1:19pm, August 21, 2017

"Mark, why is there a bag of Cheerios on the counter?"

"I needed an eclipse box."

I knew exactly what he was talking about. Mark wanted to build one of those boxes with the pinhole in it to watch the eclipse. I built one once. Many years ago we had a partial eclipse just like the one we went through yesterday. What I remember about it was that it was underwhelming. For that eclipse I had a large box that I put my whole head into. I could see the tiny dot of the sun projected on a piece of white paper, and watched as a tiny shadow slowly encroached upon that bright dot. One thing that I remember vividly is the dappled sunlight coming through the trees. It projected many little crescent suns on the sidewalk in front of our house. Mark's eclipse box had come about because I couldn't find him any of those viewing glasses. On Sunday when we were driving home from Indiana, Mark made me stop at every gas station just to see if they were selling them. They weren't.

"Come out to the backyard with me. It's almost time for the eclipse."

"I don't think you're going to see anything. It's clouding up. Besides, from what I remember, it doesn't really get all that dark unless you have a total eclipse"

"Come on, the sun is shining. I don't want to miss it." Mark insisted.

So about fifteen minutes before the eclipse was scheduled to peak, Mark, I, and the dogs, all went out into the backyard. Mark's Cheerios box worked like a charm. You could see the little dot of light at the far end of the box with a little bite taken out of it. But the sky wasn't really much darker than normal.

"What time is it?" Mark asked.

"Umm... 1:17"

Mark was nearly vibrating with excitement. I don't know what he thought was going to happen, but at exactly 1:18pm a large, thick cloud rolled across the face of the sun.

"Ahhhh....  what happened?"

And then at the peak of the eclipse, at 1:19, the magic hour with the clouds still obscuring the sun, Mark looked up into the sky.

"How come it isn't dark? It just looks like any other cloudy afternoon." Mark whined.

And that it did. I had been telling Mark that it wasn't going to be all that spectacular. I told him that it looked like clouds were moving in from the west. It turned out that the super hyped eclipse that caused Mark to get super excited, was a dud. So I took Mark's eclipse box with the aluminum foil that had the pinhole in it, and put the bag of Cheerios back in there.

Xanax

Mark's Nightmare

Over the weekend Mark and I took a quick little trip over to Warsaw, Indiana, to see a very fine production of Into the Woods at the Wagon Wheel Theater. It is our second year going there and I have to say that I am very impressed with the quality of the shows there. A couple of things about the trip though. First, there is Mark and his nervousness while riding in the car. He constantly scares the shit out of me by screaming "Look out!" into my ear. He thinks that every other car is hurtling towards our car and will surely kill us. So far, in the twenty years I have been chauffeuring Mark, it hasn't happened. Not even close. Also, when we go to Indiana, Mark is terrified when we drive across the Chicago Skyway Bridge. He thinks that it is too spindly, and that we will go flying off over the edge. That I can understand, because I don't even look to the right or left as we cross that thing. Anyway, this trip Mark's doctor gave him some Xanax® to calm him down and keep his blood pressure in check. Am I wrong, or isn't Xanax® some kind of sedative or downer? It seemed to have the opposite effect on Mark. He started talking the minute we got into the car in Chicago, and did not stop until we pulled into the motel parking lot in Warsaw. And yes, he did scream in terror a few times.

The second thing I noticed on this little trip were the people of Indiana. What is it with people in the rural areas of our country? Why do they all look so fat? I admit that there are fat people in the city, but out in the country they seem to be even more plump. Maybe the big buildings in the city make us look more svelte when standing next to them. Could it be all that corn that fattens our country cousins up? When we stopped at a Bob Evans Farms restaurant on the way to Warsaw, I think I saw the real reason. There was a woman the next table over who was at least three hundred pounds. That is not an exaggeration, three hundred pounds. In front of her was a huge plate of mashed potatoes with a large slab of meat, and all the extras. I looked away for just one minute, seriously one minute, and when I looked back her plate was empty. She sucked that food down faster than me and my brothers at Thanksgiving.

