Re-blogged from Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Itchy, Scratchy, and Knuckles

I seem to be getting sucked further and further into volunteering at Abandoned Pet Rescue. It's not that I'm complaining, at least it gives me something to do besides surf the internet, and drink. Volunteering also gives me fun experiences, like the one I had yesterday while walking Sandy, the leash eating pit bull. A well tanned and overly friendly homeless guy stopped to admire her, he introduced himself as 'Knuckles'. He informed me that he had just walked from Stuart, Florida over the last five days, a distance of eighty miles. That would explain why he looked so fit. After a few minutes of asking questions about Sandy, Knuckles asked me if he could have her. Unfortunately, as desperate as we are to get dogs adopted, I had to inform Knuckles that we had certain criteria for giving out dogs. Like having an actual home for her to live in. That seemed to dampen Knuckles spirit a little bit, but not so much that he didn't ask for some spare change before saying goodbye. Even more depressing for Knuckles is the fact that I don't carry any money or valuables with me while walking the dogs. It is a pretty sketchy neighborhood.

I help Abandoned Pet Rescue, and now APR is helping me with a problem I have had lately, iguanas and rats. APR received a large number of feral cats that were about to be euthanized by Hendry County, and I was told I could take a couple of them. The best part about it is that I don't have to pay the adoption fee, and I can let them live out in my back yard. I picked the little furballs up today, and I am thinking of calling them Itchy and Scratchy. For the time being, they are living in a cage on my back porch, and I am hoping that I can make friends with them. After a while I will release them and I hope that they will spend their hours hunting rats and iguanas out in the wilds of my yard. If anyone has a better name for the two new members of the family, let me know, I will put the best names up on a poll and the winning names will be given to them. By the way, I don't even know if they are girls or boys. They were a little too irritated when I got them, for me to check.


Since I wrote this post the cats have been named and their sex determined. Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan have been living out in the back yard now for almost five years. The rat and iguana problem hasn't gone away, but it has been mitigated somewhat. What I find interesting is that Lindsay and Britney will sit on the side of the swimming pool and watch as raccoons and possums eat their cat food.

Re-blogged from Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Easy Shopper

I was talking to my mom the other day, and she told me, "I don't want to be considered disabled". Now my mother is eighty six years old, she still drives, lives alone, and her mind and her eyes are as clear as when she was twenty six. Her problem is her knees, they are apparently worn out. The fact that she carried eleven children for nine months each, then again for months after they were born, might have something to do with that.

Today I went grocery shopping with Mark for the first time since my foot surgery. I instructed him to take us to the 'big' Publix supermarket because they have the electric carts that I always see obese people riding around in. After he dropped me off at the front entrance, I hobbled in and grabbed one of the electric carts. After a few starts and stops and a close call with an old mans foot, I was on my way through the store. So this is what it is like to be crippled I thought, as I zipped by elderly ladies slowly making their way through the aisles with the aid of only a cane or walker. Each one seemed to be giving me the evil eye as I passed them, probably saying to themselves, "what a wimp".

Shopping from only three feet off the ground is a totally different experience than I am used to. For one thing you can't see the overhead signs until you get all the way to the end of the aisle, this required me to double back more than once. It's funny how much of an ass you can make out of yourself doing a U-turn in a grocery store aisle, and nobody says anything because you are 'handicapped'.

The people who put these places together are definitely marketing to a different crowd at the three foot level. In the cereal aisle I was suddenly aware of all the sweetened, fruit flavored cereals that are packaged like a child's comic book, with all sorts of come-ons that no four year old can resist. One thing that I did notice at that level, is that a lot of the products are cheaper than the big name equivalents higher up the shelves.

