I'm a Lazy Boy

 

Four of my recent recliner chairs

I'm addicted to recliner chairs. I've gone through about eight of them over the years. Some have lasted four years, some only two years. The one I have now is okay, but I've noticed that the dye in the 'leather' upholstery is coming off. Some of it on the back of my legs when I wear shorts. That's very weird looking, like I have some kind of skin condition. I've found that underneath all the lovely padding and upholstery, all these chairs are pretty much exactly the same. Which is why they seem to break down. My last one, which cost a thousand dollars, simply gave up under the weight of my fat ass and snapped. The metal underpinnings actually snapped in half. So on Saturday I went out to look at buying a new recliner. First stop was a major department store. On their website I saw that they had a sale going on which discounted their already reasonable prices. At the actual store, I couldn't find any of those chairs. Every chair I looked at had a price tag at least twice what I had seen on the website. So I left that place and went to another place, a place you might call a place for room furniture. This room sort of place had the most hideous, ugly furniture I have ever seen. Faux wood carved chairs made out of something that was not wood. Living room furniture with blue LED lights along the lower edge of every piece. There were over exaggerated, imitation Spanish colonial dining room sets. Worst of all were the recliner chairs. Every one  of them, ugly and big enough to seat a four foot wide ass. I'm not perfect, but my ass is nowhere near big enough to fill one of those chairs. My present chair is twenty four inches across and when I sit in it, I still have room for Scout to cuddle up next to me. I gave up on the recliner search and went home. On Tuesday I'm going out to the suburbs to have a medical procedure done. It turns out that less than a mile from where this procedure is being done there is a Lazy Boy store, and they're having a sale. I checked their website just to make sure that they don't cater to only the super fat ass crowd. 

Sized for the American ass.

 

Scout, Belly Deep in the Snow

 

Scout admiring my handiwork. Sidewalks all cleared of snow.

It's snowing again this morning. It snowed Saturday night and into Sunday morning too. So I stayed in and didn't do much on Sunday. I did get out early and run the snow blower up and down the sidewalks giving me some exercise, even though using the snow blower is not difficult. It kind of moves itself when you put it in gear. Like I said, other than that I didn't do much. I took the dogs out to poop and pee a few times, and I started my car. The old '29 Ford, I started it up in the garage. But I didn't take it out of the garage. You know, the snow. I watched a lot of football and took at least two naps. So Sunday wasn't very productive at all, and now it's snowing again. 

The dogs make do with all this snow. I cleared the snow from a whole section of the backyard with the snow blower, yet the dogs won't poop there. Instead they insist on tromping through the deep snow to take a crap. It's kind of funny to watch Scout because the snow comes right on up to her poop chute. Which is a whole other thing about the snow in the backyard. The poop. For some reason, last week Chandler decided that poop tastes good. His poop, Scout's poop, our visiting dog friend Eddie's poop. In fact I saw Chandler take a shit, then turn around and eat the steaming bit he had just dropped. So because of this I had to follow Chandler around with the pooper scooper, trying to grab the turds before he could. Anyway, It's snowing again. So now all those turds are under the snow and the fresh ones are melting right on down into it before Chandler can grab them. Sometimes snow is good.

Lesson Learned

 

I don't own it anymore

Sometimes I lay in bed and think back about stupid things I've done, and there are a lot of them. One that often pops back up is the purchase of my first home here in Chicago. It was a two flat in a working class neighborhood, not far from all the cool places I liked to go to. I don't sit around dwelling on the stupid part of that first building I bought. Instead I like to think that it taught me lessons in life. A lot of lessons. First lesson was, how not to purchase real estate. My partner, Paul and I, found a wood frame two flat for eighteen thousand dollars. We did not get an inspection before closing. We did not check to see if the building had termites, bad plumbing, crumbling walls, or how it would be heated in the winter. It had the first three things, and didn't have the last. There was a stain on the wall of the living room under one of the windows. For three years I assumed it was a stain until I went over one day and touched it. It was a termite tunnel that ran from the window to the floor. That explained the sagging floors. For heat, all each apartment had was one gas space heater for the entire place. When the temperature outside dropped to around zero, heating was almost impossible. Near the space heater it would be hotter than a fart in Florida. Meanwhile, in the kitchen and bathroom twenty feet away, it was cold. Very cold. So cold that the water pipes in the walls froze causing some real problems when the thaw inevitably happened. There was another lesson I learned from owning that two flat. How to deal with tenants. My first tenant was fine. He paid his rent and didn't bother me much. However, when he wanted to move he subleased to a couple of nutbags who brought their furniture, ten years worth of stuff they forgot to put in the garbage, and a giant great Dane dog with them. When I went upstairs the first time to collect rent I was shocked. I was left speechless. From the front door, through every room, was a narrow path. This path was lined with garbage stacked waist high. By garbage, I mean real garbage that should have been picked up by the big blue city trucks. These people were hoarders who had brought their hoarded crap to my house, moved in, and then refused to pay rent. Yes, I never did get rent from them. I had to evict them. That was the next lesson I learned. Evicting somebody is fraught with drama and is expensive. So I learned to do background checks. My final lesson was, don't sell too soon. In 1978 I was lured by the Siren's call of California. I envisioned warm winters, sunshine, and an easy lifestyle. So I sold my house and moved to California where I found out that winter wasn't all that warm, and neither was the summer in San Francisco. The lifestyle wasn't all that easy either. Meanwhile, back in Chicago, the old neighborhood was rapidly being gentrified and the old house was sold and resold at steadily rising prices. It was finally knocked down and a new brick home was built there. It sold a few years ago for over a million dollars.

