My Father's Son

My dad was taller than I am. I think he topped out around 6'2", but I never made it to six feet. I peaked at five foot eleven, and as of my last physical it seems that I am now shrinking. Because my dad was taller than the average man he often slammed his head into things. I remember him walking into the overhead garage door rails a few times before he realized he should put padding on those things. But not until he left enough DNA on the end of those rails to build a little Big Al. Clumsy, that's the one thing my dad and I had in common. Lucky for me, because I never reached the height my dad did, my head slamming has been minimalized. However, on Saturday I did manage to draw blood. One of the windshield washer nozzles on the PT Cruiser had lost its little hose, so I lifted the hood and took a look. "Hmmm.. " I thought, "I can fix that." So I took the little hose and re-attached it to the connector, immediately snapping it off. I took a small problem and made it bigger, which caused me to begin cursing as I lifted my head up from the bent over position I had been in, which resulted in me slamming my head into the very pointy hood latch, which caused me to draw upon my top of the line, most foul, cursing. I did not care what the neighbor's thought. After all, I told myself, I won't even be living here in two weeks as I mopped the blood off the top of my head. And then I looked at the hood latch. There it was, the hunk of bloody flesh with hair hanging from it. Yes, I am my father's son.

A Packed House

Mark woke up this morning, opened his eyes, and said "I don't see anything packed up for the move."
I've been trying very hard to ignore his negativity. Because Mark did not want to move away from Florida, didn't want to move out of this house, he has been like a dead weight dragging behind me.

"I don't see anything I like on Zillow in our price range."

"I don't see anything we could live in that's in a nice neighborhood."

"I can't parallel park."

"I don't think there are doctors in Illinois."

"Something horrible is going to happen."

It's so frustrating. At every turn I have to re-convince Mark that everything is going to be okay. Of course that is not true, everything will not be okay. Things will go wrong. But I guarantee I am trying my best to make it go smoothly. And as for that packing up to move thing, I think it is on schedule. I have been packing and packing for months. The big problem is that not only has Mark filled this house with way too much stuff, he has continued to buy more stuff long after it became apparent that we are moving.

Do you know what would be much cheaper than paying movers to come and move all this crap to Chicago? A dumpster. Honestly, I could just chuck all this shit into a dumpster, hop into the car, and go to Chicago with just the dogs. I would be much happier than going through all this crap. Oh, and we could make room in the car for Mark.

Early Onset Voting

Mark and I went up to City Hall for early voting yesterday. It was kind of creepy knowing that there were Trump voters in the building with us. As liberal as our little city is, I'm sure there were at least a few. After all, the average age of Florida residents is around seventy years old, and they ain't voting for Hillary. I myself, voted for Bernie Sanders. There is just something comforting about an old Jewish guy explaining how things work in the world. Yes, he is kind of old, but he is "spry" for his age. I wish I were spry. I am not spry and I know that at eight years Bernie Sanders junior, I couldn't do half the crap he's been doing. Campaigning, debating Hillary, making Donald Trump look like a moron by simply opening his mouth and talking. Bernie is doing it all at seventy four. I on the other hand keep having old age shoved in my face at every turn. First it was the letter from Social Security last December, telling me that I was now officially, by order of the United States Government, retired. There was my doctor telling me that I had "the gout". But the most damning thing was when Mark and I stepped into City Hall to vote. I gave them my driver's license, they ran it through a machine that then spit out a long piece of paper, and then the nice lady held it up for me to read.

"Please check that all the information printed here is correct sir."

So I looked and yes, it was all correct. But there was one thing on there that caught me by surprise. **ASSISTANCE NEEDED** Right there in giant letters was the notation that I was so old and feeble that I needed assistance. All I can figure is that they put that into the system after the last election when I made a big stink in the polling place about the tiny print on the ballot, and the crappy lighting. I had to have Mark fill out my ballot for me. Goddamnit, probably just a matter of time before he's spooning me pudding and rolling me around in a wheelchair.

High Anxiety

For the last couple of weeks I've been waking up at five in the morning. Not unusual, I get up two or three times a night to pee. Along with that sweet Social Security, young people calling you "sir", and senior discounts at Walgreen's, a swollen prostate is one of the perks of growing old. My problem is that once I wake up, I can't fall asleep again. Instead I lay there, my brain stewing over what I have to do in preparation for the move to Chicago. At five in the morning the task of moving seems insurmountable. The longer I lay there the more anxious I get about the whole deal, until I finally get out of bed. I figure that instead of worrying about what I have to do, I'll get up and do it. Plenty of packing and paper work to do. I have heard other people refer to having "anxiety attacks", but until now I have never really experienced such a thing. Now my whole life is a giant anxiety attack. I have to pack, do the real estate deal, make sure the phone, electric, and everything else is turned off, turned on, or forwarded, and I have to do it mostly by myself. I'm responsible for Mark, the two dogs, and just about every other living thing within fifty feet of me. Aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh.....  !!!!

So I get up at five in the morning with the best of intentions. But before I take care of business, I turn on the computer and check my email, my facebook, and my blog. Then, just so I can calm down a little bit, I click on "games". Ten card games and two mahjong games later, it's time to walk the dog and take a nice little nap. Yes, I'm getting it all done around here.

Trots

Mark has been ill for the last few weeks. He's coughing and hacking, producing phlegm balls, and pretty much sounding like an episode of the walking dead. It isn't pleasant because he expects me to be his Florence Nightingale. The reality is that I am a horrible nurse, more like Florence Nightmare. I'm more likely to yell at him to stop coughing than get him a cup of tea. Anyway, I was walking Chandler around the block last night and I didn't feel very good. My stomach was churning, my guts were gassy, and I was wishing I could just stop and poop on my neighbor's lawn like Chandler did. The first thought to go through my mind was that I was getting sick like Mark. Just what I need, twenty days before the big move. As I continued walking while clenching and hoping that I could make it to the house and toilet, I realized that I was not getting sick. My innards were all screwed up because of Mark. For years I have complained that Mark was making me fat with his spectacular cooking skills. I have always made it a point to tell him that I did very well before he came along. I was quite capable of feeding myself. But something has changed. I have lost that self preservation knowledge. I  cannot feed myself anymore. Because Mark was not feeling well, he had not cooked for me in a few days, and I was horrified when I did an inventory of what I had eaten that day. Breakfast was four donuts from Krispy Kreme. Two of them Boston cream, one jelly filled, and one glazed. Lunch consisted of a Big Mac and a bag of French fries. And finishing off the day, three slices of pepperoni pizza from Times Square Pizza. Egads, no wonder I was doing the green apple quick step back to the house.