I hope that the last two weeks aren't a harbinger of things to come a few years down the road. I, like my mom, don't want to end up 'disabled'. It clearly cuts into your independence, and being unable to get out to a nice tavern on a Friday night would make me crazy. I think I'm going to start saving for that expensive wheel chair I told my friend Dennis I would get some day. The one with the seat that lifts you up to the same level as everybody else at the bar

Re-blogged from Monday, October 8, 2007

Taxicab Confessions (Not for the Faint of Heart)

I was looking at this cartoon my sister sent me and it reminded me of when I was a cab driver back in the 1970’s. That was one of my favorite jobs ever. Being your own boss and meeting new people every few minutes kept it interesting. Most people were very happy with my service because I showered daily, used deodorant, and didn’t fart in the cab, at least not while a passenger was in there. I also knew the city better than most people and could find any place if you had a valid address. Unlike some drivers, I would take anyone to any destination once I let them into my cab. There was no racial profiling, only ‘are they going to hurt me’, profiling. In other words, they first had to pass my inspection to make it into my cab. This worked well as I was only heldup once.

The actual taxi I drove

One time I picked up a fare who was going to the west side of Chicago, a very bad neighborhood. My tactic when going to a bad area was to drop the fare off, lock my doors, and get the hell back downtown as fast as possible. This particular time as I was taking this lady to the west side I could feel a nagging pressure building deep within my gut. I figured it was gas and I’d just hold on until I dropped her off and then simply release it as I didn’t intend to pick up a fare in this neighborhood. By the time we got to the destination I realized it was much more than gas and that I’d have to find a toilet soon. There was no place I deemed safe to use the restroom in that neighborhood so I started driving to the closest semi-safe place I could think of, and that was to the north. With each passing block the pressure built and built and of course I hit every red light possible.
Even with running a few red lights and driving well over the speed limit I knew the situation wasn’t going to turn out well. Just blocks before I crossed under the viaduct that divided the bad area from the not so bad area, the pressure went beyond my capacity to hold back. I exploded. It felt like I was being propelled upward in the seat and at that exact moment all I could think of was how good it felt to be rid of that painful pressure. About five seconds later it started dawning on me what had just happened, and what the consequences were. I was sitting in the drivers seat of a taxi cab in what turned out to be a very large pile of my own waste. I had no option other than to drive straight home and take care of this problem.
Now if it were that easy I wouldn’t have much of a story. No, as I started the long drive home the odor began to fill the vehicle and of course every corner I passed had people waving frantically for a taxi. I waved back and kept driving. At that time I was living in a high rise apartment on Marine Drive and my problem was how to get to the ninth floor without encountering another person. I parked the cab in front of the building and sat and waited until the lobby appeared empty. When all appeared clear I scurried in and over to the elevators as fast as possible, all the time holding my pant leg so as to control leakage.
No, of course the elevator wasn’t empty when it came, and while I had been waiting for it an old lady came up and was waiting for the elevator with me. At some point you lose all your dignity and just face the facts. I was going to ride in an elevator with an old lady who thinks I smell like shit........and of course she was right.

Re-blogged from Wednesday, December 17, 2008

A Slurpee, A Pack Of Marlboros, And All Your Money...

Me, in 1978 wearing clean underwear

The 7-Eleven Store around the corner from me seems to have quite a problem getting and keeping employees. Unfortunately the one employee that they seem hang on to, is the worst one they have. It's not that she isn't a nice person, she's nice enough. The problem is that she's a slow, bumbling, moron, who cannot multi-task. When she's working, the line at the counter usually stretches all the way back to the Slurpee® Machine because somebody has given her five dollars and twenty three cents for a four dollar and twenty three cent purchase, and is asking for the change in the form of lotto quick pick. You can actually see the smoke coming from her ears as her brain overloads.

Now I don’t usually belittle those who are employed at lower wage jobs, because I know that they are working hard at a shitty job. I also don’t make fun because thirty years ago I worked at a 7-Eleven in Oakland, California, and it was one of the most humbling experiences of my life. For three months I worked the 11PM to 7AM shift, at a store on one of Oakland’s busiest boulevards, which meant that the holdup men had an easy way to escape. Back then they didn’t have self-serve Slurpees® and it never failed that when I got a rush of customers, some little teenybopper assholes would come in and order Slurpees® and cigarettes. Usually while I was distracted getting them their Slurpees®, another one would be stealing a six pack of beer from the cooler at the opposite end of the store. My only revenge was selling them the cigarettes, and hoping they got cancer in thirty years.