Yellow Snow

 

Winter in Florida. It was fifty degrees by the pool.

January and February are the best months to live in Florida. I know, I lived there for twenty seven years. After nine months of relentless heat and humidity, you are finally  given the refreshing breezes and low temperatures of winter. It's pretty nice. Meanwhile, in Chicago, it is frozen nostril season. For the last two weeks of low humidity and near zero temperatures, I've been mining rocks from my nose. Out in the back yard dog turds lay frozen to the hard packed snow where Chandler wanders around, confused. He eats the snow, but then he is expected to poop in the very thing he loves. So he has picked an area that he will not defecate on. That is where he snacks on this seasonal treat, snow. Unfortunately, Scout does not respect these boundaries.

Winter in Chicago. It's not very pleasant. Ice, snow, frozen nostrils. But the most horrible part of it only lasts a short two months. And I'll tell you another thing about winter in Florida. When the weather in Chicago gets toe freezing cold, when it is at its worst, you can be sure a day later it will be too cold for the residents of Fort Lauderdale. It never fails. A cold front that blasts through the north always makes it to South Florida in the winter. And fifty degrees to the folks of South Florida is as horrible as zero is to a Chicagoan.

The No Judgement Zone

 

So I've been going to the gym regularly since signing up. That's three times so far. I probably got my money's worth already. I'm finding that parts of my body that hurt, aren't hurting as much after one of my workouts. I think my muscles are happy that I've stopped letting them atrophy. It's a nice gym with plenty of equipment. Two or more of everything, and rows and rows of cardio equipment. It has a nice big locker room with plenty of lockers, and I got to see a fit man naked in there the other day (I'm easily entertained). As for their motto, "The No Judgement Zone." I find that to be true, at least as far as everybody else in the place. However, I'm very judge'y. Like the naked guy in the locker room. I gave him a seven. That's out of a possible ten.

I always start my work out on a recumbent, stationary bike. Yesterday I was just starting out when I heard loud belching behind me. I looked forward into the mirrors and saw a long haired person on one of those stair step things where you never get to the top. You just keep stepping. As I watched, the long haired belcher turned the speed up and started slamming their way up the never ending stairs. At no time could I make out if that person was a male or female. Just a long haired person who started yelping between belches and swinging his/her arms wildly while continuing the long climb to nowhere. As I peddled calmly along on my stationary bike, crazy person continued to yelp, throw his/her head around, belch, and at times scream out "Yes, yes, yes!" It was very weird. When I was done with my peddling, I turned around for a better look. He/she continued to throw themself around like a crazy person, screaming and belching. Meanwhile the other patrons simply looked off into the distance, not judging. 

I'll have to get used to this 'no judgement' thing, because I was judging like crazy.

 

 

Snow Day

 

At five thirty in the morning yesterday, I awoke to the sound of dogs. No barking, just little noises to let me know it was almost time for their breakfast. And by almost, I mean within one hour. I laid there for another half hour knowing that I had to go out and clear the sidewalks of the snow that fell overnight. After getting up, feeding the dogs, and letting them out to poop and pee, I started getting ready for the job at hand. After I put on my heavy fleece lined jeans, and started lacing up my snow shoveling boots, a flash of nostalgia came over me. How many times had I gone through this routine when I was a kid? 

Mom would make sure I was wearing my long john underwear and a sweater over my school uniform shirt. Then I would have to put on the outer wear. Big, clumsy snow pants over my regular pants, a heavy coat and muffler along with my hat. The hat was a strange thing with flaps and a bit of fake fur at the top. It kept me warm, but looked so stupid. Finally the boots. Big rubber things that I would quickly outgrow, making them more and more difficult to put on as the months and years passed. What I hated most about those boots were the snap/buckle things on them. I never got the hang of snapping those things closed and managed to pinch a finger in one every time I put them on. Now when I think back to my childhood, I don't remember ever being cold while walking to school. No, not cold. More like a baked potato wrapped in aluminum foil. Over cooked and steaming.