On our trip back to Chicago Mark took another Xanax®. Once again, he talked my ear off the whole way, screamed for me to "Look out!", and begged me not to take the Skyway Bridge. We did not stop at Bob Evans on the way back. Instead we had breakfast at another restaurant where they served me so much food that they had to bring it out on two plates. Seriously, I could probably hit three hundred pounds easily if I lived in Indiana.

This is Why There is no Story on my Blog Today

Don't Wear Cheap Shoes

Forty years ago I worked for a place that imported shoes from Poland. Nothing against Poland, but the shoes were cheap. Cheap in price, cheap in construction, and cheap in materials. They were supposedly made from leather, but I suspect that the communists in Poland had perfected faux leather. Probably made out of ground up chicken bones, glue, and shredded, unsold copies of Pravda. That would be the upper part of the shoe. The lower part of the shoe, the sole and heel, were pure cardboard and wore out quickly. The one good thing about these imported, communist shoes, is that my boss would sell me a pair for around $1.89. Considering that my take home pay was one hundred and twenty dollars a week, that was a great deal. Unfortunately, I think I am paying a much higher price for those shoes today. My feet are messed up. I have bone spurs, a neuroma, neuropathy, and my feet splay out like I'm walking in two different directions. I blame the shoes. Do not wear cheap shoes! Right now I am in serious pain with the arthritic ankle on my right foot, and a case of plantar fasciitis in the left foot. I went to see my podiatrist last week and told him that I wanted to be able to walk again. I don't know if he'll be able to restore some semblance of health to my feet, but I sure hope so. Otherwise I'll be having Hoveround® races with my ninety five year old mom soon.

Vacation or Staycation?

Vacation

For the last nine years or so our vacation trips have all been road trips to Chicago. Every summer we'd pack up the dogs, and just about everything else Mark could pack into the PT Cruiser, and drive to Chicago. We'd stay for anywhere from two to three weeks in August. I loved it. Well, except for the year the air conditioning went out in the PT Cruiser and the Midwest was having one of the hottest summers ever. That sucked. Mark got sick on the trip up and by the time we got to Chicago I had to drive straight to the Illinois Masonic Hospital emergency room. They kept Mark there for about five days. I don't know how to say this, but I kind of enjoyed being alone in Chicago for those five days. I would visit Mark in the hospital for about an hour each day, and the rest of the time was mine. I didn't go to any bars. I didn't go to any museums. I didn't go anywhere. I just sat in my friend Dennis' apartment that he had loaned us, and watched television. It all had to come to an end eventually. Mark was released from the hospital and the PT Cruiser had to have $800 worth of repairs that really didn't fix the problem. The garage gerry rigged (Mark uses a different word that I cannot, will not use) the AC so that it stayed on all the time. Now I live in Chicago and we haven't taken a vacation trip since we moved here. I'd like to take some short day trips or overnight trips to places like Galena, Starved Rock, or even Milwaukee so that Mark can experience the Midwest that I love. Or, I could just sit in the house here and watch television with Mark. He tells me that there is a Real Housewives marathon coming up soon.

Big Brother

My Big Brother

No, not that big brother. I'm talking about the television "show" Big Brother. I thought television couldn't get much worse when Mark started watching the Real Housewives of Atlanta/Orange County/New York/New Jersey... (I'm sure I'm leaving some of them out. It seems like they never go off the air so there must be more than four of them.) But no, just like I thought there'd never be president worse than George W. Bush, I have been proven wrong again. Mark has found a show much worse than The Real Housewives. Big Brother. He is obsessed with Big Brother, and the most irritating thing about it is that it seems to be on every night of the week. All week, Mark sits in my big fluffy recliner chair screaming at the television as if the people on that show can hear him. Seriously, it looks like they got a bunch of homeless people in their twenties, and put them in a seedy looking halfway house with cameras, where a Chinese lady comes in once in awhile and makes them do some odd jobs. I swear I can smell them right through the television.

Geez I hate reality shows. Give me a scripted, well written drama or comedy any day over that drivel. Yet there is one reality show I wouldn't mind seeing return to television. If it would mean the former host would have to leave his present job to do it, I would love to see Celebrity Apprentice come back on the air. Then I could just block it from ever appearing on my television, like I do with Fox News.