The night that finally convinced me to get out of the 7-Eleven business, was the night a guy pulled a gun on me and took all the money in the register. Later that night while I was cleaning the poop out of my underpants, I decided it was time to look for another job. I did work there for one more week, but after the same guy who robbed me came in to buy cigarettes, glaring at me the whole time, I quit. I just didn’t like cleaning the poop out of my underwear.

I'm taking a few days off, so here are some re-runs this week.

(Re-blogged from Thursday, December 27, 2007)

T'was The Season

"Why don’t you learn how to drive, you f**king c*nt.", the man in the SUV shouted out of the open window.
Ah,... it must be Christmas Eve in South Florida.
That happened the day before Christmas, directly in front of me as I was walking through a parking lot here in Fort Lauderdale. The woman, that the boorish gentleman was screaming at, did flip him a very lady like middle finger in return. I yelled ‘Merry Christmas’ to both of them and kept walking. Some people just can’t be nice for even one minute much less twenty four hours.

When I was a kid, Christmas eve was a very special and peaceful time. My dad had already had his annual Christmas season meltdown earlier, and now, with no more irritations or obligations, he could settle down and enjoy the evening. We kids would be sent up to bed, and my mom and dad would put on some seasonal music just loud enough to cover the sounds of ‘Santa’ delivering gifts downstairs. It was very comforting to lay in bed listening to that music, and wonder what was causing the noises down in the living room. Was that the sound of a bicycle being assembled, do I hear a train set being put under the tree?
Many years later, I have developed my own Christmas Eve customs, and Mark has his. Oddly enough they are not even remotely the same. At around nine PM, Mark leaves the house to go hang out with some of his disco friends and have a few drinks. I stay home and enjoy some silence for a few moments, then I pour myself a glass of wine and put ‘A Christmas Story’ into the DVD player. Ninety three minutes later I pour myself another glass of wine and begin the second half of my double feature, ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’. No matter how many times I watch that movie, I can’t not cry. I don’t mean cry at the end, because that’s when I’m sobbing, no I usually start tearing up in the first few minutes. Even though I don’t even believe in angels, it still gets to me every time.

That is the reason I don’t mind Mark going out without me on Christmas eve. I don’t think I’d enjoy the movies as much with him watching me cry.

The House on Ada Street

As it appears now.

Last Friday was my grandmother's birthday, my mom's, mom. If she had been able to survive her illness back in 1979 she would have turned 127 years old. Of course she'd have had to survive a number of other hurdles between then and now to have reached that age, not the least being that most human beings don't live that long. My first remembrances of Grandma was her house on Ada Street in Chicago. It always had a peculiar odor, a fruitiness combined with the smell of my aunt's canaries, and the aroma of their ancient bathroom. At least that was the smell until Grandma started cooking or baking, and then that would overcome any funkiness that had prevailed. My mom used to send me to stay with Grandma for a week in the summer. Visiting Grandma was a real treat in some ways, and in other ways it sucked. First of all there was the Chicago Union Stock Yards just a half a mile away. On warm summer nights, with the windows open and a light breeze out of the northeast, the overpowering stench of the stock yards would waft by. I always likened it to dirty feet and stinky socks multiplied by a hundred, and stuffed directly up your nose. It was awful, and it would usually give me a headache. But that was all forgotten when Grandma would break out one of my favorite treats, homemade popsicles. Kool-Aid frozen in a ice cube tray with toothpicks for handles. I still remember sitting on her front porch, slurping down two or three of those things while Grandpa smoked one of his White Owl cigars. Which is another thing, I hated those cigars but I love it now when I get a quick smell of one on a summer evening. It brings back memories of Grandma and Grandpa, and the house on Ada Street.

Spa Day

Bette went to the groomers yesterday. She needed her summer cut touched up along with a nice relaxing bath. Around the house she can only get a shower which she takes with me. I stand her up in the shower and scrub her down. At the groomers they give her the full treatment including 'expressing' her anal glands. Anyway, she had a busy day, five hours at the groomers and she's ready to take a nice nap.