library where I found a book with the whole story about the Fatty Arbuckle incident. A very detailed description of the Fatty Arbuckle incident. You sure learned things in Mrs. Sandidge's library.

(click here for the story of Fatty Arbuckle)

Red Meat

 

For the last few months I have had a recurring problem. I keep biting the inside of my mouth while I'm eating. Everybody has done that at one point in their life, but this is different. It's like I'm trying to eat my face from the inside out. Yesterday I bit into my lower lip so hard, I was bleeding. Sure it added some flavor to the Italian sausage sandwich I was eating, but it hurt like hell. I can't quite figure out why this is happening so often. At least once a week, and often twice or three times, I bite the inside of my mouth. I've narrowed part of the problem down to not concentrating on what I'm doing. I noticed that if I look away from my dinner plate, to the side, up, or down, I will bite my cheek. So, if I just keep looking forward, chew slowly, and keep a wad of food in my cheek, I'm fine. I have another theory of what's causing this sudden hunger for human flesh. I lost too much weight. The fat in my face that held up the skin is gone. It now sags tantalizingly close to my teeth. Instead of a nice, plumped up face, I now have old man skin that sags and flutters around like curtains on a breezy day. Eating my way out of this and fattening back up might be the only way to stop it. Or I could drink my meals. Smoothies are good. You don't have to chew them and for my evening dinner smoothie, I could include rum.

Alan the Pro!

 

2018, Notice the gap around the mirror.

The word 'pro' is actually an abbreviation of the word professional. I am not that. The pro that I am, is pro-crastinator. Not that I'm lazy. I don't think that I am. It's just that when I have a task to do, one that is more complicated than washing the dishes, I have to prepare mentally. I have to have the whole thing planned out in my mind and I have to convince myself that I will do it to completion. Mark would always nag me to finish things. Like the hallway off of our bedroom. Six years ago he told me to paint it. I still have the paint and some of the tools to do the job. I simply have to wrap my head around taking the pictures off the walls, and taping up the parts I don't want to get paint on. And then there is the big part, bringing the can of paint up from the basement along with paint brushes and rollers.... which I would have to go out and buy. Sorry Mark, that you didn't live to see me finish that job. It weighs heavy on my mind every time I look at the scuff marks on the hallway walls. Another job I started before Mark passed away was the bathroom mirror/medicine cabinet. I began that one four years ago. I opened up a hole in the wall where the 1970s mirror hung, and mounted Mark's flea market find in the hole. A lovely medicine cabinet with two sconces on either side that is age appropriate for our building. The problem is that I left it like that. It didn't quite fit and there was a gap about half an inch wide all the way around it. It was another thing that bothered me, that Mark never got to see finished. These things really do bug me. So why do I procrastinate? It's because filling in that gap would require tile, tile glue (mastic), and grout. I had to get that all straight in my head before starting. I needed a spackle knife, sponge, clean rags, along with the tile and tile cutter. My brain kept telling me that was too many variables. Anyway, over the weekend I sucked it up and pulled everything together. The job is now done. I think it looks just fine. If Mark were still around, he would look at it and shake his head as he walked away. Keeping his thoughts to himself, banking my crappy tile job for some later argument. Which is good enough for me.

2022, Finished